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NOTABLE BOOKS
Writing books
that build a better
world
world
world
world
Writers are at the heart of all that we do at Center for Story & Witness. Browse just a few of the notable books our workshop participants, staff, Advisory Board, or Launch and Leadership Circle members have written and discover your next favorite read. And please remember to support independent booksellers.
Anne K. Ream
Lived Through This
Lived Through This, Anne K. Ream’s memoir of a global journey spent listening to survivors of gender-based violence, has been called “Heart stopping and beautifully rendered” (Eve Ensler); “Captivating and graced with humanity and compassion” (Kirkus Reviews); and “Commanding attention…chillingly eloquent” (Publisher’s Weekly).
R. Clifton Spargo
Beautiful Fools
Clifton Spargo’s Beautiful Fools has been called “Historical fiction at its best” (Times Literary Supplement); “The work of a genuine literary talent” (The Spectator); and “A remarkable novel that reminds us of what we fight for, what we fail to win, and the beauty that abides between” (Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer).
Jimmie Briggs
Innocents Lost
National Magazine Award finalist Jimmie Briggs’s Innocent Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War “helps us to realize that, no matter the terrible crimes in which many have participated, these are children who share much in common with other children” (Aryeh Neier, former president of the Open Society Institute).
Christa Desir
Fault Line
Fault Line, Christa Desir’s powerful debut YA novel, explores the impacts of sexual violence on a teenage girl and the boy who loves her. “The issues in this story are important for teens today, and should not be taken lightly. Fault Line will stay with the reader long after finishing the last chapter” (VOYA).
Aamina Ahmad
The Return of Faraz Ali
Aamina Ahmad’s The Return of Faraz Ali was named a notable New York Times and NPR pick, and won the Art Siedenbaum Los Angeles Times First Book prize: “Stunning not only on account of the author’s talent, of which there is clearly plenty, but also in its humanity” (New York Times Book Review).
Ruchira Gupta
The Freedom Seeker
The Freedom Seeker, Ruchira Gupta’s second YA novel, has been called “a gut-punch of a story that illuminates the global rise of intolerance and the anguish faced by those who seek safety” (Kirkus Reviews) and “a must-read social justice adventure” (Nobel Peace Laureate Leywah Gbowee).
Jamia Wilson
Make Good Trouble
Inspired by civil rights activist John Lewis’s call to challenge injustice, Jamia Wilson’s Good Trouble explores famous moments of global activism and has been hailed as “radiantly illustrated and informative (Ms. Magazine); “accessible and encouraging” (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love); and “a field guide for ‘because they did, yes we can!” (Rev. Jacqueline Lewis).
Linda Kay Klein
Pure
Gloria Steinem calls Pure, Linda Kay Klein’s deeply personal work of creative non-fiction, “a book that shows us how the system of mind-and-body shaming works within a religious movement so culturally and politically influential that it must be understood by us all.”
Amy Griffin
The Tell
A New York Times bestseller and 2025 Oprah’s Book Club Selection, Amy Griffin’s The Tell is a brave and vulnerable debut memoir that “encourages us,” in the words of Reese Witherspoon, “to recognize that sometimes you must understand your own pain to fully experience life’s greatest joys.”
Tod Lending
The Umbrella Maker’s Son
Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Tod Lending’s meticulously researched debut novel, The Umbrella Maker’s Son, “eschews the sentimentality common to much recent Holocaust fiction, instead bringing the horrors of the period to visceral life” (Publishers Weekly).
Brenda Myers-Powell
Leaving Breezy Street
In Leaving Breezy Street, globally recognized anti-trafficking activist Brenda Myers Powell tells the story of her years in the sex trade and her complicated journey out in a memoir that is “often devastating … but infused with warmth, optimism, and hope” (The Chicago Review of Books).
Carolyn Dean
The Moral Witness
In The Moral Witness, Yale historian Carolyn Dean “provides a rich, enlightening, and eye-opening narrative on a central figure in twentieth-century ethics and politics: the witness to mass violence or atrocity” (Thomas Keenan, Director of the Human Rights Project at Bard College).
Nikki Patin
Working On Me
Working On Me, poet and spoken word artist Nikki Patin’s debut memoir, is as engaging and electric as her live performances: “Nikki Patin’s writing is fast, crucial, intimate, high, deep; it has the undeniable shine of a brilliant being finding her way in a world that cannot handle her shine” (cin salach).
Derek Green
Jackson State
The stories in Jackson State, Derek Green’s second collection of short fiction, “gain in power in part because they’re Midwestern in spirit, plainspoken, without frills: they seem to be reporting the honest truth. It’s a fine and wonderful collection” (Charles Baxter, winner of the PEN/Malamud Award).
Hanna Sward
Strip
Strip is Hannah Sward’s bracing memoir of overcoming addiction and her experience in the sex trade. It has been called “touchingly honest, and written with a light touch” (Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee) and “a book that I could not put down” (Christina McDowell, author of The Cave Dwellers).
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