Case Studies
on Creativity
Text
http://saligiastock.deviantart.com/art/mask-26992991

Michael Augustine Ko
“When you find a cure for cancer...”

Michael Sanatani
founded a music and oncology program

Karen Chien
doctor/classical guitarist

Jennifer Wong
piano separate but equal

William Carlos Williams
Medicine allowed him "to write what he chose, free from any kind of financial or political
pressure....[H]e understood the tradeoffs: he would have less time to
write; he would need more physical stamina than
people with only one occupation.... [He] was willing to
live the kind of rushed existence that would be
necessary, crowding two full lifetimes into one...." -Biography
on Poetry Foundation

Jeanne Ray
You get more respect as a writer, but people tend to reach out to you as a
nurse.
Both of my professions are enormously fulfilling. Writing reaches a greater number of people, but I still go
back to work one day a week as a nurse. I like the one on one of nursing, the commitment to the individual. I
also like the celebrity of writing, the fact that I have the opportunity to perform before an audience. (Interview
on Absolute Write in 2007)

Kathy Reichs
still consults in forensic anthopology

Elizabeth Berg
Before I became a writer, I was a registered nurse for ten years, and
that was my “school” for writing—taking care of patients taught me
a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and
regret and triumph and especially about relationships--all things that I
tend to focus on in my work. I worked as a waitress, which is also good training for a
writer, and I sang in a rock band which was not good for anything except the money I
made.

CJ Lyons
“After I’d quit my medical practice [17 years experience as an ER
doctor, crisis counselor, victims advocate, and MedEvac flight
physician] and moved 1,000 miles away from home to pursue my
dream of being a full-time writer, my first novel, my dream debut,
was cancelled by the publisher.”