The Storyteller Project: Introduction

Not only did I have 13 women who had paid a registration fee and made travel arrangements to attend a workshop on digital storytelling, but I had received funding for the project, and money had already been spent on graphic design, t-shirts, swag, and workshop materials. In advance of the workshop, Rachel and I had anticipated the possibility of a research study stemming from our project, so I had submitted an IRB application to the university to get permission to conduct interviews, and requested a graduate student assistant for the fall semester who could help organize the data. When the workshop date changed, Oluwadamilola (Lola) Olabisi, my graduate assistant, became involved with the planning and logistics for the workshop, and would be present to assist with the day to day, and minute by minute agenda during the event (Lola's reflection on her experience with the workshop is included in this issue: "Digital Storytelling and Private Disclosure: From the Perspective of An Outsider Within"). The stories told in this issue echo themes of resilience, survival, sacrifice, grief and loss, trauma, intimate partner violence, racism, misogyny, depression, imagination, embodiment, self-love, recovery and poetry.