Our History
Last Writers was founded in August 2019 by Yilong Peng. Yilong (pronounced EE-long), a volunteer with Three Oaks Hospice (then Total Hospice and Palliative Care) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, transformed his unique vision of combining creative writing and palliative care into a tangible memoir writing project.
In March 2020, Yilong, then a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, began working with Dr. Joanna Gentsch, a psychology professor and director of community engaged learning at the university, to adapt the memoir-writing model into a community-service based course. The course educates students on narrative medicine and palliative care and provides resources and support for students as they write memoirs with patients.
The Last Writers class debuted in August 2020 with twelve students. It was a great success, and several students joined the Last Writers team to continue the project. The second course offering was in January 2021 and featured over forty students. Since then, the Last Writers program has become a mainstay course offered at UT Dallas, and continues to operate as an entirely student-designed, student-led, and student-taught course that emphasizes learning both in and out of the classroom.