Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors is a storytelling series, and a book anthology. Both were launched in March, 2017, by Jessica Robinson. The storytelling series features women sharing true personal stories of obstacles and empowerment. We have performed Roar at Jammin’ Java, The Auld Shebeen, on the National Mall, at the Belmont-Paul National Woman’s Equality Monument, Area 51, Bard’s Alley, and at various libraries across the area. Our next performance of this series TBD. If you’d like to bring Roar to your venue, contact jessica (at) bettersaidthandone (dot) com.
Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors, a book anthology of true, personal stories about obstacles and empowerment, is available for purchase
at The Curious Iguana Bookstore in Frederick, MD, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
Book sales benefit the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
“Power Play,” by Anne Thomas – the first story in the book – received a 2019 Storytelling World Awards Honor for stories for adults.
Watch the book trailer, with readings from several of the authors:
Here’s some information about the 21 female authors featured in Roar.
Courtney Crane writes stories about coming of age in the South, parenting teens, and adventures in “La-La Land”. Her work was featured in the “Expressing Motherhood” Downtown L.A. 2015 & Southbay 2016 shows, and in the “Listen to Your Mother” 2016 Burbank show. She participates in the annual “NOHO Lit Crawl” with her beloved writing group, “Ladies Who Lit”. Find her on Twitter
Elizabeth Futrell works to improve health outcomes among underserved populations by expanding access to voluntary family planning and reproductive health services. In 2015, Liz and her colleagues at K4Health and Family Planning 2020 founded Family Planning Voices, a global storytelling initiative in support of contraceptive access that has published stories from individuals in more than 50 countries. Find her writing via Medium and I Ate the Spider, a writing collaborative resurfacing in 2017 as a quarterly live event. Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter
Susan Gordon is a storyteller, published poet and a prose writer of memoir and fiction. She is a skilled teller of traditional tales and has taught storytelling in colleges, universities and from the barn on her farm. Susan is now telling personal stories that explore the weave of relationships in her life. She hosts the Hilltop Writers, is asked to read her poetry in a range of settings, and offers a series of house concerts from her home. Read her Blog
Toward the end of her forty-year career as a creator of science museums, Sheila Grinell began to write fiction. Her debut novel, Appetite, was published in May 2016. Born in a taxi in Manhattan, she studied at the Bronx High School of Science, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. To learn more, visit sheilagrinell.com, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Dawn Gross is a hospice and palliative medicine physician practicing at the University of California, San Francisco. When not caring for patients she can be heard on the radio as host of “Dying To Talk” on 91.7FM KALW, the first of its kind, live-call-in program dedicated to transforming the taboo around talking about death. Her writing has appeared in several journals including the New York Times, JAMA, Science and Annals of Internal Medicine. Learn more at DrAsYouWish.com, on
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
Sandra Hull has long used storytelling in her day job as an eLearning Instructional Designer, but only recently has she embraced storytelling to entertain and educate live audiences with her personal experiences and truths. She’s been a member of Better Said Than Done since 2015. Previously, she performed with a handful of DC-area amateur improv troupes and was a regularly published contestant in humor-writing contests in the Washington Post, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and New York Magazine. Learn more on Twitter and her blog
Bushra Jabre is Associate Faculty, Senior Communication Advisor of The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs / Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was the Project Director of Arab Women Speak Out and the Emerging Leadership Project. She directed the annual Arabic Advances in Development Communication Regional Workshop 1992-2006. She held the post of Regional Advisor in Health Education and Women’s Programs with the UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa in Amman Jordan.
She has published Sophie’s Book, a memoir about her mother in 2016, Arab Women Speak Out, in 1998, Emerging Leadership in the Arab World in 2004 and many technical articles, newspaper articles and books in Arabic, English and French. More at LinkedIn and Facebook
Cheryl Shaver Kanuck retired from her career as an addiction therapist and program director. “I usually write for pleasure, for ‘personal therapy’ and to preserve genealogical family history. The story included in this volume was written for therapy, to exorcise a demon that was sucking the life from my child, by writing about my own pain. In the living and in the writing, I unearthed a strength I didn’t know I had. By my sharing, I hope other women will see their own strength reflected.”
Urmilla Khanna, a board-certified pediatrician, came to United Sates as a young bride in 1963 and pursued her medical career until 2000. Besides publishing her essays in newspapers and magazines, she has published two of her short stories in Patchwork, Stories from the Dining Table. Her first book, Boundaries of the Wind, a memoir, was published in 2015 and is available on Amazon in both kindle and print.
Magin LaSov Gregg’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Hippocampus Magazine, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and other publications. Proximity Magazine named her as a finalist in its 2016 inaugural Personal Essay Prize. Learn more on her blog and Twitter
Mary Nicol Lucas is a marketing consultant to the credit union industry. Her areas of expertise include name development and rebranding; creation of advertising materials, collateral, website development and PR. She started her marketing career with the advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson USA, and she worked for DDB Needham Worldwide before spending 19 years as a corporate Director of Sales and Marketing for CORT, a Berkshire Hathaway Company.
Judy Nicastro worked her way through college at the University of Washington and then graduated UW School of Law. Wanting to make a difference and represent the working class, she ran for political office and won a citywide seat in Seattle as a City Councilmember, representing over 550,000 people. No longer in public office, she hosts a Podcast called “Mayberry with Highrises”. She gives speeches and writes articles. She has been printed in the New York Times, Seattle Times and other publications. Learn more on her blog, LinkedIn and Twitter
Kim O’Connell is a writer whose articles and essays have appeared in national and regional publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Brain, Child, Yahoo News, Ladies Home Journal, National Parks, PsychologyToday.com, Thread, and more. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in Little Patuxent Review and unFold Poetry, and she has been a writer in residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and at Shenandoah National Park. Visit her website, www.kimaoconnell.com, LinkedIn and Twitter
Laura Bowman Pimentel is a full time real estate agent, part time food tour guide and single mom. Her writing includes blogging about food escapades around Washington DC as well as short stories and essays based on her personal experiences with parenting, marriage and relationships. Because of her experience with her ex-husband’s struggle to adjust to life in the United States and the resulting mental health consequences, she is inspired to speak out and dispel misconceptions about both mental illness and immigration. More at her Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram: @lauralizbp
Jessica Robinson is a storyteller with, and the founder of, Better Said Than Done, with monthly, themed storytelling shows featuring true, personal stories, and with storytelling workshops for non-profits, corporations and individuals. Jessica’s first novel, the urban fantasy Caged, was published October 2016 under the pen name JP Robinson. Jessica is currently working on the sequel, Rise. Her true, personal story, “The Game,” was published in the short story collection Sucker for Love, and “What Are the Odds” was published in The Northern Virginia Review, Volume 29. Follow JP Robinson on her website, Twitter and Facebook
Erin Rodgers is a storyteller, writer and workshop facilitator from Toronto, Canada. She coaches storytelling, writing and creativity and has taught workshops on both across Canada. She is the proud creator of storytelling shows Storystar and Awkward. Her one person storytelling show Tough was featured in The Toronto Storytelling Festival and the Winnipeg Fringe. Check out her blog, website and on Twitter
Danielle Stonehirsch works with the Youth Service Opportunities Project as the Program Director in Washington, DC, managing educational programs which engage youth in volunteer service to the homeless and hungry. Her B.A. in Literature comes from Washington University in St. Louis.
Mary Supley Foxworth, tells true, personal stories with Better Said Than Done and leads workshops in the art of storytelling. Though she has been an editor of and contributor to other non-fiction books, her story in Roar is her first credit as an author.
Madison Symes lives in Washington, DC with her best friends and a large cat, comically named Nugget.
Anne B. Thomas is the 2013 National Storytelling Festival Slam Champion. She has been featured on national US storytelling programs such as The Moth, Storycorps, and RISK!. She’s been published in the New York Times and is a coauthor of the book, Sucker For Love. Anne spent most of her career as a civil rights attorney, conflict resolution expert, and leadership development innovator. She is currently writing a memoir that will be published in 2018. You can learn more about Anne at her website, annebthomas.com and on LinkedIn
Daya Wakens is a member of the Writers Like Writers Group and her writing projects are primarily humanitarian concerns. Daya’s “Wisdomgram” is published in the “Wayfarers All” November 2013 issue of the American Athenaeum literary journal and her short story, “Embraced with Clarity” is published in Break the Cycle Vol. III published by Kathy Chaffin Gerstorff in 2016. Learn more on Facebook
