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Write for the Cure

Write for the Cure

CONWAY, Ark. (April 24, 2013) – Eleven Hendrix students recently completed a new online writing project called The Treatment: Writing Medicine & Illness.

The Treatment, published online Monday, April 29, was overseen by Hendrix writing professor Dr. Tyrone Jaeger; graphic designed by Tim Lepczyk, Fellow in Digital Humanities at Hendrix; and edited by visiting writer Heidi Julavits.

The Treatment can be found online here.

The project was underwritten by the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language in conjunction with the program's year-long series of events on the theme of literature and medicine.

"True to form, Hendrix faculty members proposed a diverse range of programming for the theme, including campus visits by prose writers Rebecca Skloot and Mark Richard, physician and writer Sayantani DasGupta, librettist Dan Welcher, theatre director Virginia Smith, and the Warrior Writers and Combat Paper Projects," said Jaeger in the publication's foreword. "One thing, however, seemed to be missing – the voices of Hendrix students. To remedy this, we thought we might encourage students from across the disciplines to write about medicine and illness. To challenge the potential writers and add rigor to the process, we procured the services of Heidi Julavits for a low-residency editorship. A practitioner of novel medicine – including such curative spells as The Vanishers, The Uses of Enchantment, and The Effect of Living Backwards – Heidi Julavits is a founding editor of The Believer and teaches at Columbia University."

The student writers remained worked with Julavits from November to April.

"They researched, interviewed, shadowed, exhumed memories, wrote, reimagined, and revised," Jaeger said, adding that Hendrix alumni Olivia Harrington and Tess Stewart helped with fact checking and copy editing.

Student contributor bios

  • Zoe Calhoun '14
  • Linh Chuong '13
  • Alli Dillard '14
  • Camille Guillot '15
  • Dagen Hughes '15
  • Sami Kennedy '15
  • Laura Klasek '14
  • Samia Nawaz '16
  • Amelia Robert '14
  • Josephine Reece '13
  • Rachel Thomas '14

"While this is a creative writing project, the writers come from a range of academic disciplines, and the essays display diverse stylistic approaches," said Jaeger. "Like the medicine shows of old, this anthology of nonfiction treatments promises the antidote for what ails you, from bodily disorders to maladies of the mind, from the common cold to a wave of ennui. In these pages, you will find miracle cures, cautionary tales, field research, pop culture fads, humors, occupational therapies and hazards, and the word on pedicures. The individual essays are sure to entertain and intrigue, but when taken as a whole, they offer an insightful look at medicine and illness in the early twenty-first century."

There will be a reception and a panel with the student writers, moderated by Julavits, on Monday, April 29, at 4:15 p.m. in the Murphy House.

Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the fifth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the country's "Up and Coming" liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2012 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country's best 377 colleges, the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges, Forbes magazine's annual list of America's Top 650 Colleges, and the 2013 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.