Cortney Davis began her career in healthcare as a nurse's aide, then as an OR scrub tech. After graduating from nursing school, she worked as an RN in Intensive Care and in Oncology. Again returning to university, she became a Nurse Practitioner, working in cardiology and pulmonary practices and for many years in women's health. In her writing, she examines how we care, or fail to care, for one another--the written word becoming the perfect place in which the act of caring becomes a way of keeping, revealing the mysteries of the world. Having been both a nurse and a patient, she believes that a patient's room is a sacred space. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, three Connecticut Commission on Tourism and the Arts Poetry Grants, the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry for Leopold's Maneuvers, the Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize for Taking Care of Time, two Connecticut Center for the Book Awards (in Non-Fiction and Poetry), an Independent Publisher's Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal in Non-Fiction, a Tillie Olsen Creative Writing Award, and six Books of the Year awards from the American Journal of Nursing. In 2007, she was awarded a Nightingale Award for excellence in nursing. In addition to nursing credentials, Cortney holds a BA and MA in English. She was selected to be the first poet laureate of Bethel, CT, 2019-2022. For more information, visit www.cortneydavis.com.
