Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Inside Out

The other night, I had the great opportunity to hear the Scriber Lake High School students read from their new book of personal narratives called, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: STORIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

You can purchase BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: STORIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT in ebook or print. All of the buy links can be found  here.

One of the questions asked of the students after the reading was:

Is it harder to write the story or to read it?

Read it, the students all chorused.

The students spoke of the power of writing their stories, often painful and always real. By writing these personal narratives, each of them found their stories transformed. The teens spoke of how it was painful to relive the experiences to write them, but how after the writing, an enormous weight was lifted from them. This is something I related to as I’ve been working on my own memoir, KIDS IN ORANGE: VOICES FROM JUVENILE DETENTION in the past year in a half.  Hearing the teen’s stories and the courage it takes to tell those stories, renewed my faith and passion in my own writing personal memoir.

Scriber Lake is an alternative high school of choice in the Edmonds School District. In the writing program, Write to Right: Transforming Lives Through Personal Storytelling, the students work with author, Ingrid Ricks on writing their personal stories. Ingrid is the author of Hippie Boy: A Girl’s Story about her childhood struggles to escape an abusive stepfather and the extreme religion and poverty at home.

The program consists of three goals:

We use narrative writing to help youth bring their stories to life while learning the fundamental elements of strong storytelling,
We help interested youth publish their stories in group anthologies that are distributed internationally via both eBook and paperback.
We facilitate readings, presentations and stage performances that enable youth to share their stories in different mediums—strengthening their voice while connecting with others and initiating dialogue that fosters understanding and change.

The Scriber Lake High School students have published two other books of their work, all of them available in both ebook and print. You can find all the links to purchase the books here.

 

You can learn more about the program, Write to Right: Transforming Lives Through Storytelling here.

And you can find the links to purchase copies of the books here.

There is also a curriculum guide for educators to use here.

And there will be a book about how to self-publish anthologies of personal writing here.