“Feverdream” w/ Renée K. Nicholson & Sally Jane Brown
Arteidolia
January 2026
Feverdream
Poems: Renée K. Nicholson
Illustrations: Sally Jane Brown
Redhawk Publications, 2026
Arteidolia: Renée, in the author’s afterword in your new collection of poetry, Feverdream you wrote “To say that narrative medicine changed the way I write doesn’t fully encapsulate what its practice has done for me as a writer— perhaps because it changed how I write by changing me.” Really interesting. Could you tell us more about what narrative medicine is?
Renée: I always love to talk about narrative medicine, which is a practice where you take literary study and creative writing into clinical contexts. At Columbia University, where the general internist and Henry James scholar Rita Charon started to see how her PhD studies in literature were valuable in her practice as a physician, the approach is described as the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories of others. I also think of it as a way to give shape to things as a text, whether that be a poem, a sketch, a piece of prose or other artifact of an experience. Those artifacts sometimes continue to resonate with us, and as we work on them, and in my case, working on these poems, I began to feel deeper levels of understanding, which changed into feelings of peace, or of wonder, or calm, or delight. There are a lot of ways that narrative medicine can work, but these sensations of peace, wonder, calm, and delight and the deep contemplation that brought me there seems to be at the heart of my practice of narrative medicine.
Arteidolia: It sounds a bit similar to other creative arts therapies or even to journaling. I’m curious about what they might have in common and how they might differ. So, could you describe for us what usually happens in a narrative medicine group session?
Renée: Yes! There are similarities between creative arts therapies and journaling and narrative medicine. But one thing that typically is different in narrative medicine is our close reading of literary texts. In fact, that’s how a typical narrative medicine session starts, with a close reading of a literary text. It can sometimes also be a close viewing of a work of art, but typically a literary text, like a poem or an excerpt of prose.
In that close reading, we ask questions about form and structure, about language, metaphor, who is the speaker or narrator, characters, relationships, and so on. We also talk about reader responses, such as what emotions are evoked from a text, and where does it happen? We look at what we’re bringing to texts and how that influences how we read and interpret them, how context shapes meaning.
Then after about 20-30 minutes of deep discussion (depending on available time), the session pivots to writing. A soft prompt is provided that relates back to the reading, but usually in a subtle, oblique way. The writing is usually short, between five to ten minutes, to encourage spontaneity and discourage self-censorship, and the participants are also encouraged to write by hand, which slows the writing to deepen reflection. These are writings to discover, and so the short burst also discourages editing and revision to privilege personal connection and discovering the influence of the close reading that came before it. Prompts might evoke a direct response to the text, but often find nuances through perspective-taking and personal connections that can be gently teased out by the prompts.
After the short, timed writing, there is time to share this work, as participants are invited but never obligated to read what they wrote out loud. As one person reads, the others listen without interrupting or offering critique. There’s usually a brief discussion of themes that emerged and noticing the resonances across the writing with the initial piece.
Of course, what happens in these sessions is confidential to the session, so that privacy is protected. And there can be other ways that narrative medicine “happens,” but this practice is at its heart. It creates a space for practitioners to explore their own reactions, biases, and emotional responses in a structured but open-ended way.
I know this got a little long winded, but I wanted to try to explain the basics in a way that made sense to those who have never heard of narrative medicine.
Arteidolia: Being that I was once an art therapist, I definitely see the similarities and the differences. So now, I’m curious about how all of this evolved into the poetry that is in Feverdream.
Renée: When I finished my certificate in narrative medicine in 2019, I worried how I might keep up with attending narrative medicine sessions. I often facilitated them, but enjoyed also attending them as a participant. When the pandemic hit, Columbia started doing sessions online, and even after, they continued. I lost my brother, Nate, in June of 2019 to metastatic colon cancer, and so attending sessions helped me process that loss through writing. Some pieces never made it past the initial session, but others I kept returning to and writing more and revising in other ways. Or I wrote new pieces in response to previous writing from the sessions. Also, new subjects started to appear, and in this organic way the poems started to coalesce around several different themes. I joined another group of narrative medicine practioners, run by friends Ginny Drda and Tony Errichetti, and that group really inspired me, too.
I found I wrote quite a bit about West Virginia, where my family has lived for seven generations. I wrote about my own health issues and the ageing process, and about nature through the seasons. I also started to stretch into more surreal poems, especially when thinking about life and death, and about how the world around me versus my inner life. These ended up being the five sections, or movements in Feverdream: Home, Body, Loss, Seasons, Glow.
Glow is an interesting section, because it’s the most surreal of them. It also finds some hard-earned peace, and the poems themselves seem to have an inner light.
But it all started by showing up online to these narrative medicine sessions and just participating. And that, to me, shows the impact of this practice on me as a literary artist.
Arteidolia: Renee, I can see how narrative medicine has opened up so many directions and journeys for you to explore. Sally, now how did you get involved with this project and could you talk about your choice and style of artwork. Are you also interested in narrative medicine?
Sally: I’ve been lucky to know Renée for a few years, first through collaborations on exhibitions featuring work by healthcare workers, patients, and medical students. We eventually began sharing our own creative work, too. A few years ago she sent me some delightfully fun poems about West Virginia cryptids, and I loved them so much I asked if I could illustrate them. That became What We Do in the Hollows.
Last year, she invited me to read and respond to her new collection, Feverdream, and create illustrations for each section. I jumped in immediately. I usually start by reading, circling words that resonate, and sketching directly on the pages. Because the poems have such a surreal energy, I created abstracted body-print backgrounds and built the illustrations around key words and gestures as a way of conversing with the text. The bright hues on the cover weren’t strategic so much as intuitive, they just felt right after I scrapped an earlier, more muted version. I love how the designer brought it all together.
I’m definitely interested in narrative medicine, though I’m not formally trained in the field. I’m interested in art more broadly and how it can support patients and, honestly, anyone. There’s growing research showing that making, not necessarily masterpieces, but doodling, coloring, note-taking, can positively impact health. I believe it should be a required class in school. Imagine if we learned creative expression as much as math, English, or even gym.
Arteidolia: For me creativity has been my life, so I totally get what you’re saying! It’s great when there’s a collaborative spirit between words & art. What’s next for each of you?
Renée: Next—what a wonderful and scary question! First, I am always looking for opportunity for Sally and I to continue to work together. I may not know it from the start, but there’s always a place for our collaborations to continue, and I love how they organically arrive just at the moment we need them. Her approach and her ethos have also influenced how I come to the page as a literary artist.
Right now, I’m working on a novel of a pretty well-known figure in the history of fashion. I wrote a draft, but then learned something about her connection to tarot that intrigued me. But I couldn’t find a lot about this connection, so now I have been re-envisioning the draft I have to imaginatively include tarot as part of the character arc. It’s really fun to find something like that, something just brushed upon in biography that can be used in fiction. I’ve started outlining the new draft where each chapter is one of the major arcana, so that there’s this other dimension. We’ll see if I can pull it off. Another novel I’m just starting to draft looks at a down and out poet whose partner convinces her to help him manage his grower-producer vineyard in Champagne, France. I have an artist residency at Chateaux D’Orquevaux in September this year, so I’m hoping to do some drafting there, and some visiting of these unique artisan vineyards to learn more.
Of course I’m continuing to do narrative medicine work and to write new poems. The newest poems have an interesting relationship to Gen X pop culture so far, so I’m interested to see where that goes. I edit a book series for the West Virginia University Press called Connective Tissue, and our first books are coming out this year in that series. So, it’s exciting.
Mostly, though, I’m excited to continue the art-friendship with Sally, and see what we find to work on together in 2026. Everything I do with her ends up being meaningful and inspiring.
Sally: Yes, me too! I’m really excited to see Feverdream come to life with its March launch and, hopefully, to exhibit the original artworks alongside it. I’m absolutely looking forward to more collaborations together.
This spring, I have a few exhibitions coming up, including one at Jen Tough Gallery in Santa Fe around love, where I actually made the Feverdream artwork during an artist residency last year. I’m also part of Perceive Me, Kristine Schomaker’s project around body image, showing in Venice Beach during the LA Startup Art Fair.
My studio practice continues to orbit body image, gender, and lately aging and the almost-empty-nester phase. I’ll also be heading to a residency this spring at Kinhouse Gallery in Indiana, and who knows, maybe work on our next collaboration.
I keep writing about art and curating too, with an upcoming book review in Arrhythmia Magazine, and coordinating upcoming artist residency focused on environmentalism, plus curating exhibitions around freedom and independence, and another on health and humanities (with Renee!). Supporting artists in all these ways is very energizing for me!
Renée K. Nicholson‘s website →
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