Share this story

Newsmaker: From physician to novelist

Keynote speaker at UMMS-sponsored Women Authors Evening featured in Boston Globe

tess_globe 

Tess Gerritsen, MD, New York Times bestselling author and keynote speaker at the upcoming Women Authors Evening at UMass Medical School, spoke to the Boston Globe about what it’s like to be a physician and a novelist. 

The Women Authors Evening, beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, May 2, is the featured event of the YWCA Daybreak Program’s fundraising series Women’s Words Week. Daybreak provides services to residents of Central Massachusetts who are affected by domestic violence. 

The creative force behind the TNT series “Rizzoli & Isles,” Dr. Gerritsen’s medical mystery novels have been translated into 37 languages and include The Keepsake, The Mephisto Club, Vanish, Body Double and The Bone Garden. She took an unusual route to fiction writing. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her medical degree, she wrote her first book while on maternity leave from her work as a physician. With her medical background, Gerritson is able to translate complex medical science for her readers. Her first medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. In 2001, she penned the first of eight books featuring detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles. Set in Boston, the ninth installment of the Rizzoli and Isles series, The Silent Girl, will be available on July 15. 

Doctor of arts and science

 


Related links:
 

Daybreak shines a light on domestic violence 
Women’s Words Art Exhibit showcases local women artists