Columbia Narrative Medicine

11/21/2025

JOIN US Wednesday December 3rd at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale. Her work, featured in The Poetry Foundation, lntima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and others, explores intersections of race, gender, health, and ancestral healing. Cooper holds an MFA from Columbia University and serves on the advisory board for CUNY's Narrative Medicine program. Her debut book of poetry, UNRULY, was published in 2025.

In Unruly, Antoinette Cooper weaves poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence into an ineffable work of embodied storytelling. UNRULY honors the Black female body as a site of profound resilience and complex histories.

With uncompromising honesty and lyrical precision, Cooper explores the intimate experiences of Black women-from historical medical abuses to contemporary health disparities, intergenerational trauma, societal beauty standards, and personal encounters with violence and healing. UNRULY refuses silence by (re)claiming our often unspoken and inviolable voice.

This revelatory reading experience, at once deeply personal and universally resonant, offers a nuanced exploration of how past and present intertwine in Black women's bodies. Cooper's genre-defying approach invites us to witness ancestral legacies while envisioning paths to integration and liberation, announcing her as an essential voice in contemporary literature. UNRULY offers language to articulate the full spectrum of Black women's embodied realities-in all their pain, power, and possibility.

Zahra H. Khan (she/her) is an educator and editor whose research, writing, and community engagement focus on facilitating critical consciousness in medical education and developing frameworks for abolitionist and healing-centered possibilities in health care. She is on the editorial board of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, and a lecturer in the Graduate Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Zahra teaches courses exploring how the arts, humanities, and storytelling can be leveraged to address key issues impacting the health and safety of our most vulnerable communities, and how narrative can be a tool to drive meaningful action. She is the co-author of “Abolition Medicine” in The Lancet and “Abolitionist Reimaginings of Health” in the AMA Journal of Ethics, among other pieces. Zahra is currently the Storytelling and Media Producer at Interrupting Criminalization, leading the Beyond Do No Harm national storytelling project, which amplifies the stories of health care providers interrupting criminalization in health care.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our December rounds, we have the pleasure of welcoming Antoinette Cooper, a visionary writer, TEDx speaker, Collective Trauma Facilitator, and founder of Black Exhale.

11/04/2025

JOIN US TOMORROW on Wednesday November 5th at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels, including Rabbits for Food (2019), a darkly comic depiction of a clinically depressed woman and her subsequent breakdown and, Counting Backwards (2025), which chronicles the lives of a middle-aged woman and her husband who is suffering
from early-onset Lewy body dementia.

Counting Backwards begins with hallucinations. From their living room window, Leo sees a man on stilts, an acting troupe, a pair of swans paddling on the Manhattan streets below. Then he’s unable to perform simple tasks and experiences a host of other erratic disturbances, none of which his doctors can explain. Leo, 53, a research scientist, and Addie, a collage artist, have a loving and happy marriage. They’d planned on many more years of work and travel, dinner with friends, quiet evenings at home with the cat. But as Leo’s periods of lucidity become rarer, those dreams fall away, and Addie finds herself less and less able to cope with an increasingly unbearable present.

Eventually, Leo is diagnosed with early onset dementia in the form of Lewy body disease. Life expectancy ranges from 3 to 20 years. A decidedly uncharacteristic act of violence makes it clear that he cannot live at home. He moves first to an assisted living facility and then to a small apartment with a caretaker, where, over time, he descends into full cognitive decline. Addie’s agony, anger, and guilt result in self-imposed isolation, which mirrors Leo’s diminished life. And so for years, all she can do is watch him die—too soon, and yet not soon enough.

Kirshenbaum's novels have been selected as Notable and Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and NPR, among others. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. She is a Professor of Fiction at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Carlie Hoffman is the author of three poetry collections, including One More World Like This World (Four Way Books, 2025), a Library Journal “Title to Watch,” and When There Was Light (2023), winner of the National Jewish Book Award. She is also the translator from German of Blütenlese by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (World Poetry Books, 2026) and the forthcoming essential poems of Rose Ausländer.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day program, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Slowdown, among others. Hoffman is the founding editor of Orange Editions/Small Orange Journal and has taught at Columbia University, NYU, and SUNY Purchase. Her honors include a “Discovery”/Boston Review prize, a Poets & Writers Amy Award, and fellowships from the Goethe-Institut, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Columbia University, Convent Arts, and Yetzirah.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels.

10/29/2025

JOIN US NEXT WEEK on Wednesday November 5th at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels, including Rabbits for Food (2019), a darkly comic depiction of a clinically depressed woman and her subsequent breakdown and, Counting Backwards (2025), which chronicles the lives of a middle-aged woman and her husband who is suffering
from early-onset Lewy body dementia.

Counting Backwards begins with hallucinations. From their living room window, Leo sees a man on stilts, an acting troupe, a pair of swans paddling on the Manhattan streets below. Then he’s unable to perform simple tasks and experiences a host of other erratic disturbances, none of which his doctors can explain. Leo, 53, a research scientist, and Addie, a collage artist, have a loving and happy marriage. They’d planned on many more years of work and travel, dinner with friends, quiet evenings at home with the cat. But as Leo’s periods of lucidity become rarer, those dreams fall away, and Addie finds herself less and less able to cope with an increasingly unbearable present.

Eventually, Leo is diagnosed with early onset dementia in the form of Lewy body disease. Life expectancy ranges from 3 to 20 years. A decidedly uncharacteristic act of violence makes it clear that he cannot live at home. He moves first to an assisted living facility and then to a small apartment with a caretaker, where, over time, he descends into full cognitive decline. Addie’s agony, anger, and guilt result in self-imposed isolation, which mirrors Leo’s diminished life. And so for years, all she can do is watch him die—too soon, and yet not soon enough.

Kirshenbaum's novels have been selected as Notable and Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and NPR, among others. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. She is a Professor of Fiction at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Carlie Hoffman is the author of three poetry collections, including One More World Like This World (Four Way Books, 2025), a Library Journal “Title to Watch,” and When There Was Light (2023), winner of the National Jewish Book Award. She is also the translator from German of Blütenlese by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (World Poetry Books, 2026) and the forthcoming essential poems of Rose Ausländer.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day program, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Slowdown, among others. Hoffman is the founding editor of Orange Editions/Small Orange Journal and has taught at Columbia University, NYU, and SUNY Purchase. Her honors include a “Discovery”/Boston Review prize, a Poets & Writers Amy Award, and fellowships from the Goethe-Institut, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Columbia University, Convent Arts, and Yetzirah.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels.

10/23/2025

“Narrative medicine offers the mirrors and bridges we need to be able to see ourselves and each other, process trauma, build communication, and move forward with hope and compassion,” says Columbia University Narrative Medicine CPA alum Cara Coleman.

Coleman was brought to the field of narrative medicine through her own experience navigating the health care of her daughter, Justice, who lived with disabilities and spent long stretches hospitalized for a severe medical condition. She found that Justice’s story, and narrative more broadly, had the power to inspire change beyond what standard policy advocacy could achieve.

Read the full interview with Coleman:
https://sps.columbia.edu/news/telling-justices-story-humanize-health-care

10/20/2025

In the Hands of Poets: Toxicology, Ceremony and can I get a safe word?

JOIN US TOMORROW OCTOBER 21st at 6pm EDT for our next Narrative Acts/Community Action, where Narrative Medicine faculty Samantha Barrick and author-facilitator Antoinette Cooper examine what it means to practice care in a nation built on wounding. Diagnosing our collective toxicology and prescribing ceremony over clinical distance, they ask: what scaffolding does dignity require? What structures must we build to tend to each other?

Narrative Acts/Community Action is a new narrative medicine virtual series to engage with our alumni, faculty and the global community as we explore through their work ways the humanities and creative arts are an actionable path toward community-centered change and responding to difficult times.

DETAILS AND REGISTRATION: https://www.mhe.cuimc.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine/public-programming-and-events/narrative-acts-community-action

Join us to hear from narrative medicine founders and alums about their own creative works, and explore the possibility of the humanities and arts as a means to navigate difficult times.

10/15/2025

JOIN US NEXT WEEK OCTOBER 21st at 6pm EDT for our next Narrative Acts/Community Action, where Narrative Medicine faculty Samantha Barrick and author-facilitator Antoinette Cooper examine what it means to practice care in a nation built on wounding. Diagnosing our collective toxicology and prescribing ceremony over clinical distance, they ask: what scaffolding does dignity require? What structures must we build to tend to each other?

Narrative Acts/Community Action is a new narrative medicine virtual series to engage with our alumni, faculty and the global community as we explore through their work ways the humanities and creative arts are an actionable path toward community-centered change and responding to difficult times.

DETAILS AND REGISTRATION:

Join us to hear from narrative medicine founders and alums about their own creative works, and explore the possibility of the humanities and arts as a means to navigate difficult times.

10/14/2025

JOIN US Wednesday November 5th at 6pm EST for our rounds.

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels, including Rabbits for Food (2019), a darkly comic depiction of a clinically depressed woman and her subsequent breakdown and, Counting Backwards (2025), which chronicles the lives of a middle-aged woman and her husband who is suffering
from early-onset Lewy body dementia.

Counting Backwards begins with hallucinations. From their living room window, Leo sees a man on stilts, an acting troupe, a pair of swans paddling on the Manhattan streets below. Then he’s unable to perform simple tasks and experiences a host of other erratic disturbances, none of which his doctors can explain. Leo, 53, a research scientist, and Addie, a collage artist, have a loving and happy marriage. They’d planned on many more years of work and travel, dinner with friends, quiet evenings at home with the cat. But as Leo’s periods of lucidity become rarer, those dreams fall away, and Addie finds herself less and less able to cope with an increasingly unbearable present.

Eventually, Leo is diagnosed with early onset dementia in the form of Lewy body disease. Life expectancy ranges from 3 to 20 years. A decidedly uncharacteristic act of violence makes it clear that he cannot live at home. He moves first to an assisted living facility and then to a small apartment with a caretaker, where, over time, he descends into full cognitive decline. Addie’s agony, anger, and guilt result in self-imposed isolation, which mirrors Leo’s diminished life. And so for years, all she can do is watch him die—too soon, and yet not soon enough.

Kirshenbaum's novels have been selected as Notable and Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and NPR, among others. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. She is a Professor of Fiction at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Carlie Hoffman is the author of three poetry collections, including One More World Like This World (Four Way Books, 2025), a Library Journal “Title to Watch,” and When There Was Light (2023), winner of the National Jewish Book Award. She is also the translator from German of Blütenlese by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (World Poetry Books, 2026) and the forthcoming essential poems of Rose Ausländer.

Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day program, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Slowdown, among others. Hoffman is the founding editor of Orange Editions/Small Orange Journal and has taught at Columbia University, NYU, and SUNY Purchase. Her honors include a “Discovery”/Boston Review prize, a Poets & Writers Amy Award, and fellowships from the Goethe-Institut, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Columbia University, Convent Arts, and Yetzirah.

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION:

For our November rounds, we have the honor of hosting Binnie Kirshenbaum, the author of one story collection and eight novels.

10/08/2025

JOIN US OCTOBER 21st at 6pm EDT for our next Narrative Acts/Community Action, where Narrative Medicine faculty Samantha Barrick and author-facilitator Antoinette Cooper examine what it means to practice care in a nation built on wounding. Diagnosing our collective toxicology and prescribing ceremony over clinical distance, they ask: what scaffolding does dignity require? What structures must we build to tend to each other?

Narrative Acts/Community Action is a new narrative medicine virtual series to engage with our alumni, faculty and the global community as we explore through their work ways the humanities and creative arts are an actionable path toward community-centered change and responding to difficult times.

DETAILS AND REGISTRATION:

Join us to hear from narrative medicine founders and alums about their own creative works, and explore the possibility of the humanities and arts as a means to navigate difficult times.