Jared Klegar is a current senior at Stanford University. His writing has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is an editorial assistant.By Stanford Storytelling Project

Jalen Eutsey is a 2022-2024 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2022, Nashville Review, Poetry Northwest, Harper Pallet, and The Hopkins Review.By Stanford Storytelling Project

Stanford grad Isaac Vaught (class of 2020) reads his essay “The Burden of Bad Men,” which explores masculinity, mass incarceration, and legacy.Isaac Vaught received his BA from Stanford University, where he received the 2020 Creative Nonfiction Prize. He is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at Florida State University.…

Zach Williams' debut story collection, Beautiful Days, is forthcoming from Doubleday in 2024. He is a 2021-2023 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University and holds an MFA from New York University. His work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.…

Jones Lecturer Georgina Beaty reads “Shelter Seekers,” a story from her recent debut collection The Party is Here, and talks about writing the climate crisis and experimenting with form.Georgina Beaty is the author of the short story collection The Party is Here (Freehand Books, 2021). Her fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Walrus, The…

Jones Lecturer Georgina Beaty reads “Shelter Seekers,” a story from her recent debut collection The Party is Here, and talks about writing the climate crisis and experimenting with form.Georgina Beaty is the author of the short story collection The Party is Here (Freehand Books, 2021). Her fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Walrus, The…

In this episodes, Amanda Gunn reads from her debut collection, Things I Didn’t Do With This Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2023).Amanda Gunn grew up just at the edge of the woods in southern Connecticut with two older brothers. She is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, as well as a PhD candidate in English at Harvard where she studies poetry, epheme…

Jackson Holbert reads poems from his debut book, Winter Stranger (2023, Milkweed Editions), which won the 2022 Max Ritvo Prize. Jackson was born and raised in eastern Washington. His work has appeared in Poetry, FIELD, The Nation, Narrative, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The Iowa Review, and multiple editions of Best New …

Madeline Haze Curtis’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, Copper Nickel, West Branch, and The Forge Literary Magazine, among other publications. She received the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize. She holds a BA from Stanford University and is…

Madeline Haze Curtis’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, Copper Nickel, West Branch, and The Forge Literary Magazine, among other publications. She received the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts and was nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize. She holds a BA from Stanford University and is…

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Press, 2014), and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which was named the winner of the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. A recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Hieu is als…

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poetry, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Press, 2014), and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which was named the winner of the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. A recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Hieu is als…

Aamina Ahmad reads from The Return of Faraz Ali, a rich and deeply moving novel about confronting histories both personal and political.Aamina Ahmad, a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award. Her short fiction has appeared in One Story, Th…

Author Lydia Conklin reads "Pioneer," a story from Rainbow Rainbow, their delightful debut collection of prize-winning stories, queer, gender-nonconforming, and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes.Lydia Conklin is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University.…

In this episode, Shannon Pufahl's reads “Lucky."You can find more of Shannon's work at [his/her] website: https://www.shannonpufahl.com/aboutOff the Page is a podcast of stories, essays, and poetry from the Stanford University writing community, produced by the Stanford Storytelling Project in collaboration with the Stanford Creative Writing Progra…

Gregory says, ‘Atlas Accessories got started because at 55 I decided I wanted to do something for myself’. It brings together his love of jewellery design, interest in meaning and symbolism and enjoyment of storytelling. In fact as soon as he’d got some of his designs made into ‘actual proper pieces of jewellery’ people were asking him where they c…

Robert says, ‘I love getting to impact people’s lives and being able to share nuggets of gold and clues I’ve learned from travelling around the world and being able to train people’. He’s been lucky enough to travel around the world and taught over half a million students helping them to find out what their passion is and how it is achievable if th…

Jennifer is a financial wellness expert who started out helping people with their retirement plans. What she realised was that people struggled with it because, ‘they didn’t have the money management today to begin to focus on bigger things like not needing a job someday. She realised a more holistic approach was needed because, ‘It’s hard to be we…

Klaudia is a mindset and success coach for women. She says, ‘You will find plenty of people who will talk about mindset recently, and say you need to be constantly happy to attract positive things and you know what that’s ok but that comes later’. She explains she helps people to understand where their emotions come from, ‘Whatever you do now, what…

Denise started making granola and muesli for her family during the pandemic in 2020. She explains, ‘It started out of pure necessity just for my own consumption and my families’ consumption – we love to eat granola and muesli’. After getting the thumbs up from her family she started to give her gourmet granola and muesli to a few friends and neighb…

David works in financial services, but he says, ‘outside of my 9 to 5 I spend as much time outdoors on the water doing whatever that I possibly can’. He is also the County Training Manager at South London Scouts and I wanted to talk to him about how he felt the last 18 months had impacted the young people he works with. ‘On a positive note, I think…

When Wishes Change is about how Tricia and her family navigated the miracle birth of her daughter Annabelle and her death 6 days later. It’s about grief and about how life can change but it is also about hope. After falling pregnant Tricia and her husband Jonas decided to have a test to find out the gender of the baby but they also found out she ha…

Maria is a relationship coach who coaches codependents, ‘women and men that are in recovery from codependency to attract and manifest that relationship’. And by that relationship she means helping them to find, ‘a healthy loving relationship’. She goes on to explain, ‘40 years ago they could tell that if you grew up with addiction… you’d have some …

What is ‘My Black Dog’? Niki says, ‘it is a peer-to-peer support service for people who are struggling with their mental health’. With two big differences, ‘all our volunteers have a lived experience which means they’ve been through it before - they totally get it - they know how you feel’ and instead of calling you text. Deciding to make the servi…

Petter Erik and Maria set up AweSM to help ‘freedom-seeking coaches, consultants and experts reach millions of people, and grow their business with the Nordic No-Nonsense Approach’. Maria says for them the pandemic was a blessing ‘because what we do is help... people who want to create online courses or are coaches and consultants and we help them …

Kirsten set up the personal and business advisory service The Next Half in March 2021 after she saw a need that she knew she had the expertise to fill. ‘This one person had a great business model, but she didn’t have the confidence to present it and she started to cry… that’s when I had my epiphany that my business experience can help women who are…

Pauline is an editor and historian, part-time tour guide and single mother of three young children who is based in Reims France. I wanted to talk to her about what the past 18 months have been like. France has had much stricter restrictions than the UK so what was it like juggling a busy freelance editor job and looking after three children of 14, …

Sam is a textile artist and designer who has been working in the creative industry for 25 years. Three years ago, she decided to start ‘Child Of Project’. Sam says, ‘It was born from grief, from the death of my father, but it’s kind of turned into the most beautiful creative project which is all about resilience and human strength’. I’ll let her ex…

Tom is Head Coach and founder of Be Fearsome an outdoor fitness company based in central London with an online arm developed over the last 18 months helping those who live further afield. BFO, as it is known by those that go regularly, offers all types of outdoor fitness: boot camps, personal training and team building you name it. There are around…

In July 2019 Bethan walked out of her job wanting a new challenge. Fast forward one month later and she is on holiday sat in her Mum’s favourite bar Erics in Marbella surrounded by beautiful displays of bottles and colour plus lots of macarons. Suddenly the sparks of creativity started to go off fuelled by her background as an artist and her determ…

Maria decided to change her life in 2019. She says, ‘I felt that I really need profound change in my life. I felt like my soul was screaming for change’. Initially, she had no idea what she wanted to do so turned to astrology because she wanted to find out what her mission in life was. After sharing some of the things she had learnt from astrology …

Javier is a firefighter in the London Fire Brigade and a personal trainer specialising in outdoor training. I wanted to talk to him about training to be a firefighter during the pandemic. When he first applied to be a firefighter, it was 2019 and we had no idea about what was going to happen. Jump to 8th June 2020 when he started the training cours…

Charlotte @funkymakers is a multi-crafter and has crafted since she was knee-high. She comes from an Irish family of crafters who taught her to knit and crochet. Charlotte recently coordinated the family to create a heritage blanket as a wedding gift for her cousin. It was made up of '70 squares of Irish Aran knitting and crochet contributed by mem…

Huia lives with her partner Sander, their two children and a dog in Marlborough where 75% of New Zealand’s wine is produced. She’s busy working as a naturopath specialising in herbal medicine as well as doing several forms of massage and being a yoga and Zumba teacher. Oh, and that’s on top of being a mum and helping her partner Sander run Karaka K…

Tanvir lives in Corsham, Wiltshire and is an author, researcher and disability activist. She currently works as an associate research fellow for D4D (http://d4d.org.uk/), which is a project exploring disability and how disabled people experience community. Tanvir feels especially passionate about this as she started to lose her sight at 21 years ol…

Thessa lives in Amsterdam and works as a digital marketeer. She’s also a keen traveller and surfer. I wanted to talk to her about how the pandemic had impacted her life in Amsterdam. From photos on social media it looked like life was good full holidays and lots of fun. However, there was one photo of her with her Dad that caught my attention and m…

Flora owns Flora’s Food and Kitchen which is a catering business based in Exmoor on the border of Devon and Somerset. She caters for ‘lots of lovely celebrations’ weddings, dinners and parties as well as doing work for holiday let companies going in with her team to cater for guests. She is very passionate about her business and it’s clear she love…

Amy Stevens is a Canadian but has lived and worked abroad as a hotelier for many years. For the last 7 years, she has been based in UAE and more recently moved from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Ironically, she chose to live in the UAE as it is an easy six-hour flight to many interesting destinations like Sri Lanka and the Maldives. However, the pandemic had…

Esther is a frontline worker who works as an occupational therapist so has a unique perspective of the pandemic and how working on the frontline impacted her and her family. She also has a special interest in mental health and is a wellbeing practitioner – she has also experienced postpartum psychosis. In fact, she was on the road to recovery from …

Jana Bakunina is an inspirational go-getter, writer and intrepid traveller who doesn’t allow much (except total lockdown) to get in the way of her love of travel. When she is not travelling she is always busy cooking up delicious food, feeding her cacti and writing – she has already written a book ‘Bird’s Milk’ and a play the title of which she is …

Kirsty set up Opening Doors Consultancy a year ago – before the first lockdown - after a family move to the Netherlands didn’t happen. She found herself unexpectedly unemployed, but she didn’t panic instead she looked at her skillset and realised helping people speak with confidence was something she was passionate about which would also fit around…

Ola started her podcast @unpolishedmum about the trials and joys of motherhood during the pandemic and hasn’t looked back. I was blown away by her content and how she’s developed it over the past few months. To be honest she was very aspirational in why I decided to take the plunge and start my podcast. Those who want to hear from someone who talks…

Georgina chats to Bali-based modern bohemian and founder of sustainable fashion company ‘Eco Gypsy’ Electra Gillies about her unique experiences of living in Bali and running a fashion business during the pandemic. The interview was recorded on Wednesday 12th May 2021 at 4.30 pm SGT. 😷 UPDATE: This video was recorded before the Delta variant arrive…

Georgina chats to Canadian MBA student and ex-Londoner Marisa about her unique experiences of living in London and then going home to study during the pandemic. The interview was recorded on Wednesday 21st April 2021 at 10 am EST. #podcasting #covid_19 #podcast #pandemic #england #londonlife #mbastudent #bicycle #lifeline #friends #sistersfromanoth…

Georgina chats to London based founder of Turn Wild Ian about his unique experience of running an outdoor travel company specialising in wilderness expeditions during the pandemic. The interview was recorded on Friday 16th April 2021 at 8.45am BST. www.turnwild.com/ www.facebook.com/turnwildexpeditions www.instagram.com/turnwild/ #podcasting #covid…

Georgina chats to Newcastle based university student and artist Amber Bruzzi about her unique experiences of finishing school and starting university during the Covid-19 pandemic. The interview was recorded on Friday 16th April 2021 at 2pm BST. www.instagram.com/amberbruzzi.art/ #podcasting #covid_19 #podcast #pandemic #england #newcastle #graphicd…

Georgina chats to Hitchin based author of ‘The Night We Met’, mother and runner Zoë Folbigg about her unique experiences of juggling home schooling and writing. The interview was recorded on Wednesday 28th April 2021 at 8pm BST. Instagram: zoefolbigg Website: https://www.zoefolbigg.com/ #podcasting #covid_19 #podcast #pandemic #england #hitchin #zo…

Georgina chats to Maharashtra based Indian linguist, journalist and blogger Tejaali Shahasane about her unique experiences during the pandemic and what she learned about herself. The interview was recorded just before Maharashtra went into strict restrictions on Sunday 11th April 2021 at 6.30pm IST. #podcasting #covid_19 #podcast #pandemic #india #…

Georgina chats to Bangkok TV presenter and artist Clare Patchimanon about her unique experiences during the pandemic and how it made her stockpile lots of noodles. The interview was recorded on Thursday 8th April 2021 at 5pm BKK.By Georgina Jackson

Georgina chats to New Yorker Matt Timms about his unique experiences during the pandemic and how it affected his businesses All The Bad Cats and The Takedowns. The interview was recorded on Tuesday 30th March 2021 at 2pm NY. Instagram: @allthebadcats @thetakedowns Website: www.allthebadcats.com/By Georgina Jackson