Story is the heart of language. Story moves us to love and hate and can motivate us to change the whole course of our lives. Story can lift us beyond our individual borders to imagine the realities of other people, times, and places. Storytelling â both oral tradition and written word â is the foundation of being human. In this powerful book, Christina Baldwin, one of the visionaries who started the personal writing movement, explores the vital necessity of re-creating a sacred common ground for each other's stories. Each chapter in Storycatcher is carried by a fascinating narrative â about people, family, or community â intertwined with practical instruction about the nature of story, how it works, and how we can practice it in our lives. Whether exploring the personal stories revealed in our private journals, the stories of family legacy, the underlying stories that drive our organizations, or the stories that define our personal identity, Christina's book encourages us all to become storycatchers â and shows us how new stories lay the framework for a new world.

Christina Baldwin is a writer and seminar presenter of 30+ years experience. She has contributed two classic books to the exploration of journal writing, including the well-known classic, Life's Companion, Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice, revised and reissued in 2007 after 100,000 original sales. This work led her to a long study of personal growth and group dynamics and as a result of that experience she wrote Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture to explore how social container releases needed wisdom. In recognition of the requirement for increased spirituality, she wrote The Seven Whispers, A Spiritual Practice for Times Like These. Her legacy book, Storycatcher, Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story, reminds readers of the necessity of story to communicate in all areas of professional and personal life. Continuing the exploration of collaborative dialogue, Christina and Ann Linnea wrote a new classic, The Circle Way, A Leader in Every Chair, which documents applications of PeerSpirit Circle Process as a foundational tool for local to global change.

Christina holds a B.A. in English with honors and Phi Beta Kappa from Macalester College, and a M.S. in Educational Psychology from Columbia Pacific University. She currently lives on an island near Seattle, WA, from which she travels extensively to lecture, teach, and call people and organizations into conversations of heart, meaning, and activism.