Photo by Donna Connor

Hi, I’m Deborah Bayer, DO. I am (mostly) retired from the practice of Infectious Disease and Palliative Care. I write poems and personal essays, and I’m working on a memoir about the need for emotional support in the workplace. I’m passionate about the healing power of writing. Part of the emotional support I write about comes from engaging in the creative process. I have honed my craft in Peter Murphy’s workshops (Now Murphy Writing of Stockton University), and I have had the great fortune to study under Kathleen Graber, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Stephen Dunn, and Mark Doty. I spent my early years in Brazil, and now I live outside of Atlantic City, NJ with my husband.

Publications

• My first poetry collection, a chapbook titled Rope Made of Bandages, was published by  Finishing Line Press in March 2023.
• My poems have appeared in the following journals: Bellevue Literary Review (forthcoming), Peregrine, Trampoline, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, SPANK the CARP, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Juked, The Healing Muse, Levee Magazine, The Stillwater Review, Cider Press Review, Shot Glass Journal, and Serving House Journal.
• And I’ve been published in the following anthologies:
  • Moonstone Arts Center 2022 Featured Poets Anthology, 2023.
  • Still You: Poems of Illness and Healing, Wolf Ridge Press, 2019.
  • More Challenges for the Delusional, Diode editions, 2018.
• I had an essay published online in Doximity’s OpMed section, titled “The Stress I Felt on My First Day of Residency Was From Feeling Alone in My Responsibility,” July 30, 2019.

Offerings

I facilitate writing groups via Zoom. These groups blend the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) methodology with the Narrative Medicine workshop format. I was certified as an AWA facilitator in 2017, and I took online classes at Columbia University in their Narrative Medicine program. I combine these two approaches in my facilitation. The supportive approach of the AWA method lends itself to healing from all kinds of trauma, including the trauma of medical training.

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