A newsletter in transition: An editor's thoughts shared
To our subscribers:
For the past two-and-a-half years, The Storyteller and the Listener Online has existed to celebrate and encourage story-tellers and story-listeners who use their gifts to create a gentler, more peaceful world. Now, as its creator and editor, I'm taking a four-month break from publishing it while considering that it might be time for me to make a transition and entrust others with the various aspects of this work.
As many of you know, but as many of you probably don't, I have been living with metastatic breast cancer since 2001. While I've responded very well to my chemotherapy and other treatments, I am cognizant that it is only a matter of time before my cancer escapes the confines of my bones and spreads to vital organs, and my health will be too impaired for me to continue this newsletter. Still, I don't want simply to walk away from it and abandon the wonderful ideas it contains for the role story and narrative can play in peacemaking, healing, bridge building and reconciliation processes.
So when one of our former essayists approached me recently about the possibility that he could make the newsletter part of his noncommercial website and keep it going that way, I listened with the sense that this might be a door opening for a reason. This individual is a therapist who works with story mostly from the listening end of the continuum, but shares my passion for bringing both story-listeners and story-tellers to the discussion. He has some wonderful ideas for transition, including an intention to incorporate interviews and stories in podcast form. However, he could attend to the peacemaking, bridge building and reconciliation focuses only to the degree that they address the interpersonal or intrapersonal level rather than, say, peacemaking activism addressing national or global issues.
I would love to find others who would be interested in addressing the other focuses of the newsletter -- specifically peacemaking activism, environmentalism, social justice and community development -- in the same noncommercial manner in which these discussions have been carried so far, with attention both to the telling of stories and the listening to stories.
My hope is that these various "higher" purposes to which storytelling and story-listening can be applied will continue to be deliberately addressed through forums that bring both professional storytellers and professional story-listeners (e.g., therapists, social workers, clergy, teachers) to the discussion.
I would love to hear from any who would like to explore these ideas of transition with me, to see if they might like to play a role. You can email me at healing_stories @ mac dot com
In the meantime, enjoy the archives, which you can access from the left column!
Holly Stevens
Editor and Publisher