Journalists Talk About Homelessness at Search for Meaning Book Festival

Kelley and Royale

Two award-winning journalists — featured speakers at the Search for Meaning Book Festival at Seattle University — will give an inside look at the challenges of reporting on homelessness during a special add-on session at the Festival.  “Coffee Talk with Tina Kelley and Rosette Royale” is Saturday, Feb. 28, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. in Pigott 204.

Festival tickets are required for the keynotes and author sessions, but admission to this intimate conversation is free. The first people in line will receive a complimentary copy of Tina Kelley’s book (see below). Seattle U Communication students, Theology and Ministry students, homelessness advocates and Real Change vendors are encouraged to attend. The session is hosted by the Seattle University Center for Strategic Communications and the School of Theology and Ministry.

Did you know? Seattle University faculty, staff and students, as well as Real Change vendors, can attend the entire Festival for free.  If you are a student, please reserve your Festival tickets at student registration; faculty or staff members, visit faculty and staff registration. Real Change vendors should go to the Registration Tent to register and indicate that they are vendors (bring your badge). For all other community members, tickets to the festival can be purchased for $10.

It is Seattle University’s goal as an institution that cost should not prohibit attendance. If cost would directly prohibit your attendance of Search for Meaning 2015, please contact register@seattleu.edu.

About the Authors: Tina Kelley is a former New York Times, Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter, and co-author of the national best-seller about youth homelessness, “Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope.” Rosette Royale is interim editor for Real Change and a Seattle University Journalism Fellow on Family Homelessness, and winner of the national Sigma Delta Chi Award in Feature Writing.

Remember to Come Early! The first 20 people to arrive at the “Coffee Talk” will get free copies of Almost Homewhich profiles six teens experiencing homelessness as they try to reach stability.

Learn more about these fantastic writers — and the other 50-plus authors — at the Festival author page.

About the Festival: Billed as one of Seattle University’s signature events, the Search for Meaning Book Festival is a campus-wide affair that explores what it is to be human, while emphasizing literature and speakers that align with Seattle University’s mission of creating a just and humane world. The festival has everything from books and book signings, to presentations and special sessions that explore topics in depth.

We hope to see you there!

To learn more about the festival, or to register, go here.  For more information about the Coffee Talk, please contact Lisa Gustaveson (gustavel@seattleu.edu) or Catherine Hinrichsen (hinrichc@seattleu.edu).

Firesteel Adds New StoryCorps Section to their Website

***This post is a repost from the Firesteel website

Introducing the New StoryCorps Section of Our Website!

Alexis Gaines and her case manager Tanya Mendenhall Mettlen participated in the StoryCorps "Finding Our Way" project. In a new audio story produced from their interview, Alexis talks about how she tried to create positive memories for her son, even as they experienced homelessness together. Image credit: StoryCorps
Alexis Gaines and her case manager Tanya Mendenhall Mettlen participated in the StoryCorps “Finding Our Way” project. In a new audio story produced from their interview, Alexis talks about how she tried to create positive memories for her son, even as they experienced homelessness together. Image credit: StoryCorps

Written by Denise Miller, Firesteel Advocacy Coordinator

A Tacoma mom remembers being evicted from her home, and looking for a tent for her family of five. A Seattle teenager describes the challenges of doing homework while living in a car. A South King County11-year-old reflects on losing friends when they learned she didn’t have a home. These are just a few of the stories captured by the StoryCorps “Finding Our Way: Puget Sound Stories About Family Homelessness” initiative last summer, and now featured on a new section of our website.

I’ve been talking about the “Finding Our Way” project for almost a year now. Last spring, as we began inviting people to sit down with a loved one and share how homelessness has affected them, I wrote about how personal stories can build bridges between people and drive social change. Over the summer, I shared some of the most moving moments from our recording days. At Thanksgiving, I posted gratitude for the brave men, women and children who participated in the project and gave permission for their stories to be used for advocacy.

Now it’s time to invite you to listen to and share audio clips produced from the recordings. Our new StoryCorps page currently features five short stories that help listeners understand how homelessness affects families in our community, and we’ll continue adding stories over coming months.

Read more at the Firesteel website here.

Learn more about the StoryCorps project. Continue reading

Learn to Hone Your Story About Family Homelessness with “The Moth”

121214_Tour_Ninelives_15 credit Roger Ho
The Moth training can help you hone your story. Photo credit: Roger Ho

Every story begins with an idea or an experience. But how do you take that and shape it into a compelling narrative?

The people at The Moth have it all figured out, and they’re coming to Seattle this February to conduct one of their acclaimed workshops on storytelling. The theme is “Home: Lost and Found,” and the stories will focus on family homelessness.

We’re looking for people who have a personal story related to family homelessness that they want to craft into a finely polished 5-minute gem that will captivate an audience. The workshop is free, but limited to 16 people..

We’re accepting applications now till Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Apply now! Get more information on our project page. Good luck!

Local Story Behind Debut of “@home” on Chicago PBS Station

Photo Tiana Haley @home t-shirts
Seattle U students Haley Lewis (L) and Tiana Quitugua (R) model their new t-shirts featuring the artwork Haley created for “@home.” Photo by Catherine Hinrichsen.

Tomorrow night, a powerful new documentary will have its broadcast premiere, on Chicago’s WTTW-TV, Channel 11 (PBS), 9 p.m. Central. So, this is a great time to reflect on one of the highlights of our year: hosting the remarkable e-activist Mark Horvath for the Seattle premiere of the film about him, “@home.”

We were thrilled to bring Mark and the film’s director, Susanne Suffredin, here in May for the premiere, which kicked off another highlight of our year, the Hack to End Homelessness.

Watching the film in prep for the screening, our student Haley Jo Lewis was inspired to create an illustration about Mark. The film’s producers, the Kindling Group, liked the art so much that they used it to print t-shirts for their outreach campaign. The shirts arrived last week! Haley and our project assistant and recent SU grad, Tiana Quitugua, were happy to model the shirts; see the photo above.

@ home drawing, Haley Lewis, @hardlynormal
Haley tweeted her illustration at Mark in April, and he took notice!

Continue reading

“Stepping Into Homelessness”: Our first edited StoryCorps recording features United Way leader

Haley selfie laptop
Haley Jo Lewis created the “Stepping Into Homelessness” audio piece on her laptop, using GarageBand.

Our project assistant, Seattle U senior Haley Jo Lewis, recently revealed yet another talent. Project manager Catherine asked Haley if she knew how to do audio editing. Haley said, “I like GarageBand.”

So, we asked her to see what she could do with a CD copy of a StoryCorps recording that Catherine had done with one of our project’s key partners, Vince Matulionis of United Way of King County.

The result: Haley’s just-published Firesteel package that includes a three-minute piece on Soundcloud and an accompanying blog post.

The package, “Stepping Into Homelessness: Domestic Violence and the Power of Empathy”:

  • Gives us insight into what drives people like Vince, one of Seattle’s leaders in ending homelessness, and what keeps him doing the sometimes-frustrating work.
  • Supports October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month activities, on which we’ve collaborated with Firesteel and the YWCA Seattle-King-Snohomish County. (Emma’s earlier NFL & DV series was part of this too.)
  • Launches us into the next phase of the StoryCorps project, in which we’ll be working with Firesteel to produce potentially several dozen audio pieces like this.

Here’s the re-posted piece from Firesteel. Check it out! And way to go, Haley! Continue reading

“Just A Chapter In My Life”: Tacoma Mom Previews StoryCorps for News-Tribune

Tacoma mom Jordan Kemper says that being homeless with her kids “was a chapter in my life; it doesn’t define me.” She talked to News Tribune columnist Larry LaRue about why she’ll be sharing her experiences with StoryCorps later this month. Read the column below.

To find out how you can share your story in King, Pierce or Snohomish counties this summer, contact findingourway@storycorps.org or call us at 206/398-4457.

Read more about the project here

News Tribune Logo

Larry LaRue: The homeless have their stories — and now they can tell them

Staff writer, Tacoma News Tribune

July 1, 2014

 

“@home,” Mark Horvath and Three Wishes for Solving Homelessness

The many faces of Mark Horvath and his good friend, social media, as shown in the new film “@home.” Original art by Haley Jo Lewis.

 

Written by Haley Jo Lewis, Seattle University communications major and project assistant, Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness. Originally posted at www.FiresteelWA.org

If you had three wishes, what would they be?

Would you even think to wish for a home? Maybe a bigger one, perhaps, if you already have one.

While interviewing people who are homeless, social media pioneer and homelessness advocate Mark Horvath always ends his conversations with a question: “If you had three wishes, what would they be?”

In the new documentary about him, “@home,” the people Mark interviews, without fail, wish for a home.

Still from Horvath’s film “@home”

 

Read more of Haley Jo’s post at our partner Firesteel’s blog.

Journalism Project in Pierce County Wins National Award

South Sound Magazine photoWe’re thrilled to announce that our Journalism Fellow project in Pierce County has won a prestigious Sigma Delta Chi journalism award in the Public Service Journalism category.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) today announced South Sound magazine, based in Tacoma, Wash., was honored for its in-depth report “The State of Family Homelessness in Pierce County,”  written by our Seattle University Journalism Fellow Jeff Burlingame.

The awards recognize the nation’s outstanding professional journalism. According to SPJ, the Public Service category is not only judged on the quality of the article, but on evidence of courage and initiative in overcoming opposition, effectiveness of presentation and results earned.

The team and all the winners will be honored at the award ceremony in Washington, D.C. on June 20. Congratulations, Jeff and team!  For more about the award, visit http://www.spj.org/sdxa13.asp.

Read the Series Here 

To read more about all our original Journalism Fellows projects, visit our Web site.