Our Mission
Healing Words Productions explores connections between healing and the expressive arts. We are here for all those who have been affected by illness—for doctors, nurses, hospice workers, caregivers, patients, their families and friends. We are here for poets and artists. We are here for everyone. Our mission is to produce documentaries on
- medical programs that use poetry therapeutically
- poets who have written poetry as a means of confronting and understanding illness
- poetry as a spiritual guide available to all people
Our website is a resource for the growing poetry and medicine movement. Here you will find uplifting poems and video clips from our documentaries. We continue to add to our site, so please visit us often.
Producers
Producer Biographies
Joan Baranow PhD
(The Time We Have; Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine)
Joan Baranow is the author of In the Next Life, Living Apart, and two poetry chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Gettysburg Review, Blackbird, Forklift OH, Poetry East, JAMA, and elsewhere. She founded the Low-Residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Dominican University of CA, one of the few Low-Res MFA programs that offer a Narrative/Poetic Medicine track.
James Cavenaugh
(Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine)
James has written, directed, and produced hundreds of video programs for broadcast, training, and promotion. His documentaries include the Apple Multi-Media Lab, A Report from Childhood, Chernobyl: The Secret Cloud, and others. He has also produced corporate programs, public service campaigns, and promotional videos for both local and national organizations.
Victoria Chaban
(Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine)
Vicki is a San Francisco-based filmmaker and visual artist. Prior to independent filmmaking, she worked for a number of Bay Area production companies as an award-winning producer of industrial films and documentaries.
David Watts MD
(Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine)
David is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF and teaches literature at the Fromm Institute of San Francisco. He was on camera host during the 1980s for various programs on Lifetime Network, PBS, and local Channel 2 News. He was also a radio host and still does occasional commentary on NPR’s All Things Considered. He has published four books of poetry, several novels, and two collections of non-fiction stories about the doctor-patient relationship—Bedside Manners and The Orange Wire Problem.
Director/Videographer/Camera
David Drewry
(The Time We Have; Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine)
David has twenty-five years of experience in feature, documentary, and commercial production. Features include Flashback, Child’s Play Ill, DUNE, The Forgotten One, and Big Diamond Mystery. Documentary credits include the award winning Bound by the Wind and Crossing Boundaries. He has shot extensively in remote locations around the globe and is currently focusing on projects with strong social or artistic merit.
