About the Author
Maya J. Sorini is a narrative medicine scholar, medical student, essayist, and award winning poet. Her first collection, The Boneheap in the Lion's Den, won the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry. Maya has a master's degree and has taught in Columbia University's Narrative Medicine program, and continues to work as a freelance Narrative Medicine workshop facilitator. Her work has appeared in many arts and medical journals, including JAMA, Intima Magazine, and Doxy's Op Med. Maya currently attends Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and lives in Bergen County with her grandmother.
Maya's poetry explores the experience of trauma from multiple angles: from the viewpoint of the victim, the survivor, the caregiver, the physician, the family, and even the perpetrator. She writes from an embodied perspective rooted in her studies of narrative medicine and medicine itself, attempting to combine the soft and liminal edges of a story with the cold and exacting details of biomedical science. She enjoys performing her poetry for public and private audiences, giving talks about narrative medicine, discussing medical trauma and physician resilience, and holding workshops for clinicians and trainees surrounding these topics.
Selected Publications
The Boneheap in the Lion's Den, Winner of the 2023 Press 53 Award for Poetry; April 2023
"Fledgeling" Ripple Magazine, August 2023
"Mudded Water" Auxocardia, May 2023
"What It's Like Off Shift" Auxocardia, June 2022
"Now That the Kids Have Gotten Their Shots" Doximity: Op-Med, June 2022
"The Doorbell Rings, I Am Off My Meds" Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, May 2022
"Trauma Surgeon Ars Poetica." Journal of the American Medical Association: Poetry and Medicine, May 2022
"Precious Metals." Doximity: Op-Med, 2022
"In Defense of the ICD System" Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, December 2021
"Hurting Instructions" Tendon Magazine- Center for Medical Humanities & Social Medicine, January 2020
"Losing Her" Tendon Magazine- Center for Medical Humanities & Social Medicine, January 2020
Education
M2 at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
MD Class of 2025
MS in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University
Class of 2020
BA in Chemistry from Washington U. in St. Louis
Class of 2018
Graduate of the Holton Arms School
Class of 2014