The Alchemy of Writing

The Alchemy of Writing

Emily Ferrara

Biography

Emily Ferrara is the author of The Alchemy of Grief, a collection of poems selected to win the 2006 Bordighera Poetry Prize. The book was published in bilingual edition (English and Italian) by Bordighera Press in 2007. Sabine Pascarelli of Tuscany is the commissioned translator for the book. Ferrara has received awards from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the Worcester County Poetry Association. The Alchemy of Grief is her first full length book, and was honored as a recommended book in the 8th Annual Massachusetts Book Awards, sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. To see Ferrara's honors and awards click here.

A long-time member of PoemWorks: Workshop for Publishing Poets in Brookline, Massachusetts, Ferrara is Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she teaches medical creative writing and directs the grants and special projects division for the school’s Office of Educational Affairs.

Her poems have appeared in Superstition Review, UU World, Lumina, Worcester Review, Family Medicine, VIA (Voices in Italian Americana), scene4magazine and Ballard Street Poetry Journal, among other publications, and anthologized in The Poet's Cookbook: Recipes from Tuscany (Bordighera Press, 2009); Birthed from Scorched Hearts: Women Respond to War (Fulcrum Publishing 2008); Rough Places Plain: Poems of the Mountains (Salt Marsh Pottery Press, 2005). She has read as a featured poet at: Poets House, NYC; Libreria della donne, Florence, Italy; Paperback Exchange, Florence, Italy; Borders Downtown Crossing, Boston MA; The Calandra Institute, City University of New York, NYC; Regis College, Weston, MA; University of Massachusetts Medical School; and Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA. She earned a BS in Communications from Boston University, and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Lesley University. Born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Ferrara lives with her wife and daughter in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Ferrara’s work engages subjects intrinsic to the human experience and the transcendent, including themes of love, loss, personal and professional identity, the illness experience, death and dying, and transformation. She is featured, along with translator Sabine Pascarelli, in the winter 2008 season of “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress,” a radio series available through Public Radio Satellite Service via National Public Radio distribution. She also has published and presented nationally and internationally on the power of writing to foster personal and professional development, and on creative writing as a form of reflective practice. She authored a chapter titled “The Saving Grace of Vulnerability: Fostering Reflective Practice in Medical Students through Creative Writing” in: Byers, J. & Forinash M. Educators, Therapists and Artists on Reflective Practice, N.Y. Lesley/Lang Series Publishers, 2003. She has appeared as a featured poet and/or medical humanities scholar at: University of Iowa’s inaugural conference “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine” at the Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA; Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital Narrative Medicine Rounds, NYC; Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA; University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester MA; International Conference on Health and Communication, Barcelona, Spain.