Voices of the Bay: Bristol’s Colleen Cavanaugh

For Colleen Cavanaugh, her world of artistic expression has taken shape through piano, dance, and writing alongside her 30-year career as an obstetrician-gynecologist in Rhode Island. Recently retired, the Bristol resident whose medical essays have appeared in the Journal of Narrative Medicine now devotes her time to writing daily. She has recently published her first book, Grandmother’s Gift with illustrations by Carolyn Winter, also of Bristol. The young adult novel centers around a young dancer’s life in New York City. For Cavanaugh, it is a world she knows firsthand. After earning her BA in Art History from Wheaton College, she pursued her dream of becoming a professional dancer in New York City. Cavanaugh eventually returned to Rhode Island to attend Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, but she never hung up her dance shoes. While working as a medical provider specializing in women’s reproductive health, she remained active in the dance community. Her second book, Extraordinary Piano Lesson, is scheduled for release in December by Stillwater Books.

JUST WRITE:

Starting five or six years ago, I took some graduate-level courses at Rhode Island College in creative writing. Initially, I wrote narrative essays about my experiences in medicine, which were published. Then I wrote about a dancer who discovers she can fly. It was a short story, and the professor said, “That sounds like a young adult book.” So I took off and started to write. Flying is a gift the main character inherited from her grandmother, who she never knew about, and who had just passed away. I don’t outline. I write and kind of see where it takes me. I think about [the writing] all the time. If I have an episode to add or a character to fine-tune, then I go back and edit.

COMMUNITY:

I’m in a writing group through the Rogers Free Library in Bristol, which has been wonderful. I get a lot out of it each time I go. I’ve been writing about my son Peter’s progressive neurologic disease from a mother’s perspective versus as a doctor. One is called “Kitchen Tango” because, when he was young, we used to do the tango
in the kitchen.

BOOK TWO:

My second book is also a young adult novel, Extraordinary Pianist, which will be published in December and centers around a young pianist. I’ve always played piano, so it’s kind of my voice exploring an art form and the struggles of loss. I lost my own dad when I was six, and he was a jazz pianist. It also has some magical themes in it. I’ve always loved reading books with magical content and escapism. And the same with that writing; it’s kind of therapeutic.

MOVEMENT:

I had choreographed quite a few pieces for what was then Festival Ballet, now Ballet RI, and Island Moving Company, now Newport Contemporary Ballet. I started my own company, Cadence Dance Project, and performed all over Rhode Island. Two of my pieces were selected by Ballet Builders in New York. I also did pieces around breast cancer and healing. It was performed with Amazon Women Waking
Warriors in Europe.

FULL CIRCLE RHODY:

I signed a copy of Extraordinary Gift for a woman who was giving it to her niece on her 16th birthday. She started reading it and loving it. Two days later, when she went to the bank to open her first bank account, she had to provide her birth certificate. And I was on her birth certificate as the delivery doctor. Sixteen years later, she’s reading my book. It’s a Rhode Island moment.

Colleen Cavanaugh will be signing books on October 18 at Barrington Books, 184 County Road, Barrington. Learn more at BarringtonBooks.com