- Antenna

Authors

Aida Borges

Born in 1975 in France but with roots in Vilarchão-Alfândega da Fé, Aida currently lives in Coimbra. She is a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse, Clinical Psychologist and Trainee Family Therapist. A member of the Board of Directors of the Francophone Association of Bibliotherapy, Aida loves literature and uses it as a resource in mediating therapeutic processes. A published poet and author of narrative fiction, her work has been published in several Portuguese poetry anthologies.

António Ferreira da Silva, SJ

Born in Porto in 1994, António graduated in Medicine from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Univ. Porto in 2018, the year he also entered the Society of Jesus. He took his First Vows as a Jesuit in 2020 and studied Philosophy and Humanities in Braga where he rediscovered his interest in literature. He completed the Specialization in General Medicine in Barreiro Hospital in 2023 while also serving as a Jesuit. In 2023 he completed the Ethics in Health Specialization Course in the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Coimbra. Here he paid particular attention to the importance of narrative in the processes that accompany illness and death. Although he does not currently practice medicine, serving as Deputy Director of the Manuel da Nóbrega University Center, he is passionate about the humanization of healthcare.

António F. Rosário

Born in Lisbon in 1973 where he still lives. A Physician: a profession he enjoys practicing in the hospital setting. He believes in the possibilities of the Medical Humanities. His two poetry collections Invisíveis as linhas and Sem resposta were published by Afrontamento in 2023 and 2025 respectively. Invisíveis as linhas (2023) e Sem resposta (2025).

Catarina Santana

Catarina Santana is a Radiation Oncology Resident. She works in clinical practice and research activities in oncology. She has a specific interest in the articulation between science, the humanities and the experience of illness. In parallel with her professional activities, she explores themes such as consciousness, the body and vulnerability in her writing.

Catriona Clutterbuck

Catriona Clutterbuck's debut poetry collection, The Magpie and the Child,was published with Wake Forest University Press in 2021. She has published poems in Crannóg, Cyphers,, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review,, Staying Human (ed Neil Astley), The Honest Ulsterman,, Washing Windows V,and elsewhere. Born in 1964, she lives in County Tipperary in Ireland.

Cecilia Beecher Martins

Assistant Professor in the English Dept. of the School of Arts and Humanities, Univ. Lisbon, she is also a researcher at the Univ. of Lisbon, Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES) and Co-Pi of the Medical Humanities Project (MHP) and the American Studies Research Group. A lover of literature from an early age, in awe of the beauty and humanity of texts she had read, she never considered she had the ability to write well in a literary fashion. However, when her colleague in the MHP, Francisco Rosário, asked her to translate one of his short stories into English she was drawn to give voice to one of the secondary characters and so began her foray into literary writing in two voices. This has led her to consider that perhaps there is indeed a writer in all of us, we just need the right stimulation. Born in Cork, Ireland, in 1961, she has lived and worked happily in Portugal for many years.

Célia Soares

Célia Soares lives in Porto. She is a Psychiatrist and has been drawn to literary writing in recent years as a way to process the complexity of her lived experiences and events witnessed. Her clinical and teaching practices focus on psycho-oncology and psychosomatics, integrating psychodramatic and analytical models. She frequently participates in writing groups and literary events. Currently, she is developing the short story project “A Costureira de Ausências”. Her texts explore themes such as connection, intimacy, the body, grief, and memory, at the intersection of clinical practice, poetic imagination, and symbolic and reflective work.

Elisandro Rodrigues

Elisandro Rodrigues (Ph.D. in Education) is a Pedagogue. He is a Professor in the Department of Basic Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and in the Postgraduate Program in Education at UFRGS. He is a member of the Carcarás Research Group (Unisinos) and the Research Center in Psychoanalysis, Education and Culture - NUPPEC, Axis 2 - Psychoanalysis, Education and Culture. Over the past few years, he has dedicated himself to research on the construction of writing and reading.

Filipa Rodrigues Dutra

Filipa Rodrigues Dutra is a Family Doctor based in the São José Local Health Unit in Lisbon. Her poetry collection O meu direito de ser was published by Cordel de Prata in 2023. Her work has also appeared in the 9th Anthology of the Lisbon Poetry Festival and in the Todo o Sal do Mar anthology also published by Cordel de Prata.She is co-author of the Instagram page “Poesias.dutra.dimensão”.

Francisco Cunha

Francisco Cunha graduated in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Porto, and is a Psychiatry Resident at the Viseu Dão Lafões Local Health Unit. He carries out Clinical Practice in Addiction Treatment at the Resource Center for Inclusion (CRI), Viseu. He is currently taking a Master’s degree in Psychiatry and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy at the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Porto, and is training in Existential Psychotherapy with the Portuguese Society of Existential Psychotherapy.

Francisco Rosário

Francisco Rosário has been an Endocrinologist since 2005 and coordinator of the Endocrinology Service at Hospital da Luz, in Lisbon, since 2017. He has been a Researcher in the Medical Humanities Project at the Univ. Lisbon Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES) since 2014. He is particularly interested in communication in diabetes and chronic disease management. He has authored and co-authored books in this area, as well as articles in scientific journals.

Gustavo Nobre de Jesus

Gustavo Nobre de Jesus was born in Lisbon in 1986. He has published the poetry collectionPoemas de vida e de morte de um médico à noite,the play,Do amor,and the novel,CalHe divides his time between medicine and writing.

Jessica Corrêa

Jessica Corrêa Pantoja is a Doctoral Candidate in Health Sciences at the Instituto de Assistência Médica ao Servidor Público Estadual, São Paulo, under the supervision of José Lúcio Martins Machado and Maria Elisa Gonzalez Manso, and holds degrees in Public Health, Health and Humanities. Carrying out research and projects in public health and education in healthcare, she looks at the social determinants of health, gender studies and mental health, and the relationships between body, territory, and politics. She writes about intimate ruins, dissidents, and small gestures of care.

Joana Falé Carvalho Pereira Nobre

Joana Falé Carvalho Pereira Nobre is a Veterinary Surgeon. Having founded and directed a veterinary hospital she continues to practice general surgery and ophthalmology in this field. Alongside these activities, she began a degree in Languages, Literatures and Culture at Univ. NOVA, Lisboa, deepening her lifelong passion for literature. For Joana Nobre, writing begins as a way of exploring the moments and gestures of her daily life. In this way literature acts as an emotional and humanizing anchor, allowing her to connect personal and professional experiences with a sensitive and attentive observation of the world and the human condition.

João Graça

A graduate in Medicine from Univ. NOVA Lisbon, João Graça is a Psychiatrist and Coordinator of the Philosophy of Medicine Studies Unit at the Portuguese Institute for the Study of Cancer (IPO). He is one of those responsible for the “Music in Medicine” project and, together with Teresa Casal, promotes the Narrative Medicine Workshops project at IPO, Lisbon. He is a Guest Lecturer at Faculty of Medical Sciences, Univ NOVA, Lisbon, and the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Católica, Portugal. He has training in psychotherapy: Internal Family Systems (L2). He is also a member of the Health Technology Assessment Committee of the Portuguese National Authority of Medicines and Health Products (Infarmed). As a violinist he has played in the Melech Mechaya quintet. Currently he works with the musicians Will Samson and Mamadu Baio as well as with the Iberian Medical Orchestra.

João Guerreiro

João André da Silva Guerreiro was born on 10th of December 2003 in Lagoa, Algarve. He holds a Master's degree in Neuroscience from the Faculty of Medicine Univ. Lisbon. He writes in the classical Renaissance style, evoking Greco-Latin myths with the essence of the human body in the face of life and death, bringing together scientific rigor and literary sensitivity. He considers himself to be a voice that seeks to transform experience into permanence, gesture into destiny, and words into memory, thus producing a legacy that resists time and inscribes itself in cultural tradition.

Kim Wiltshire

Kim Wiltshire is a Writer and Academic and is a Reader and Programme Leader in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. She has worked in arts and health setting for over 20 years, having recently been a British Academy Innovation Fellow exploring embedding arts into healthcare settings, and has a range of creative and academic publications. She lives in Greater Manchester with her husband and two sons.

Ladislau Morais

Ladislau Morais is a working student pursuing a degree in General Studies at Univ. Lisbon. He is majoring in Arts and Comparative Cultures and minoring in Performing Arts at the School of Arts & Humanities as well as minoring in Psychological Sciences at the Faculty of Psychology.

Leonardo de Oliveira

Leonardo de Oliveira is a Poet, Musician, and Psychologist. His poetry collection O Ano do Elefantewas published by Editora Appris in 2022, and Manifesto dos Tardígradoswas published by Editora Caravana. His third collection, A menor lua de júpiter, will be released by Toma aí um Poema in 2026. A cartographer of exoplanets and ornithologist of invented birds, he has interests in the nutritional properties of the tiny fifth farm and the surrealist delusions of cicadas and their possible south.

Lília Nunes Reis

Lília Nunes Reis dwells in the space where science and art meet. A Community Health Nurse, she dedicates herself to caring for fragile lives, to encountering the gesture that welcomes and transforms. A doctoral candidate in Clinical Research and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Algarve, is currently developing his thesis in the field of Healthcare Transition, under the supervision of Emilia Isabel Martins Teixeira da Costa and Natércia Joaquim. Lília seeks to unite knowledge and humanity. In photography, she discovers another way of caring: the gaze that illuminates, the image that educates. Her work has been shown in exhibitions on the COVID-19 pandemic and has reached the final round of international competitions. She considers that each photograph is also a clinical act—a witness of hope, where the strength of tenderness becomes healing.

Luiza Otero Villela

Graduated in Medicine from Estácio de Sá University (UNESA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A Writer and Poet, she contributed to the collections Rastros da pandemia and Cândido Portinari no ensino em saúde.The latter is the result of her Scientific Initiation in Medicine and Art. Currently, she works at the Intensive Care Unit of Rio Laranjeiras Hospital.

Madalena Neves Afonso

Madalena Neves Afonso is a Clinical Psychologist (Portuguese Order of Psychologists, no. 25191) with Bachelor's and Master's degrees from ISPA-IU, Lisbon. She is also a member of the Portuguese Society of Clinical Psychology and the Portuguese Association of Bibliotherapy. She is currently undergoing training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and has specializations in intervention with the LGBTQIA+ community, Youth Work, and Crisis Intervention. She works with adolescents and adults in a clinical setting and has experience in Social Psychology. She is a certified trainer by the Portuguese for Employment and Professional Training (IEFP). Passionate about books and cinema, she is the author of the project "A Madalena Divaga" where she combines literature, culture, and psychology in the promotion of mental health.

Marco Della Motta

Marco Della Motta is a second-year PhD Candidate at the University of Lisbon, affiliated with the Centre for English Studies, Univ. Lisbon (CEAUL/ULICES) and the North American Studies Research Group. His dissertation examines David Cronenberg's filmography through historiographical, psychoanalytic and medical humanities frameworks, with particular focus on A Dangerous Method and representations of medical practice. His research interests span Canadian Studies, adaptation studies, genre theory, history of medicine, psychoanalytic studies, and intellectual history.

Maria de Jesus Cabral

Maria de Jesus Cabral is an Assistant Professor with Habilitation at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Univ. of Aveiro, and Principal Investigator of the Itinerâncias group (CLLC). She holds a PhD in French Literature (2005), with post-doctoral studies in Comparative Studies and Medical Humanities. Her research focuses on symbolist and modern literature and the relationship between literature and health. She is an honorary founding member of the Portuguese Association of French Studies (APEF) and co-coordinates the international LEA! network and the Erasmus+ Reading Communities, Shaping Identities project. She collaborates with national and international medical schools.

Mariana Bonito

Poet, Multidisciplinary Artist, and Physician, she is a young woman who is passionate about emotion which she attempts to understand and express intensely through her poetry. She explores themes of social and political awareness, as well as human vulnerability, in a raw tone and impactful satire. Bringing art and medicine together, she sets out to explore not only the human body but also the transcendence of what it means to be human, trapped in a physical body.

Mariana Serra

I was born in Lisbon in 1996 and studied Medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences Univ. NOVA, Lisbon. I am a Family Doctor at the Family Health Centre, Travessa da Saúde, Camarate. Although I have no formal training in photography, for the last 15 years I have been using a Canon FTb that used to belong to my father, with whom I learned the art of analog photography. This process has taught me to slow down, to develop my attention and to find beauty in imperfection. My perspective is influenced by my daily contact with people and my observation of how intimacy intersects with the public space, a reflection of what happens in a medical consultation.

Marta Soares

Marta Soares is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Social and Political Sciences, Univ Lisbon (ISCSP). She is also a researcher at the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES), where she is a member of the Project in Medical Humanities, and at the Centre for Administration and Public Policies (CAPP). Her current work focuses on representations of health (chronic illness, the COVID-19 pandemic and mental illness), having taught courses and published in these areas. Currently, her research interests include Medical Humanities, Literary Journalism and Life Writing. https://www.cienciavitae.pt/pt/641D-606A-7EE7.

Mary Fowke

Mary Fowke is a Canadian Psychotherapist, living and working in Lisbon for over 20 years. She holds a BA in English Literature (Univ. Toronto) and an MA in Comparative Literature (Sorbonne) as well as certification from the Gestalt Experiential Training Institute in Vancouver. She has recently completed a PhD in Anglo-American Studies at Univ. Lisbon and is a researcher at the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (CEAUL/ULICES). She has a particular interest in memoir and memory studies, especially as related to attachment, nature, displacement and the imagination. She writes short fiction and is working on a novel.

Michelle Ryan

Michelle Ryan is Senior Lecturer at the Université d’Angers, France, where she oversees the European Network for Short Fiction ResearchHer research focus is the short stories of contemporary women writers with a special emphasis on intermediality, authorship, reading pragmatics and gender. Ms. Ryan has published academic essays about short fiction in edited collections and journals. Her current work involves the interconnection of short forms and digital media, and research-creation approaches to women’s autopathography. Her stories about breast cancer have been published in the Lucent Dreaming magazine anthology Hope is the Thing (2023), in Polysèmes (2023) and CŌNFINGŌ MAGAZINE (2024).

Pilar Burillo Simões

A physician and author of the book, 1 minuto e 36 segundos (2020). She writes for fun, usually on public transport.

Renata Francioni Lopes Zappala

A Dra. Renata Francioni Lopes Zappala é médica graduada pela Universidade Federal Fluminense no Brasil, com equivalência pela Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa em Portugal. Tem Mestrado e Doutorado em Endocrinologia pela Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro e Pós Doutorado pelo Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas da Univ. de Lisboa na área de políticas públicas voltadas para os cuidados paliativos e espiritualidade. É médica da Força Aérea Brasileira e Professora do curso de Medicina da UNiEURO em Brasília. Autora do e-book: Palliative Care with Love and Spirituality: Enlarge your gaze (English Edition) – http://lattes.cnpq.br/3606202307483862

Sara Oportus

Sara Oportus is Teresa López’s pseudonym. Born in Angol, Chile she is a Poet, Actress, and Philosophy Educator. She currently resides in Portugal. She was a fellow of the Camões Institute and is pursuing a doctorate in Philosophy.

Susana Traila

Susana Traila, a PhD Candidate in Bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Porto. She is passionate about Medical Humanities. http://linkedin.com/in/susana-traila

Valk Fisher

Valk Fisher is a writer whose work gravitates to subjects of body, politics and culture, often at their intersection. She runs writing-for-wellbeing workshops and is a PhD researcher at the University of Lisbon. She is currently finishing a memoir on illness, motherhood and care. More work can be found at valkfisher.com. Follow the Broken Body Love Letters Project, an initiative that holds space for empowered first-hand accounts of life with long-term illness and/or disability @bbodyloveletters.

Yuri Bittar

Yuri Bittar is a Designer, Photographer, and Historian, a Professor at CeHFi at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), with a PhD from the Interdisciplinary Program in Health Sciences at UNIFESP. He has been a photographer since 1998, working professionally for magazines and events. As an authorial photographer, he practices street photography and has published two books in this area. Contemplative photography was the subject of his doctoral thesis and he was also one of the pioneers in this area in Brazil. He has also written several articles on contemplative photography. He has taught photography since 2008 and currently he is a researcher and university professor in the area of health humanities.