Welcome to “Stories We Live”, a place to explore the myriad uses of personal story and narrative to promote healing and conversation. Included below are personal stories, reflective narrative accounts of the experience of telling and working with personal story, and thoughtful observations and explanations of how personal stories are used to help create occasions of healing for self and others.
We welcome your reflections on what you find here. We are eager to hear how these and other stories have evoked memories or hidden stories within you or a listener. We would also appreciate your contributions of a personal story or experience working with story in your healing work, whether it is in a formal healing setting or an informal interaction.
We encourage you to use these stories and commentaries as examples to help you create and use your own personal stories and/or to develop approaches to using personal story in your healing work. However, we ask that these stories not be performed, recorded or reused for any commercial purpose without specific permission from HSA and the author.
Stories We Live Blog
Story Now Interview: Jackie & Papa Wright, Jr. – St. Louis, Missouri
At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts …
Story Now Interview: Jackie & Papa Wright, Jr. – St. Louis, Missouri Details »
Story Now Interview: Karen Dietz – San Diego, California
At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts …
Story Now Interview: Karen Dietz – San Diego, California Details »
How Storytelling Can Help Young Doctors Become More Resilient
Harvard Business Review | October 16, 2018 by Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH I recently stood in front of a group of emergency room residents at my hospital and asked an unusual question. “Has any of you ever judged your attending physician for not trying hard enough to save a patient’s life?” Then I looked around …
How Storytelling Can Help Young Doctors Become More Resilient Details »
The economy could use more storytellers
Marketplace | October 21, 2019 by Bennett Purser and Kai Ryssdal College degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are seen as lucrative, reliable path to a career. But an uptick in STEM majors since the financial crisis means English majors are down 25.5%, which appears to be worrying some economic leaders. That’s because …
Story Now Interview: Karen Golden – Los Angeles, California
At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy and education. New Interview Series…STORY NOW! The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts …
Story Now Interview: Karen Golden – Los Angeles, California Details »
Story Now Interview: Artem Mushin-Makedonskiy – Moscow, Russia
At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy and education. New Interview Series…STORY NOW! The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts …
Story Now Interview: Artem Mushin-Makedonskiy – Moscow, Russia Details »
Onawumi Jean Moss
Storytelling In Times Like These The focus of this teleconference is on storytelling as a pivotal instrument to spark interest in social change. Storytelling is an integral part of our consciousness. In the best of times it is sent forth to nurture our dreams, aspirations and our ability to think highly of ourselves and others. In …
Lee Ellen Marvin
Lee Ellen shares from her experiences as educator and arts administrator for the Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service in Ithaca, NY., and specifically how she utilizes storytelling to educate the community and reach the populations in crisis, and support those left behind. Recorded November 10, 2015
Michael McCarty
Michael spoke of his work with the California’s Arts in Corrections program: Inmates learn the power of the art of storytelling. “But I don’t know how to tell a story” is a phrase I hear often at the beginning of my workshop – followed by the telling of a touching or humorous tale. Using a …
Regi Carpenter
Living Out Loud. The exploration and expression of the self can be fraught with fear and anxiety. We are so often concerned with how our stories will be met by the world that we silent our voices. This teleconference discusses the things we fear: ridicule, judgment, failing, being vulnerable, feeling incompetent, being misunderstood and being …
Healing Story Pre-Conference Preview 2016
Michael McCarty, Susan O’Halloran, Lilli Pang, Emily Lansana, Lani Peterson This teleconference gives you a sneak preview into some of the Healing Story gems that will unfold at the NSN Conference in Kansas City the third week in July. The focus of both HSA’s Wednesday night Concert and Thursday morning Pre-Conference is Social justice. Whether …
Joan Stockbridge
Tips, Tools, and Stories: Highlights from 15 years of Healing Story Work. In this teleconference, we’ll do a virtual mini-healing story session. I facilitate these sessions regularly in residential drug treatment programs, homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, and beyond. My primary focus in the groups is to foster resilience, self worth, courage, forgiveness, strength, …
Tom DeWolf and Sharon Morgan
Gather at the Table: Story Sharing between Descendants of Slavery and Descendants of the Slave Trade. Centuries of injustice and trauma that face us every day in this country have no place for half-truths. Sharon and Tom took the harder road – searching for healing, they walked together into painful histories and forged an honest …
Arthuretta H Martin
Sankofa: Fetching our Souls through Story. Sankofa 2016 – December is a time that we traditionally wind down and reflect on the past year and prepare for the new one to come. Sankofa is a word in the Twi language of Ghana that translates as “Go back and get it.” In the Asante Adinkra symbol …