Russell J. Fellows

I’m a storyteller. I like the thought of crafting adventures that other people love to read or listen to.

Lately, I’ve come to realize a truth that I suppose I’ve always known but hadn’t given much thought to except in how it affected my own storytelling work: we are all storytellers.

All of us. Our lives tell so many different stories and they all dance together, sometimes twisting together, sometimes slamming into each other. It’s life’s great story, isn’t it? The good, bad, ugly, and beautiful?

The thing is, we can choose how our story fits into the dance. We can choose if we create beauty along with the people around us and the world at large – or we can slam our stories into everyone else’s and push their stories out of the way and maybe out of existence.

I personally want to dance beautifully with those around me (and thankfully, it will be all metaphorical because me dancing is definitely not beautiful).

There are a lot of ugly stories out there, surrounding us, slamming into us, and trying to take many other stories out of existence. What do we do with such stories?

We can’t ignore them. We can’t pretend that those stories don’t exist or that they are simply a different kind of story. They should not be sanitized simply because they make us uncomfortable or we think they make us or someone we once (or still do) idolized look bad.

We need to hear the ugly, scary stories sometimes – because we can learn that the ugly, scary things in this world can be defeated. Truth should always be sought and told, no matter how many attempts there are to bury it. Our histories of cruelty and harm cannot be magically erased whenever we choose but we can choose to heal together.

We need to weave our stories together more. Community is where true magic lies. The beautiful, strong, good stories woven together will always be able to withstand the destructive, vicious stories.

I am a storyteller. I’m going to keep trying to build bridges to bright futures of hope and love with my stories. It’ll be hard but I know that I will not be alone.