Katherine DiBella Seluja is the author of three poetry collections, most recently, Point of Entry (UNM Press, 2023) which focuses on issues of immigration and ancestry. Katherine has worked as a nurse practitioner in multiple pediatric settings and currently is employed by Presbyterian Hospital in northern New Mexico. Her website is: katherineseluja.com.
Lucinda Pinchot, RN CWOCRN (retired) from the Yale School of Medicine, started writing poetry and prose in the 1970s. She took a 30-year hiatus from poetry while working in healthcare and is now resuming her love of writing.
Before turning to poetry, Robert Carr administered infectious disease programming with The Massachusetts Department of Public Health. He is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, and two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press – The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds. His poetry appears in many journals and magazines including the Greensboro Review, Lana Turner Journal, the Massachusetts Review and Shenandoah. Recent teaching engagements and residencies include Monson Arts and The Millay House Rockland. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org
Jennifer Caputo-Seidler, MD is a hospitalist and educator in Tampa, FL. Her writings have appeared on KevinMD, STATNews, and SheMD.
Tarah is a physical therapist by background, currently working in the role of a work-health coach with VT RETAIN, a grant-funded program through the State of Vermont Department of Labor. She is a patient with long COVID and participates in the Dartmouth Hitchcock Long COVID Writing Group, during which she writes poetry.
Isabelle Tran is a rising third year medical student at the Burnett School of Medicine at Texas Christian University.
Patricia Cannon has been a Registered Nurse at UCSF since 2001. She has worked in cardiac critical care, neuro intensive care, hemeoncology, school nursing, and currently, in research. Her passion is her faith, photography, and the written word in all its forms. “What’s in a Name?” was previously published in the Beyond Words Literary Journal edited by Gal Slonim.
Eric Dessner MD is an ophthalmologist in private practice in Brooklyn, NY. He is the founder and CEO of medmic.com
1st Place “Mama, When Did This Rain Begin” by Darcy Smith
2nd Place “A Mother’s Litany–How to Prepare a Child for a Hospital Stay” by Victoria Meleklan
3rd Place “Spectacle” – by Claire Unis
Joanne Clarkson is a poet whose sixth poetry collection, “Hospice House,” was released by MoonPath Press in 2023. Her poems have been published in such journals as Poetry Northwest, The Healing Muse, Examined Life Journal, American Journal of Nursing and Beloit Poetry Journal. She has received an Artist Trust Grant and an NEH grant to teach poetry in rural libraries. Clarkson has Masters Degrees in English and Library Science, has taught and worked for many years as a professional librarian. After caring for her mother through a long illness, she re-careered as a Registered Nurse working in Home Health and Hospice. This poem first appeared in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. Find her at http://Joanneclarkson.com.