HSA Articles

by Katie Green. Once in a while, when someone leams that I tell stories in prison, they say “What?Are you crazy?” or they quip, “Well, at least you have a captive audience there!” Like many storytellers, most of my work is in schools, but taking storytelling into prison is one of the most rewarding things

by Gene and Peggy Helmick-Richardson. Why do we present volunteer storytelling programs at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and women’s shelter? That answer is both easy and complex; circles, circles within circles, circles above, circles below, circles overlapping. We try to do our storytelling programs in circles as much as possible. This cannot always

by Loren Niemi. “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” Herman Melville Telling your own story helps illuminate the universal in the specific. It lets you own your experience, emotions, pain and hope. Telling the story of the “Other” is an act of compassion that lets you recognize their humanity

Maureen Evans. The parable of the Prodigal Son, from the Gospel of Luke 15:11-32, resonates with me as an apt and adaptable story about the complexity of forgiveness. The word “prodigal” means wasteful, especially with money. Rembrandt’s painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” hanging in The Hermitage, has a strong place in my heart.

by Aanand Chabukswar. Background The World Centre for Creative Learning Foundation (WCCLF), a group of teachers-artists within India, introduces art forms for healing and growth into various settings. Before the project “CHI” —energy!— (Creative Healing Interventions) began in 2001, no known programs of creative therapies existed in 365 drug and alcohol abuse prevention and rehabilitation

by Michael Cotter. A few years back, I was fortunate to join in as the storyteller for an experiential workshop involving a film crew, health professionals, musicians and twenty-two terminally ill people of various ages. This collaboration resulted in a powerful film, “The Healing Power of Stories, ” that documents one of the most memorable

by Vanita Moore. About ten years ago when I wrote this story, I never dreamed I’d find myself back in Indiana, working beside my husband in his family’s funeral home or using a story to help a grieving widow. But one day, as we sat in her farmhouse living room and talked about how hard

By Peggy Helmick-Richardson. For it was a saying among them that a man is not really dead until he is forgotten. —“Cow-Tail Switch” from A Treasury of African Folklore, Harold Courlander. Born in 1924, Hilda Stern Cohen was raised in the tiny German village of Nieder Ohmen. When Hitler came to power, Hilda and her