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Emily Ferrara in
Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Emily Ferrara in
Dingle,
Ireland, April 2008.

Emily Ferrara
at the
feminist bookstore, Florence, Italy, April 2008.
Copyright 2007,
2008 |
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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.
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. |