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Literature, Medicine, and Everything Else That Makes Us Human

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Author: irismonicavargas

I am a writer, trained in Physics and, fair to say, life-long student, as well as, unavoidably, and eternally, an island girl. Puerto Rico is the Caribbean island where I grew up. It is my country and my home. I migrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts to complete a fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Before that, I completed a master's degree in Physics, and a double bachelor's degree in Physics and Biology. Currently, I am a medical student, cultivating a dual career in writing and science. El Nuevo Día, Puerto Rico's main newspaper, and specifically, Sr. Francisco Vacas, gave me my first writing experience for a general audience. With Francisco as my mentor, I wrote a bi-monthly column called "Ciencia Boricua", which was named Best New Column of the Year Award by the colleagues at the newspaper in 2005. In 2009, I collaborated with Harvard Science, under the supervision of Pulizer Prize winning journalist B.D. Colen. That same year, I graduated from the Science Writing Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During my time there, I had the amazing opportunity to polish my skills as a writer under the guidance of wonderful writers such as Russ Rymer (Genie), Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams), Marcia Bartusiak (The Day We Found The Universe), Robert Kanigel (Faux Leather), and Tom Levenson (Einstein in Berlin). At MIT, I also had the pleasure of learning the craft fiction writing under the tutelage of insightful, funny, and quirky Junot Díaz (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his first novel "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao") — one of the most wonderful and formative learning experiences I have ever had as a writer. That same year at Harvard, I finally had the opportunity to formalize my love for poetry under the guidance of poet Peter Richards (Helsinki, Nude Siren). I believe that being a writer is ten percent talent and ninety percent hard work - practice, practice and more practice. Junot Diaz said it best: "You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she/he writes well and easily, because she/he has amazing talent, because everything she/he does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway." I would say a writer is a writer because You have something to say, because you believe in your capacity and potential for growth, because you do not give up in the face of failure or rejection, and because you believe that having a voice is important, not because it will make you any more special than the rest, but because your voice is a witness to the humanity that exists, and in that regard, it can make a significant contribution. My name is Iris Mónica Vargas. I believe in empathy, in the great potential we have as human beings to become collaborators for good and goodness in this amazing —sometimes sad, sometimes happy—space we call Earth.

spirit in black

“Si el texto, si el cuerpo no responde con temblor, entonces hay que hurgar más.” Continue reading spirit in black

irismonicavargasAugust 3, 2022August 8, 2022Leave a comment

The Time I Led A Code at the Airport

The strangest thing I see is the transition between deadness and aliveness, the way this man’s face gets filled again as though with something. Continue reading The Time I Led A Code at the Airport

irismonicavargasDecember 4, 2021December 4, 2021Leave a comment

¿Cómo habla una mujer? ¿De qué habla?

Cada recurso y muchas figuras retóricas exigen del lector/a una participación para, juntos, descorrer el velo. Aún así esto no basta porque el velo tal vez sea el territorio por excelencia donde habita el poema. Continue reading ¿Cómo habla una mujer? ¿De qué habla?

irismonicavargasOctober 26, 2021November 3, 2021Leave a comment

Una abuelita suicida

Crónica, por Iris Mónica Vargas Había decidido tomar un rato para contemplar el mar, y me detuve en aquella playa por ser la más cercana a donde me encontraba. Buscaba un poco de serenidad en la tarde de un día que había estado lleno de eventualidades. En la noche llovería muy fuerte. Por ahora las nubes engordaban lentamente, se pintaban de negro y picaban al … Continue reading Una abuelita suicida

irismonicavargasOctober 3, 2021December 3, 2021Leave a comment

Riesgo y vulnerabilidad

Nos debemos, colectivamente, tanto la vulnerabilidad como la ternura. Continue reading Riesgo y vulnerabilidad

irismonicavargasAugust 11, 2021August 19, 2021Leave a comment

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Literature, Medicine, & Everything Else That Makes Us Human

Stethoscopes & Pencils (Lápices y estetoscopios) es una iniciativa literaria, nacida en Puerto Rico, para contar historias importantes sobre nuestra condición humana mediante la exploración de las intersecciones entre la ciencia y el arte de la medicina, el pensamiento filosófico del humanismo, y la literatura.

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Stethoscopes & Pencils is a literary collaborative through which to tell stories that explore our human condition  via the intersections between science and the art of medicine, humanism and literature.

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