I talk a lot about how a circle of literary friends can help support you during the hard work of penning your story. The importance of a writing network is even more important if you are a disenfranchised group - like a prisoner in Burma. That is why I am dedicating this blog to the Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that empowers people who have lived through human rights crises by helping them tell their stories.
Titles include:
- Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated
- Voices From the Storm: The Peopole of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath
- UnderGround America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives
- Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan
As Maggie Lemer and Zoe West said so eloquently in the Copyblogger post How to Use Stories to Change the World, "Bloggers are storytellers, and your stories give you power." They are looking for ways to get the word out about all of the books in Voice of Witness, including Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma's Military Regime.
Do you know anyone who is too scared, tired, or oppressed to tell his or her story? Reach out and offer to listen, to make connections, to get that story heard. You can leverage your writer's group to find ghostwriters, translators, editors and publishers who can bring these untold stories to a larger audience.
Only when the power of personal connection has been made can lives be saved, laws made and changes occur. You have that power as a writer. Use it wisely.
Yours in writing,
Promptmasters
Jennifer Sander
JT Long
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