Storytelling event to highlight lived experiences of campus community

Alice Mcguire | Deputy Editor 

Living Stories debuts next month in the Bailey Library, wherein members of the WCC community will have the unique opportunity to “check out” someone and hear a bit about their life story. 

Claire Sparklin, professional faculty in communication, described Living Stories as a “distinctly WCC event because it’s hyperlocal and focused on meeting the needs of our students, faculty and staff.”

Early iterations of the event began around 2015, after Sparklin was inspired by The Human Library, an international not-for-profit organization which uses library analogy to encourage participants to challenge their prejudices by having conversations they might not otherwise have had. 

The college partnered with The Human Library for a number of years, but parted ways after the organization changed its mission statement to become more corporate-focused. Sparklin explained that “the focus of the Human Library was no longer meeting our campus’ needs.” Last year, the event was put on pause to rebrand. 

“Living Stories is definitely inspired by the Human Library, but at Living Stories we are looking more at the story as like what a book would be,” said Sparklin, noting that Living Stories puts less focus on labels while striving to be a “holistic, interactive experience.” 

This year’s event will be the first for Josiah Jackson, professional faculty in the English department. He is looking forward to being a story as well as getting to interact with other stories on display. Jackson hopes to speak about the mental health struggles that he faced during his teen years, in the hope of reducing stigma for those struggling with thoughts of suicide. 

“I think that it’s really important to talk about because, especially when you are in a suicidal state yourself, it’s very easy to think that you’re the only person who’s ever felt this way,” said Jackson.  Much of Jackson’s community involvement entails suicide prevention, especially among youth and teens, and he said that he sees Living Stories as “a cool way to meld my professional life and the advocacy I do outside of school.” 

Molly Ledermann, a WCC librarian, described the event, saying that, upon arrival, participants will see a wall of the currently available “titles” and be able to say, “Hey, I’d like to listen to this story.”  After that, she said, a group of, usually about two to five students who are interested in reading that story will sit down as the story tells “about a five to seven minute” arc of their experience before moving on to ask questions and have an exchange of dialogue. 

Calls for submission are currently closed. But the event is held annually in March, with preparations starting in September and the form to apply to be a “story” opening in January. Living Stories will be held in the Bailey Library on March 19 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. All members of the WCC community are welcome to the event. Attendees are encouraged to bring their student ID to check in.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct an outdated version of the cutline. 

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