Christopher Adamson is a sociologist and a fiction writer. His essay “Existential and clinical uncertainty in the medical encounter: An idiographic account of an illness trajectory defined by inflammatory bowel disease and avascular necrosis” appeared in The Sociology of Health and Illness (Volume 19, March 1997). His poem “Ode on a Styrofoam Cup” was in Intima’s Fall 2017 issue, and his blog, “The Diagnosis of Dying,” appeared in Crossroads on November 15, 2017. He is the author of a novella, The Road to Jewel Beach (Exile Editions, 2004).

Sapana Adhikari is an Emergency Medicine physician, practicing in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Adhikari spends her days in a whirlwind of emotionally draining and unpredictable activity. To deal with the stress, she must approach each shift in a calm and methodical way. “My Life” depicts a scene in a peaceful pottery studio. Instead of 'repairing' vases, the physician 'repairs' medical emergencies: a pneumothorax, a splenic rupture, a volvulus, and a nosebleed. Although these are life-threatening problems, she stays focused and fixes each problem simultaneously. The shelves are lined with scores of other vases, each with their own medical emergency, all waiting their turn to be 'repaired.' www.sapanaadhikari.com

Susan Baller-Shepard lives and writes on the prairie. Her essays, poetry and photography have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post's 'On Faith section,' the Huffington Post, Spirituality & Health, Writer’s Digest, the Tattooed Buddha, Monasteries of the Heart, and other publications. Her poetry was featured on WGLT-FM Poetry Radio. Finishing Line Press will publish Susan’s poetry collection Doe in March 2019. As an ordained Presbyterian minister with a master of Social Work, she's presented on expressive writing techniques at the University of Iowa's Examined Life Conference, which links medicine and the arts. Baller-Shepard taught college-level religious studies and worked on international development projects in Brazil, China, and Haiti. She loves a good story and appreciates narrative medicine's approach to whole people.

Sarah Bugg is a native Kentuckian and a fourth-year medical student at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She is pursuing residency in Medicine-Pediatrics. When not in the hospital, Bugg is most likely to be found on a nearby trail or exploring a back road on her bicycle. She loves stories and feels privileged to enter into so many of her patients’ powerful narratives.

Eli Cahan is a medical student at New York University, conducting a research year at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan, where he majored in business and served as columnist/editorial-board member for The Michigan Daily. At NYU, he has engaged with the medical humanities as a Rudin Fellow, editor/contributor for the Agora, founder of the “Storytelling in Medicine” seminar, and recipient of the Anthony Grieco Essay award. At Stanford, he won the Paul Kalanithi Writing award. His work has been featured in Scientific American, PBS, and STAT News. His current work addresses clinical research, economics, policy, and ethics in pediatric orthopedics. In spare moments, he eats, runs, swims, reads, kvetches (with his twin brother), and eats again.

Emma Callen is a freelance writer fascinated by the relationship between history and psychology. She graduated cum laude from Colorado College, where she spent her free time writing poetry in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Callen’s love for writing first took hold as a child growing up in a close-knit cooperative community in New York. She spent her formative years exploring the woods surrounding her community, writing beneath the trees.

William Cass has had over 150 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and an earlier issue of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. Upper Hand Press plans to publish his children’s book, Sam, in April 2020. Recently, he was a finalist in short fiction and novella competitions at Glimmer Train and Black Hill Press, received a Pushcart nomination, and won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. He lives in San Diego, California.

Diana Cejas is pediatric neurologist. She grew up on a farm in rural North Carolina but left the area in pursuit of a medical education. She learned more than she bargained for when, during her residency, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer and then had a stroke. One thing that kept her afloat throughout illness, recovery, and residency was storytelling. She has published essays on her own patient experience in The Journal of the American Medical Association and Neurology. Her opinion pieces, creative non-fiction, and micro fiction can be found in various literary magazines and blogs. She recently completed training and returned to North Carolina to practice, to write, and to grow.

Sanjay Chainani is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. His interests include medical anthropology, gastroenterology, and infectious diseases. Chainani is applying to become a Med-Peds specialist to train in caring for patients of all ages and walks of life.

Jessica Cheng is a pediatric resident at the University of California Davis in Sacramento, California. She is originally from Los Angeles and completed medical school at the University of California San Diego.

Sarah Christensen is a pediatric nurse and writer living in Seattle. She began her career as early as eight years old, a child patient herself, watching her own doctors and nurses practice medicine. She highly values methods of science and rituals of faith. She loves books and storytelling, her family, and animals. Christensen is a fellow with the Think-Write-Publish project, a group of writers from around the world who foster narratives of harmony between faith and science. She prefers bridges to walls.

Marta Christov is a practicing nephrologist in Westchester County, as well as a research scientist studying phosphate regulation in health and disease. Christov has a particular interest in making science and medicine easier to understand for her patients and the general public. She is currently using poetry and essays to reflect on her experiences as a caregiver and a patient family member.

Suzanne Crowe is a physician working in a busy children's intensive care unit in Dublin. Her interests include medical advocacy, public health and writing.

Cortney Davis, a Nurse Practitioner, is the author of Taking Care of Time, winner of the Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize (Michigan State University Press, 2018). Her other poetry collections include Leopold’s Maneuvers, winner of the Prairie Schooner Poetry Prize, and Details of Flesh (Calyx Books). Her non-fiction publications include When the Nurse Becomes a Patient: A Story in Words and Images and The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing. Davis is co-editor of Learning To Heal: Reflections on Nursing School in Poetry and Prose (Kent State University Press 2018). She has received an NEA Poetry Fellowship, three CT Commission on the Arts Poetry Grants, and is an annotator for the NYU Literature and Medicine Database. www.cortneydavis.com

Brian Deady has practiced as an emergency physician for the past 25 years at the Royal Columbian Hospital in Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He and his wife have raised four children, all now young adults. During his career he has published a number of medical humanities pieces, primarily in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine plus a few others in Humane Medicine, The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine and The Globe and Mail. He is pleased to see his writing for the first time in Intima.

Sollette Doucet is a writer and artist and super-mom from Lake Charles, LA. When she's not doing those things, she's annoying her husband and three children, or making inappropriate jokes about her mental health.

Suzanne Edison MA, MFA, writes most often about the intersection of illness, healing, medicine and art. She has a child living with Juvenile Myositis. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook, The Moth Eaten World. She has been awarded grants from Artist Trust; Seattle City Artists, and 4Culture of King County, Seattle. Poems are forthcoming in About Place Journal; other poetry can be found in JAMA; SWWIM, What Rough Beast, Bombay Gin, The Naugatuck River Review, The Ekphrastic Review and in several anthologies including The Healing Art of Writing, Volume One. She is a board member of the Cure JM Foundation and teaches writing workshops at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Richard Hugo House in Seattle. www.seedison.com

Michael Enich is an M3 at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, though next year he will be taking a momentary hiatus from his allopathic medical education to pursue an PhD in Social Work. Enich is originally from Chicago, IL and graduated from St. Olaf College with a BA in Religion in 2014. When people ask what he does outside of medicine, he usually says that he rock climbs, sings in his car, drinks coffee and makes hummus.

Lindsey Francis graduated from Penn State University with a BFA in ceramics and a minor in psychology. From 2014 to 2015 she was the Valentine & Clark Westchester Community Foundation Emerging Artist. Currently, Francis has her studio in her home in Ossining, NY, where she frequently shows her work and collaborates with the local shops and restaurants. She is also a community art show curator, mural artist, an established Teaching Artist and the Program Manager for the national Creative Aging organization Lifetime Arts. She uses her artwork as a platform and voice for those living with chronic illness like herself www.lindseyfrancisceramics.com IG @more.than.muddy Facebook @ LindseyFrancisArt

Melissa Franckowiak is an MFA student and a practicing anesthesiologist in Buffalo, NY. Her short fiction recently placed in the Writer's Digest Literary Fiction Awards, and her work has appeared in Parent Co., MothersAlwaysWrite.com, Motherly, Ghost Parachute, Rio Grande Review, Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review, and the anthology, Children of Zeus. She writes thrillers as Melissa Crickard. Melissa carney-barked and scooped ice cream before becoming the mother of two children and the owner of a chatty Amazon parrot.

Evan Geller is a general surgeon practicing in NY. In addition to his trauma-themed poetry, he has published a couple of novels and edited a textbook. His essays on medicine and other topics are published at theGoatRodeoBlog.com. The final novel of his award-winning trilogy, God Bless the Dead, is due out in January 2019.

Merissa Nathan Gerson is an errant student of Narrative Medicine based on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Her writing on disability, sexuality, Judaism, and inherited trauma, appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Elle and beyond, and she was the inherited trauma consultant to Amazon's hit show, Transparent. Gerson is a current ELI Talks 2018 Fellow and founded www.KenMeansYes.org, a rape prevention initiative urging clergy to speak up and out about consent. She has Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, among other problems.

Caitlin Gildrien is a writer, graphic designer and erstwhile farmer living at the foot of Vermont's Green Mountains. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Hopper, Poets Reading the News, the Rise Up Review, and Alligator Juniper. You can find her at www.cattailcreative.com and @cattail_caitlin.

Nilofar Hassanzadeh is an aspiring surgeon, educator, and global health advocate dedicated to preserving a standard of humanism and humility in the practice of medicine. Hassanzadeh incorporates narratives within her medical work that have the ability to redefine care and bring forth an understanding that there is nothing neutral or finite about suffering. Her focus is to lead and empower fellow healthcare professionals and patients through education while maintaining a specific interest in addressing the global burden of surgical disease by providing access to safe and affordable surgical care to low and middle-income countries worldwide.

Harriet Heydemann is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University. Her work has been published in The Sun, Hippocampus, Brain, Child magazine and The Big Roundtable and is forthcoming in the anthology She’s Got This. Heydemann is working on her memoir My Daughter Doesn’t Want Me to Use Her Name. Early chapters have appeared in A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Special Needs and Huffington Post. She was a featured reader in Listen to Your Mother, San Francisco, and she is alum of the juried workshops of Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Aspen Summer Words, and Writing by Writers. www.harrietheydemann.com

Nels P. Highberg is an Associate Professor of English and Modern Languages at the University of Hartford where he has also served as Director of the Program in Gender Studies, Interim Chair of the Department of Cinema, and Harry Jack Gray Distinguished Teaching Humanist. His academic essays have appeared in journals such as Medical Humanities Review, Feminist Formations, Feminist Teacher, and Performing Ethos. His literary work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in journals such as Concho River Review and Riding Light Review.

Carissa Holland is a third-year medical student at Griffith University on the Gold Coast in Australia. Prior to medicine, she completed an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at the Queensland University of Technology. Holland believes that the patient's narrative is a rich, layered text that allows her to better understand and learn to serve humanity. Poetry and literature have always comforted and nourished her. She hopes to weave narrative medicine into her career as a doctor.

John Jacobson lives in the Catskill Mountains of New York. His writing has appeared in Nature Writing, About Place Journal, Aji Magazine and The Curlew. His essay “Fly” was nominated for the “Best of the Net, 2018” anthology. For the past eleven years he has been a caregiver for his wife Claudia. He is working on a memoir about that experience.

Rayda Aaishah Joomun, MD grew up in Mauritius. She is a doctor, writer and artist. Dr. Joomun has obtained multiple literary awards for the Commonwealth ‘Write around the world’ competition and the 5th International Writers’ Conference in Mauritius. In her handmade drawing, she depicts Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy or The Broken Heart Syndrome, a rare, reversible condition where severe physical or emotional stress weakens/stuns the left ventricle which balloons out and takes the shape of the Japanese "Takot-subo" octopus trap for some time, impairing its normal pumping ability.

Kristen Kelly grew up in Broomall, Pa. She majored in Chemistry at La Salle University, graduating with distinguished honors of Maxima Cum Laude. After college, she attended medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine. Kelly is currently applying to residency for OBGYN with the hopes of working in an academic setting. In medical school, she participated in activities such as tutoring and research but also completed the Medical Humanities Scholar Program at Drexel. For her final project as a Medical Humanities Scholar, she incorporated her passions for art and medicine by painting an acrylic piece entitled, “Floral Anatomy,” inspired by works from the feminist artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

Richard Kravitz is a psychiatrist at the VA Medical Center in West Haven, CT and teaches psychotherapy and clinical interviewing in the Yale Department of Psychiatry. His poems have been published in JAMA and The British Journal of Psychiatry.

Hollis Kurman is contributing Editor on the Board of Barrow Street Books in NYC. Her poems (one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize) have been published in Barrow Street, Rattle, Phoebe, the Ocean State Review, VIA (Voices in Italian Americana), and AMS (Cipher Literary Magazine). Kurman also writes poems and stories for children. Her debut picture book, Welcome 1! A Counting Book of Kindnesses (the refugee child’s journey through the lens of help offered along the way) will be published in 2020 by Otter Barry Books (UK) with an endorsement by Amnesty International. The writer, who lives in Amsterdam, has studied poetry with Sharon Olds and Daniel Hoffman.

Lois Leveen, PhD, earned degrees from Harvard University, the University of Southern California and UCLA, and was a Kienle Scholar in Medical Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine. She is the author of the novels Juliet’s Nurse and The Secrets of Mary Bowser. Her poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies, and inscribed on a hospital wall. Dr. Leveen has given presentations and workshops at the American Cancer Society, the Health Humanities Consortium annual conferences, the Hippocrates Poetry & Medicine Symposium, the International Conference on Physician Health, and Stanford Medicine X. She designs and leads seminars that allow medical practitioners, patients, and patients' families to connect and reflect through discussions of literature and visual art. She welcomes correspondence at Lois@humanitiesforhealth.org

Meg Lindsay, who has an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, was a semi-finalist in two "Discovery"/The Nation Contests and a finalist in an Inkwell competition. She has poems published in Light, Tricycle, Pivot, Salamander, Alimentum, Connecticut River Review, among others, and is also an established painter showing for decades in galleries and museums. Her chapbook about the process and emotions of painting titled A Painter’s Night Journal was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. The subject of her writing dramatically changed direction when her husband, an athlete, collapsed with bone cancer in 2016. www.meglindsayartist.com

Meghan G. Liroff, MD is an emergency physician working out of metro Detroit. At this early stage in her career, she is focused on becoming a good doctor, healthcare disparities, and young physician education. Her favorite book is The Velveteen Rabbit. Find more of her publications in Pulse, Annals of Emergency Medicine, Journal of Emergency Medicine, Emergency Medicine News, and FemInEm. When not at work, you can find her either in a theater, or any place under an open sky.

Elizabeth Morton is a writer who has published in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the USA. She was feature poet in the Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2017, and is included in Best Small Fictions 2016. Her first poetry collection, Wolf, was published with Mākaro Press in 2017. In 2013 she won the New Voices – Emerging Poets Competition. She is completing an MLitt at the University of Glasgow, usually in her pajamas. She likes to write about broken things, and things with teeth. www.ekmorton.com

Himali McInnes is a general practitioner who works in a busy clinic in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. The clinic operates in a low socio-economic suburb with patients who have high health needs. Nonetheless, it is also a place of multiple small kindnesses and rich stories. McInnes is also a constant gardener, a beekeeper and a part-time vet to her pets. She enjoys writing essays, articles, short stories, and flash fiction, and occasionally tries to write poetry. She has been published in magazines, literary journals, online and a flash fiction anthology.

Martha Nance is a neurologist in Minnesota who specializes in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. She has published many scientific research articles in journals with long, scary names, but is new to literary writing. She had one essay, "What it mean(s)(t) to be a doctor" published earlier this year in Dreamers Creative Writing.

Collin Mulcahy is completing his training in otolaryngology at George Washington University. As a native Texan, he is an avid Houston sports fan and enjoys traveling, hiking, and a fine whiskey. He also enjoys studying works of narrative medicine and surgical history. Mulcahy lives in Washington, DC with his wife, who is also a medical resident, where he is working to pursue his dream of a career in oncologic head and neck surgery.

M. Sophia Newman, MPH has been a global health researcher and a global health journalist and is currently a manuscript editor for JAMA Network journals. She is an alumna of the University of Illinois, the Fulbright program, and Harvard Program on Refugee Trauma, where she earned a certificate in global mental health. See more at msophianewman.com.

Sarah Se-Jung Oh is a high school senior at Korea International School. Originally from Australia, she moved to South Korea about 4 years ago. As an avid bibliophile and journalist, Oh was drawn to Narrative Medicine because it encompasses her values: literature, medicine, and most importantly empathy. She decided to embark on this research topic as her AP Capstone Research project, a college level research course. This paper is her first step in her pursuit in this field. After contacting Professor Rita Charon, she had the privilege to meet her in person in June 2018 to discuss her research and path. Her number one dream today is to cultivate more experience and knowledge to construct a Narrative Medicine model for Korea. See more of her work: http://stemliterature.com/

Schneider K. Rancy is a Haitian-American graduate of Columbia University, where he studied English and Comparative Literature and Biology. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Columbia New Poetry, Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Ars Medica, Apogee, The Seventh Wave, and Moko Magazine. His novel Beyond the Baths of Stars was selected as a semi-finalist for Black Lawrence Press’s 2017 The Big Moose Prize and a finalist for the University of New Orleans’ 2017 Publishing Laboratory Contest. He is a medical student in Brooklyn, NY.

Alida Rol practiced as an OBGYN physician for many years. She holds an MFA in writing from Pacific University. Her poems and essays have won several awards and have appeared in Rhino, Passager, The Examined Life, Nasty Women Poets Anthology, and Hektoen International, among others. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Scott Ruescher has won annual poetry prizes in recent years from Able Muse journal (2016), Poetry Quarterly (2015), and the New England Poetry Club (in both 2013 and 2014)— always with poems that are as geographically particular and sociologically focused as “The Delivery.” More such work can be found in his book, Waiting for the Light to Change, published by Prolific Press in 2017. Other recent poems have appeared in About Place, Pangyrus, Tower Journal, Solstice, and Origins Journal. He administers the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and teaches English in the Boston University Prison Education Program.

Rob McClure Smith is John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Professor of English at Knox College. His work has appeared in many literary magazines including Chicago Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review, New Ohio Review and Manchester Review. Queen’s Ferry Press published his short fiction collection entitled The Violence in 2015.

Irena Tan is a third-year internal medicine resident at Duke University Hospital. She is currently applying into hematology-oncology fellowship positions, and Tan hopes to become an oncologist focused on compassionate care of her patients. Her interests are narrative medicine, palliative care, and clinical research in oncology.

Paul Taylor-McCartney is resident in the U.K. and is currently Head of Secondary Teacher Education at the University of Warwick. He has enjoyed a long and varied teaching career in the discipline of English/Theatre Studies and is following a part-time PhD in Creative Writing with Leicester University. His research interests include dystopian studies, narratology and 20th-century literary criticism. His poetry, short fiction and academic articles have appeared in a range of publications including Aesthetica, Birmingham Journal of Language and Literature and Education in Practice, (National Association for Writers in Education).

Joanna White, who studied poetry with Robert Fanning and Jeffrey Bean, has works in The Examined Life Journal, Healing Muse, Hospital Drive, West Texas Poetry Review, Temenos, The MacGuffin, Measure, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Earth’s Daughters, Dunes Review, KYSO Flash Anthology No. 2, and the Poetry and Medicine column of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), among others. The music professor has performed her poems recently in Michigan, Florida, and in Iowa at the Examined Life Conference. joannawhitepoet.com

Jennifer Wolkin is a health and neuro-psychologist, speaker, mental health advocate and mindfulness-meditation practitioner. She is currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing and literary translation at Queens College. Her poetry has been published/forthcoming in a number of literature journals. Her non-fiction work, translating and sharing the science of brain research and mindfulness, has been published in Thrive Global, The Huffington Post, Mindful.org, and PsychCentral among others; a compilation can be found on her blog BrainCurves.com. Wolkin is most passionate about writing at the intersection where the mind, body, brain and spirit meet, giving voice to those who have sometimes literally lost theirs by bearing witness to their pain (and resilience) through her writing.

Christina Wusinich is an interdisciplinary researcher pursuing the study of depression through multiple narratives. In 2016, she earned her bachelor’s at NYU’s Gallatin School, where she studied depression through philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. Last May, she completed her M.S. in Neuroscience and Education at Columbia’s Teachers College, where she continued to explore neuroscientific narratives of depression. Currently, Wusinich is engaged in a range of research projects related to emotion regulation, community mental health programs, health psychology, and unsheltered homelessness. With a long-term goal of being a researcher and clinical psychologist, she is dedicated to advocating for more ethical, multi-narrative clinical practice and research.