The Medicine of Words: On Narrative & Healing
Event Details
A story can be a powerful force for healing. This idea has found its way into the medical field, with disciplines like narrative-based medicine seeking
Event Details
A story can be a powerful force for healing. This idea has found its way into the medical field, with disciplines like narrative-based medicine seeking to understand the accounts of patients the same way we understand works of literature. How far does this healing modality go? Can poetry and other narrative forms of creative work be, quite literally, good for our health? Join authors Ronna Bloom, Elizabeth Ruth, and Damian Tarnopolsky as they discuss all that lies at the intersection of storytelling and medicine.
Featuring Cathy Gordon, Senior Programmer from Luminato Festival.
Speakers for this event
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Damian Tarnopolsky
Damian Tarnopolsky
Damian Tarnopolsky is the author of Lanzmann and Other Stories, Goya’s Dog, and The Defence. His work has been nominated for many awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Amazon First Novel Award, and the Journey Prize, and he won the Voaden Prize for Playwriting in 2019. He teaches at the Narrative-Based Medicine Lab at the University of Toronto.
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Elizabeth Ruth
Elizabeth Ruth
Elizabeth Ruth is the author of the novels, Semi-Detached, Matadora, Smoke, and Ten Good Seconds of Silence. Her work has been recognized by the Writers’ Trust of Canada Fiction Prize, the City of Toronto Book Award, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, and One Book One Community. Ruth is also the editor of the anthology, Bent on Writing: Contemporary Queer Tales. She holds a BA in English Literature, an MA in Counselling Psychology, and an MFA in Creative Writing. Elizabeth Ruth teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto. This Report Is Strictly Confidential is her debut poetry collection.
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Ronna Bloom
Ronna Bloom
Ronna Bloom is a Toronto-based poet and educator and the author of seven books of poetry. Her work has been broad- cast on CBC, recorded by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, translated into Bangla and Chinese, and appeared three times in Best Canadian Poetry. Ronna is also someone who puts poetry to work in the world; she has led initiatives to bring poetry into health care settings, specifically developing the first Poet-in-Residence program at Mount Sinai Hospital/ Sinai Health.
Books
Every Night I Dream I'm A Monk
AuthorDamian Tarnopolsky
PublisherFreehand Books
In A Riptide
AuthorRonna Bloom
PublisherBrick Books
This Report is Strictly Confidential
AuthorElizabeth Ruth
PublisherCaitlin Press & Dagger Editions
Partners
Luminato Festival
Program Sponsor