Emily Ferrara is the author of The Alchemy of Grief, a collection of poems selected to win the Bordighera Poetry Prize, and published in bilingual edition (English and Italian) in 2007. She is featured, along with the book's translator Sabine Pascarelli, in the winter 2008 season of NPR’s “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.” She is an assistant professor of family medicine and community health at University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she has taught medical creative writing and doctor-patient communication. She has published and presented nationally on the power of writing to foster personal & professional development, and on creative writing as a form of reflective practice.