STORIES SAVE US: The Write to Heal Episode 1

Artist Soapbox * Audio fiction + Creative Process

Interview with Joseph Bathanti, former North Carolina Poet Laureate and Dr. Bruce Kelly, retired Assistant Chief of Primary Care at the Charles George VA Medical Center.

THE WRITE TO HEAL: SOLDIERS DEEP DIVE INTO STORYTELLING

In this limited six-episode audio series, Artist Soapbox speaks with life-changers – people who champion creative writing as a catalyst for soldiers’ healing, as well as soldiers whose lives have been radically transformed through story. The interviews are conducted by Tamara Kissane, Artist Soapbox producer and 2020 Piedmont Laureate, with June Guralnick, 2022 Raleigh Medal of Arts recipient and creative writing teacher for veterans.

GUEST BIOS

JOSEPH BATHANTI, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina (2012-14) and recipient of the North Carolina Award in Literature, is the author of nineteen books, most recently Light at the Seam from LSU Press in 2022. Bathanti is the McFarlane Family Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. He served as the 2016 Charles George VA Medical Center Writer-in-Residence in Asheville, N.C., and is the co-founder of the Medical Center’s Creative Writing Program. The Act of Contrition & Other Stories, winner of the EastOver Prize for Fiction, is forthcoming from EastOver Press in fall of 2023. For more information on Bathanti’s work, visit: https://english.appstate.edu/faculty-staff/directory/joseph-bathanti.

BRUCE KELLY, MD is retired Assistant Chief of Primary Care at the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, N.C. In 2014, along with former North Carolina Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, he co-founded a creative writing program for Vietnam veterans with PTSD as the central feature of a broader Medical Humanities program. He has been witness to the truth of this quote by poet Muriel Rukeyser: "The universe is not made up of atoms, it's made up of stories."

KENNETH EDWARD FAUSTMAN (1946-2023) served in the US Army during the Vietnam War. He was awarded a military merit from South Vietnam in honor of exceptional service. He was a proud veteran who participated in the Honor flight that took him to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. in 2022. After his service he obtained his bachelor’s degree as an Industrial Engineer from the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. He used his degree to improve the world he lived in, as a teacher and construction manager.

EPISODE LINKS

Brothers Like These

Transcript

CREDITS

• THE WRITE TO HEAL: SOLDIERS DEEP DIVE INTO STORYTELLING is a production of Artist Soapbox in partnership with June Guralnick.
• This series is dedicated to the memory of David Brave Heart.
• The intro montage is sound engineered by Royce Froehlich, and music in both the intro and outro are by David Brave Heart, with additional music by Louis Wilkinson.
• Post-production is by Tamara Kissane and Jasmine Hunjan.

WHEN I WRITE I FEEL… CONTRIBUTORS

• Jenny Bailey
• Linda Belans
• Gail Ashby Bryant
• Kammie DeGheto
• Chuck Galle
• Linda Giles
• June Guralnick
• PJ Harper
• Kirsten Howard
• Tamara Kissane
• Allie McDonald
• Ray Owen
• Shirley Perry
• Sande Southworth
• Scott Charles Whittemore
• Norah & Susannah

For more information, see artistsoapbox.org/the-write-to-heal/ and juneguralnick.com.