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Rondalyn Whitney
Rondalyn Varney Whitney, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, is an author, researcher, poet, and retired academic with over 25 years of experience in occupational therapy and health sciences. She holds an advanced certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University, a discipline that shapes her current focus on deeply reading life's texts and listening to the "news" within complex human encounters.
Dr. Whitney’s clinical and academic research extensively examines family quality of life, maternal stress, and children's neurobehavioral development. Transitioning her lifelong clinical lens to creative non-fiction, her writing acts as a deliberate act of defiant healing—shining a light in dark spaces so others can rediscover the world’s awe-inspiring beauty. [1]
She is the author of over a dozen books, including text guides such as A Writer's Toolkit for Occupational Therapy and Health Care Professionals and parenting resources such as Bridging the Gap: Raising a Child with Nonverbal Learning Disorder. Her latest projects bridge the raw transition from wife to widow following the traumatic loss of her husband, Bill. This profound journey is captured in her highly acclaimed grief memoir, Habits of Widows, and her upcoming work, Lies in the Afterlife. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Now residing in Western Massachusetts, she balances her creative endeavors with intentional acts of personal rebellion—spending her time at the local gym, tracking watchful Red-tailed hawks, and reading by her firepit
