Hey folks!
Just wanted to make you aware that three of the readers from the upcoming special edition of Reclaiming Our Stories will be reading at an online event later this week on Wednesday, April 28 at 11:10 AM.
Just a snippet from the manuscript to give a little background…
The Reclaiming Our Stories project was first launched in the summer of 2015. The original idea behind Reclaiming Our Stories (ROS) was to create an environment where community members could come together to share their stories with friends and family and celebrate how amazing they were. Although many of the stories were about traumatic events in their lives, the fact that they had overcome those events was a testament to their strength and resilience. In the months that we worked together, we built a trusting community of writers, and by finally reading their stories to an audience, most of our writers recognized and expressed that the experience had in many ways been both cathartic and healing.
This special edition of the Reclaiming Our Stories project, unlike our previous two volumes, is a theme-based collection focusing on the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the massive uprising across the United States against police brutality.
Each voice in this volume is an invaluable contribution to the collective chorus of resistance. A chorus that requires many voices, and one that must be sustained and full-throated if we are ever to see a significant change in this country. Our goal has been to capture these lived experiences while still fresh in the minds and hearts of these authors.
With this project, our goal was not only to document the turbulence and heat of this unprecedented moment, but also to capture the bravery exhibited by so many among us. Reader, it is not just our hope that you can find your way into these stories, but that you can contribute one of your own when the time is right for you.
The upcoming edition, which I co-edited and wrote the historical backdrop for is due out for publication in late spring. You can see the historical backdrop I wrote before the book comes out here…
Best regards,
Darius
