View as Webpage

Reading The Tell by Amy Griffin, traveling to the Skoll World Forum, & more.

Amy Griffin, author of The Tell, an Oprah's Book Club selection. Photo: Jake Rosenberg

Truthful, hopeful & countercultural: Amy Griffin’s The Tell is the book we need now.

During a time when misogyny is increasingly normalized, survivor voices continue to be silenced, and programs to address gender-based violence are threatened in unprecedented ways, Amy Griffin’s moving new memoir, The Tell, isn’t just timely. It’s taking on the status quo. 

An exploration of why we suppress our most painful memories, and the story of a journey to wholeness that included the pursuit of legal justice, psychedelic therapy, and a return to her Texas home, Amy - a member of our Center for Story & Witness Launch and Leadership Circle - has written a book that reminds us that healing isn’t a destination, but a complicated, lifelong process we do in community. And that the fight for justice is also a fight for joy.

On Tuesday, May 6th, Center for Story & Witness will be joining our allies at Joyful Heart Foundation for a JHF Book Club conversation about The Tell. Register now to be a part of what we know will be an inspiring, timely conversation. And congratulations, Amy, on your beautiful and necessary book! 

Because the only thing better than a new book is a full library: Check out other notable titles from our Center for Story & Witness writers.

Jimmie Briggs’s Innocents Lost (Basic Books) explores how child soldiers are forced into war … Linda Kay Klein’s Pure (Simon and Schuster) takes a look at what “purity culture” costs women and girls … Brenda Myers-Powell’s Leaving Breezy Street (Henry Holt & Co) is a memoir of a life in and journey out of the sex trade … Anne K. Ream’s Lived Through This (Beacon Press) documents a multi-country journey spent listening to sexual violence survivors … R. Clifton Spargo’s Beautiful Fools (Overlook Press) is historical fiction that sympathetically explores the mental health struggles faced by Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald … and Tod Lending’s The Umbrella Maker’s Son (Harper Collins) follows a young Polish Jew through his journey to escape the Nazis.

Chantale Zuzi, Alisa Roadcup and Anne K. Ream at the Skoll World Forum.

Thank you, Skoll World Forum, & congratulations to our Center for Story & Witness affiliated delegates.

At Center for Story & Witness — a global storytelling initiative and testimonial writing program — we love celebrating the successes of our staff, workshop alums, and organizational allies. In April, 2025, there was a lot to celebrate as the Skoll Foundation convened the Skoll World Forum, a global, curated delegation of social innovators working to advance bold and equitable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.  

The 2025 Skoll World Forum delegation included six persons near and dear to our organization: Anne K. Ream, Co-Founder of Center for Story & Witness; Monica Ramirez, founder of our longstanding partner organization Justice for Migrant Women; Jimmie Briggs, a facilitator for our Center for Story & Witness writing workshops; Rachel Foster, a longstanding Center for Story & Witness ally and founding co-chair at World Without Exploitation; and Alisa Roadcup and Chantale Zuzi, alums of our award-winning writing program and the leadership at Refugee Can Be.

In a world that is too often unjust and inequitable, coming together to create change has never felt more urgent and necessary than it does right now — which is why we applaud the Skoll World Forum and congratulate these delegates. 

UPCOMING EVENTS

THE FUTURE ISN'T GOING TO WRITE ITSELF:

A conversation about story, social justice and the art of bearing witness with Center for Story & Witness leaders R. Clifton Spargo, Anne K. Ream and Jimmie Briggs, and moderator Jamia Wilson

May 22, 2025

Events @ Stone Park 

Park Slope, Brooklyn NY

A STORY CHANGES EVERYTHING:

 Healing Ourselves & Transforming Our World Through the Power of Narrative. A conversation between actress and StoryFinder CEO Ivana de Maria; and author and Center for Story & Witness Founder Anne K. Ream.

June 6, 2025

World Without Exploitation National Convening 

Washington, DC

THE STORIES WE TELL: 

A testimonial writing workshop for survivors of gender-based violence.

Co-led by Anne K. Ream and R. Clifton Spargo 

July 12 & 13, 2025

Simmons Center for Global Chicago

Chicago, IL

September 13 & 14, 2025

The Jensen Project

Houston, TX

October 11 & 12, 2025

The Jackson School at Yale University

New Haven, CT

November 8 & 9, 2025

FreeFrom

Los Angeles, CA

Date TBA

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Washington, DC

Date TBA

New York City, NY