Dianne was born in Indiana and raised by educators in a small town surrounded by farms. Once in Indianapolis at Butler University, she left her intended English major to pursue premed coursework, ultimately earning her MD from Indiana University School of Medicine. Having explored both coasts, she headed to Seattle for residencies at the University of Washington, and subsequently moved to Fresno, California, for employment on the faculty of the University of California at San Francisco’s residency training program there. Three years later, she and her husband moved to the Boston area, where they settled into medical teaching and patient care, along with raising their four children.

Dianne retired from her teaching and clinical work as an Associate Professor of Dermatology at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. As a survivor through chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, and a host of complications, she focused her efforts on poetry. A past Pushcart nominee, she has studied with Jeffrey Levine, Joan Houlihan, Tom Daley, and instructors in the PoemWorks Workshop for Publishing Poets.

Nominated for the PEN/America Voelcker Award, Dianne Silvestri’s poetry book But I Still Have My Fingerprints came out from CavanKerry Press in 2022. Dianne is author of the chapbook Necessary Sentiments (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her poems have been published in numerous journals, including Barrow Street, The Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Oncology, The American Journal of Nursing, The Healing Muse, Pulse, Journal of Radiology Nursing, The Cortland Review, Evening Street Review, The Examined Life Journal, Poetry South, Blast Furnace, Earth’s Daughters, and THEMA, as well as in the anthologies The Practicing Poet: Writing Beyond the Basics; Joys of the Table: An Anthology of Culinary Verse; what the poem knows; and paniK: Candid Stories of Life Altering Experiences Surrounding Pregnancy.

Dianne can be heard at local poetry readings in the Boston area. She advocates for Medical Humanities through speaking and teaching. Co-founder of the Morse Poetry Group in Natick, Massachusetts, she taught as a volunteer in the public schools and has worked as a medical writer and editor. Her hobbies include gardening, photography, ballroom dancing with her husband, and spending time with her children and grandchildren.