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Writers Anne K. Ream, Ruchira Gupta and Erin Keane, featured
panelists at Printers Row Lit Fest 2023. |
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Who gets to tell the stories that make us who we are? |
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Our lives are constructed through narrative. We live the story, and then we tell the story in a way that allows us to make sense of it. But which stories do we choose to tell, and how? And what happens when we discover that a story we’ve been told, about an issue or an individual, is at odds with the story that’s been lived?
On September 10th at Printers Row Lit Fest— the Midwest’s largest literary and ideas festival — The Voices and Faces Project founder Anne K. Ream will moderate a panel discussion, "Taking Back the Narrative," where three very different writers will explore the ways that narrative can both obscure and illuminate complicated truths about the female experience.
The conversation will feature Emmy Award-winning journalist Ruchira Gupta, author of I Kick and I Fly, a young adult novel that challenges conventional wisdom about sex trafficking through the tale of an Indian girl who discovers the value of her body through her passion for kung fu; Salon Editor-in-Chief Erin Keane, the author of Runaway, a memoir about a mother who ran away from home at 13 and lived a far more complicated story than her daughter knew; and Ream, the author of Lived Through This, the story of her multi-country journey spent documenting the stories of a community of gender-based violence survivors who have been shaped, but refuse to be defined, by the violence they have lived through.
We hope you’ll join us for a conversation that promises to be provocative, powerful and a reminder that the stories we tell can change the way the world sees us — and the way we see ourselves. This program will be recorded by CSPAN Book TV.
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TAKING BACK THE NARRATIVE:
A dialogue between Ruchira Gupta, Erin Keane, and Anne K. Ream
Printers Row Lit Fest,
S. Dearborn St. and Polk St., Center Stage
September 10, 2023 at 4pm
Chicago, IL |
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| Get to know our panelists: About Ruchira, Erin, and Anne. |
Ruchira Gupta is an Emmy winning journalist and founder of the anti sex trafficking NGO Apne
Aap, that empowers women and girls to exit systems of prostitution. I Kick and I Fly is her
debut fiction novel. She has been awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite, the Clinton
Global Citizen Award, and the UN Woman of Distinction for her contribution to the establishment
of the UN Trafficking Fund for Survivors, the passage of the US Trafficking Victims Protection
Act and her grassroots activism with Apne Aap. She has co-written a book with Gloria Steinem,
As if Women Matter.
Erin Keane is a critic, poet, essayist, and journalist. She’s the author of Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me (Belt Publishing), one of NPR’s best books of 2022, as well as three collections of poetry; and editor of The Louisville Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2020). Her writing has appeared in many publications, anthologies, and public radio programs, and she was
co-producer and co-host of the limited audio series "These Miracles Work: A Hold Steady
Podcast." She is Chief Content Officer at Salon and teaches in the Naslund-Mann
Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University.
Anne K. Ream is a writer and the founder of The Voices and Faces Project, an award-winning
global testimonial writing program for survivors of human rights violations. Her critically praised
2014 memoir, Lived Through This, documents a multi-country journey listening to the stories
of gender based violence survivors. Anne’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The
Washington Post, The New Republic, The American Prospect, and The Cambridge Companion
to Bob Dylan, among other publications, and she has received numerous awards for her global
work at the intersection of social justice and storytelling. In 2022 Anne was named one of Chicago’s
Lit 50.
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| UPCOMING EVENTS |
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APNE AAP’S THE LAST GIRL AWARDS:
Hosted by Gloria Steinem, honoring activists Melissa Berton, Mykola Kubela, Anne K. Ream and Catherine Wilson
Asia Society
September 30, 2023
NEW YORK, NY
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CHANGING THE NARRATIVE ON SEX TRAFFICKING:
A conversation with Lisa Bownds,
Brenda-Myers Powell and Anne K. Ream
The Laura Bush Institute for Women's Health Conference
October 13, 2023
AMARILLO, TX
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THE STORIES WE TELL:
A testimonial writing workshop for
survivors of gender-based violence
Co-Led by Anne K. Ream and R. Clifton Spargo
October 18 - 19, 2023 & October 21 - 22, 2023
Nellie's Shelter and The Redwood
TORONTO, CANADA
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CREATING CHANGE:
Testimony & Strategic Storytelling
A training for educators, advocates and service providers
led by R. Clifton Spargo
Friday, October 20, 2023
Nellie's Shelter and The Redwood
TORONTO, CANADA
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ON STORY AND SOCIAL CHANGE:
A closing keynote by Anne K. Ream,
at the 2023 National Sexual Violence Law Conference
Saturday, October 26, 2023
CHICAGO, IL
For more information click here
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Our stories are our power.
At The Voices and Faces Project we’re using them to create change. |
The Voices and Faces Project is an award-winning non-profit storytelling initiative created to bring the names, faces, and testimonies of survivors of gender-based violence to the attention of the public. Through our educational and advocacy trainings, survivor story archive and signature program, The Stories We Tell — an immersive, two-day testimonial writing workshop for those who have lived through or witnessed gender-based violence or other human rights violations — we seek to change minds, hearts, and public policies through the power of personal testimony. The Voices and Faces Project has been named one of America's Best Charities by the board of Independent Charities of America, and is a registered 501c3 organization.
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© 2023 The Voices and Faces Project
All rights reserved
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