Patricia Lynne Duffy

Patricia Lynne Duffy is the author of Blue Cats and Chartreuse Kittens: How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds, the first book by a synesthete about synesthesia.^[1] Blue Cats has been reviewed in both the popular press as well as in academic journals, Cerebrum and the APA Review of Books. The book describes Duffy's own experience of synesthesia, as well as that of the many synesthetes she interviewed, along with theories of what causes synesthetic perception.

She is the author of the chapter, "Synesthesia and Literature", included in the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia (

University of Texas at Houston, the Leibniz University Hannover, McMaster University^[2] and Vanderbilt University as well as an event hosted by the organization Ediciones Fundación Internacional Artecittà at the University of Granada.^[3]

In addition, she has presented on the topic of synesthesia at a number of universities including Yale University, Princeton University, the University of California, San Diego, Rockefeller University, the University of Virginia, the University of Almería, the University of Jaén, Stockholm University and others. Duffy was invited to be a Plenary Speaker on synesthesia at the "Towards a Science of Consciousness" conference at University of Arizona in Tucson.^[4] She is a co-founder of and consultant to the American Synesthesia Association.

Duffy is an instructor in the

Village Voice. Duffy wrote two award-winning essays, "Taipei Tales" and "Dining in French" for the literary journal Literal Latte. Her work is included in the anthologies They Only Laughed Later: Tales of Women on the Move (Europublic Press) and Soulful Living (HCI). She has traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia and lived and worked in China

for a year and a half.

Her special interest is in what she terms "personal coding", the unique way in which each person codes

National Public Radio, the BBC, Public Radio International and the Discovery Channel

.