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Holding The Stories of Justice for the Uncertain Times Ahead - By Andrea Spagat

I remember where I was when I heard the news about our current President-elect making comments about his ability to grab women's crotches without consequence. I remember it because, like so many other women, I’ve experienced this kind of groping, at the hands of an entitled male. For me, it was when I was 12. I'm still wondering how to talk about all of this with my feisty eight-year old daughter.

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“Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is” – by Rob Kershaw

Somewhere in a box, stored either here or there, is a framed, aerial photograph of an offshore semi-submersible drilling rig – the Ocean Ranger – being pulled out to sea just off the coast of Newfoundland. The derrick in particular, if I remember correctly, is lit soft orange by early morning sunlight and the ocean is dead calm.

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Strangers in a Strange Land… No More – by Allison Myers

“I told myself then, 'Never forget this day,'" Mohammed Alyaqubi tells me while I eat dinner with him and his mother, Khalida, my friends who are refugees from Iraq. "I came home from school – I remember what I was wearing. I threw my bag down and the phone rang. ‘Congratulations – on June 11 you have a flight to the U.S.’ We started dancing, turned on the radio, Mom cried."

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Renewal Comes Calling: Telling Stories for Their Own Sake – by Rob Kershaw

Janet, the rancher I worked for in the late 1990s, called me out of the blue last week . . . Recently I was looking at a photograph I took during that one of those calving season. Why I was looking at this photograph had nothing to do with working at the ranch, but rather to do with my work at CDS, about desire paths, about wanting to be acknowledged and feel enabled. I don’t tell Janet this, although she would have listened deeply. Instead I describe the photograph to her and in doing so tell a story. She remembers…

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Cajun Cookin’ Cajoles Culinary Tales in New Orleans - by Joe Lambert

Our stories focused on the centrality of food to our individual and communal identities. Not surprisingly, everyone had powerful stories to tell about their connections to food, and the initial introductions had us hungry for finding out where this journey would take us, but also just plain hungry as we sampled the best of the nearby Cake Cafe.

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Thoughts about Wynne’s Story - by Daniel Weinshenker

"Look," I said, "let's take him to Chitral! There's a jeep in the baazar. Let's go." But Taleem Khana Nana said she wanted to wait for her husband to come home, surely he would be home soon and then he would come with me to take the baby. I said we should go now. I said I would pay for the jeep and the hospital. She said, "Surely he'll come. Let's wait."

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Full Circle - by Joe Lambert

For 20 years (this month!), the Center for Digital Storytelling has been supporting people in sharing meaningful stories from their lived experiences – because stories matter. Last week, Joe Lambert (our Founding Director) and I were in L.A. teaching a workshop at the Museum of Natural History. As we drove past the American Film Institute, he said, “This all started right here 20 years ago this week, at our first digital storytelling workshop hosted by AFI.”

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