Can doctors apply literary studies in their work? Guðrún Steinþórsdóttir, a new PhD in literature, has over the past few semesters taught medical students to use literature in their interactions with patients. Her doctoral thesis, The reality of the mind is a fairytale: the selected stories by Vigdís Grímsdóttur, their characteristics and reception came out in book form published by Hið íslenska bókmenntafélagið before Christmas. The Student Paper sat down with Guðrún to discuss the dissertation, teaching at the Faculty of Medicine and the relationship between these two disciplines - literature and medicine, which at first sight, perhaps, seems unlikely.

Creative writing students at the University of Iceland have for the past few years gotten the complicated assignment to write short stories, constricted to a certain word count. The creative writing student’s Christmas book is launching in the middle of December and each short story in the book has to be exactly 91 words.