Welcome to Story Medicine, my newsletter for the Storyhood® community. Twice a month, I share something new – a lesson I learned, an idea I wrestled, or something perplexing I just found – plus a story prompt for you to explore in your own voice.
Start here
Storytelling as a Practice
New to Story Medicine? Start with this foundational piece on what storytelling as a practice really means.
#24: Selling my wedding dress
Last week, I sold some of my mom’s chunky jewelry and dropped off my vintage wedding dress to be sold online. “It’s a good karma dress,” I wrote in the notes, imagining someone else laughing in it, dancing in it, feeling themselves elevated and down to earth at once. Looking back, I don’t feel like…
#23: The miraculous in everyday life
One day, now decades ago, I said – out loud to myself – “you know, Carol (that was the name I called myself then) everyone you meet is here for a reason. Your job is to figure out what that reason is.” It felt like something my father might say, both simple and oracular, possible…
#22: What does repair look like?
March 7, 2026 | Chicago I’m in Chicago for the culmination of Luvvie Ajayi Jones extraordinary six-month Mastermind on Book Marketing. I have not experienced quite this feeling of joyful anticipation since the snowy day I defended my PhD dissertation at Princeton. I felt both excited and scared when I was prepping for the Story2…
#21: What does it mean to forgive ourselves?
When I imagine taking the best parts of all the world’s religions and making one vessel that holds all that is ideal in each of them, I think of Jesus as the exemplar of human forgiveness. The spring after my father died – I was 16 and in eleventh grade – I leaned on my…
#20: “We were trafficked…”
My friend was visiting town for Thanksgiving. I was sitting on her couch, as the sun set, when I told her the story I’ve told you … I talked not so much about the violation years ago, but how he had remained a friend of my mother’s, and I had asked him not to come…
#19: What is Resistance Storytelling?
February 17 marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, the start of Ramadan, and Mardi Gras, the masquerade just before Lent in Christian tradition. The Jewish festival of Purim, on which Mardi Gras is based, follows on March 2. We are entering a Year of the Fire Horse – the last one of these…