Fiction
Lise Saffran is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in fiction, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Author of the novel JUNO’S DAUGHTERS and short stories published in literary magazines and in the Grants Books Anthology FAMILY WANTED, she incorporates fiction writing in her public health humanities work as a vehicle for self-examination and reflection on implicit bias and ethical public health practice.
A few selected publications detailing that work are available at the links below:
- What Pauline Doesn’t Know from the Journal of Medical Humanities
- Building Character: A creative writing intervention to encourage clinician reflection on the social determinants of health from the Journal of Applied Arts in Health
Creative Nonfiction
The tools of creative writing (characters, interesting structure, vivid and concrete details) brought to science and public health communication can make the stories we tell memorable, authentic, compelling and persuasive. At the same time, the stories we tell about communities, the origin of public health issues, attribution for behavior and even our own role as professionals can reflect unexamined assumptions and harmful meta narratives. Consequently, public health storytelling can be a powerful tool for both communication and self-examination. Lise Saffran teaches public health storytelling at the University of Missouri and for the Telling Our Stories project of the International Writing Workshop at the University of Iowa.
A few selected publications detailing that work are available at the links below:
- Public Health Storytelling Practice from The Lancet
- The Essential Role of Storytelling in the Search for Truth from Scientific American