Four More Days

On why anyone would share their stories with the whole world anyway

My talented friend, Corrie, designed this graphic (and more below) with quotes from Tell Me The Dream Again.

After my first day of recording the audio book version of Tell Me The Dream again, one of the sound engineers I was working with asked me, “What made you want to share your life with the rest of the world?”

I laughed. It was a valid question then, and it’s a valid question for most writers, especially anyone who writes memoir or personal narrative. In some ways, it seems absurd.

I looked back at her for a moment, thinking about how she and I were strangers just that morning, and yet by lunch time, she’d spent more uninterrupted hours listening to me tell stories about my life than a lot of people I see regularly.

The thing is, a writer, or memoirist, chooses the stories they want to tell, in the order they want to tell them, according to their own imperfect memories and ever-changing view of the world. It really is partially absurd and I think those of us who do it must be a little absurd to carry on in it.

What it all comes down to for me, is that storytelling is a tender way of hospitality in the world. I don’t write for shock value.  I write because I have stories that want to be told (more on this to come), and because for me, writing is a way of welcome.

It’s writing that welcomed my untold stories in.  It’s vulnerable stories shared that offered my stories room to stretch out and breathe.  It was memoirs and other stories told with raw honesty and vulnerability that gave me hope when tidy stories had worked so hard to try and take it away.

Tell Me The Dream Again releases in four days. 

To those of you who have been journeying with me throughout this book adventure, thank you. Not one of your emails, texts, DMs, or comments have gone unnoticed. They truly mean the world to me – and more than that, they’ve carried me through this particular stretch of launch season. Thank you for cheering me on, re-sharing my posts, and telling your friends, family, and communities about my book. 

A few days ago I read these words in an Instagram post by my new friend Amy, and her words reminded me why I wrote Tell Me The Dream Again and why I write at all:

“I’ve been waiting for over 30 years for a book like this, and I came upon it by chance through a Publisher’s Weekly article…” Read the rest of her words here.

After the sound engineer and I kept talking that morning months ago, she told me how the stories I shared made her wonder about her own family of upbringing and the cultures and stories she carried in her genes.

Reading or listening to another person’s story helps us to uncover our own.

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If you are wondering how you can help launch (shout-out to the best launch team ever, btw) my book, and have the desire and capacity to do so, here are a few easy ways:

• Pre-orders (this tells retailers the book is important and gives it more visibility)

• Amazon and Goodreads rating (stars) AND reviews (your words)– especially right after the release!

• Requesting the book at your local library

• Share about the book with your friends, family, and communities.

• Buy the book as a gift!

• Organize a summer book club reading (I’m already planning to virtually visit a few book clubs that chose it for one of their summer reads and I’d love to join yours).

• Attend one of the following events (and invite friend) online on IG, or in-person if you are local:

The Indy Reads event on May 20th requires registration. Register here.

That’s it for now. Please feel free to hit reply and let me know how you are doing. I’d love to know.

Grateful & shalomsick,