Today we’d like to introduce you to Yilong Peng
Hi Yilong, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I founded Last Writers in my senior year of college at the University of Texas at Dallas. I was interested in medicine and was preparing to apply to medical school. I have also long had a love for storytelling and writing. Through my work volunteering with hospice patients, I wanted the chance to share their stories. With the help of my college mentors, I founded the nonprofit and we created a curriculum and class where students like me could volunteer with hospice patients to document and publish their stories. Our first semester was a great success with 12 finished books. From there, things took off! The organization has continued to grow as more chapters have popped up at other schools and hospice programs, and I’ve gotten to work with people all across the country to improve our curriculum and writing process. Now I am in medical school and our work is still going strong!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Of course not! There were many challenges, both ideological and logistical, in developing this project. There is always a process when you want to create a new organization of getting buy-in from the groups you are trying to work with. And working with hospice patients brings special considerations, given that they are at their end of life and you want to honor that, to do right by them while also doing so in a timely manner. With students, it is important to provide them the support they need as well to be able to have these complex conversations and to bring both knowledge and artistry into their writing. On the organizational side, I was never someone with a strong business acumen, so I needed to learn a lot about creating a nonprofit organization, figuring out financials, and building a strong leadership team to work with. The vision has evolved and changed many times as I’ve been helped by those with more experience and much wiser than me, and has grown even more from the students who work with me as they bring their own ideas to the table.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In this work, I love the process of writing! Part of its design principle is exposing pre-medical and medical students to writing, which can be difficult in a field very driven by science and restrictive in its flexibility for other endeavors. In my professional life as a medical student and hopefully soon-to-be physician, I want to continue exploring how writing for a layperson audience can help share information about the medical field which would otherwise be difficult to access, how it can allay fears and quell doubts, and empower patients to understand more about systems of care and their role in it. In my personal life, I still enjoy reading and writing fiction completely unrelated to medicine. Hoping to publish a book or two in my lifetime!
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
The most important lesson I’ve learned has been that people are the fundamental unit of importance for anything in your life. With the patients we work with, we see how much they are loved by those who will survive them, and the tender care which they gave and received from one another over the course of their lifetimes. With the students, it is their heart and dedication to our work which makes it possible and meaningful. And with the people I work with, it is their genuine investment in each other rather than a product or the namesake of our organization which has allowed us to grow and flourish semester after semester, year after year.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lastwriters.org
