This is a book talk between authors Kathleen Watt and UCSF alumna, Claire Unis, MD (class of 2000).

Masks are encouraged for in-person attendance or the conversation can be watched online at:
https://youtube.com/live/5M1pYhvNRzA?feature=share

About Rearranged
Rearranged tells of leaving the operatic stage for a starring role opposite the Big C. Bone cancer in my cheek ended my career as an opera singer and brought me face to face with mortality, disfigurement, the meaning and uses of beauty—and a lot of left over pieces.

A small corps of medical elites convened to excoriate my diseased bones with surgical wizardry and lethal toxins, and stayed on to restore me to myself through a brutal alchemy of kindness and titanium screws.

Rearranged is a tale of letting go to hold on, of putting old pieces to new uses—and of the unlikely arrangements that make it all work out.

About Kathleen Watt
Kathleen Watt sang principal roles with Boston Lyric Opera, Springfield Regional Opera, Utah Opera Company, Opera Works New York, and as a member of the Extra Chorus of the New York Metropolitan Opera, before her singing career was derailed by a diagnosis of osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) in the face.  Since retiring from performing, she has written frequently on performing arts and LGBTQ issues, featuring profiles and essays, for The Arts Council, Deutsche Gramophone (liner notes), New York City Opera Season Journal, Houston Grand Opera, Central City Opera, Washington National Opera, Playbill Magazine, Stagebill Magazine, Echelon Magazine, and New York Newsday.  As a writer and cancer survivor, Kathleen has contributed editorial content to the London-based “Saving Faces” charity, and collaborated with doctors and artists on a range of projects, including an appearance in a BBC-4 special series about facial disfigurement.  Formerly an assistant art director in publishing, her rich, varied experience also includes a teaching stint in the Navajo Nation of Arizona.  Kathleen has attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, Brigham Young University (earning a double BFA), with postgraduate studies in operatic performance from Boston University.  Kathleen writes from a windswept hay farm in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, where she resides with her partner, fifteen chickens, three dogs, and on occasion, their two grown children. Rearranged is Kathleen’s first book.

About Claire Unis
Claire Unis MD MFA is a pediatrician and author of a memoir about drawing on diverse experiences in the process of becoming a doctor, titled Balance, Pedal, Breathe: A Journey through Medical School. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have been published in a number of journals including Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Awakenings Review, and East Iowa Review. She facilitates writing workshops, narrative medicine sessions, and discussions of literature through her moniker, LifeLines: Literary Art in Medicine.