WWS

• 2026-01-20

  New Working with Stories books; New PNI Practicum courses

  I am happy to announce that all four books in the new Working with Stories series are finished and published and accessible in three formats: If you think these books are useful, and if you can afford it, please consider buying at least one print or Kindle book or making a donation. I did not have the… Read more

• 2025-11-21

  Blurry

  Hello all. Here’s a little update on my progress finishing my new Working with Stories books. I have finished the indexes, and I’ve finished going through the hundreds of wonderfully useful comments and suggestions sent to me by “my” editor. Now I’m in the final proofreading stage, which is going . . . blurrily. When I… Read more

• 2025-09-25

  My left pinky

  It hurts. My left pinky hurts because I’ve hit the same keys a million times over while indexing three books. But I am happy to tell you that the indexing phase is finally over. (The Sourcebook doesn’t need an index, given its already-organized structure.) You know how they say that if women remembered the pain of… Read more

• 2025-06-28

  All four books are ready to read

  Yesterday I uploaded the new workingwithstories.org web site with final pre-publication drafts of all four Working with Stories books. You can now read all four books in their entirety, typographical errors and all. Four things still have to happen before the books are fully published. I hope to have all four books available for purchase… Read more

• 2025-05-08

  New book cover designs (and a brick wall)

  Five weeks ago, when I wrote my last blog post, I thought that by now I would have finished The Working with Stories Sourcebook, the last in my new book series. But I ran into a brick wall.  The big exciting project I mentioned last fall has now had its funding fully rescinded (for political… Read more

• 2025-04-03

  Three down, one to go

  My pace is quickening.  I have just posted my pre-publication draft of The Working with Stories Miscellany: Essays and Other Writings on Participatory Narrative Inquiry. It’s on the “More” page of workingwithstories.org. The new miscellany book (formerly called “In Depth”) comes to about 420 pages. It brings together 38 pieces of writing that didn’t make… Read more

• 2025-03-15

  WWS4 is ready to read

  I am happy to announce that I have just released my pre-publication drafts of Working with Stories (the 4th edition) and Working with Stories Simplified on the book’s web site (on the More page). I am also happy to report that, even though I greatly increased the white space (thus readability) of WWS4, and even… Read more

• 2025-02-01

  More progress

  Hello big crazy world. I have just finished updating the Sensemaking chapter of Working with Stories for its fourth edition. It took months, but it’s done, and it’s a lot better than it was. Only three chapters left! After those are done, probably in March or April, I will release the first draft of WWS4… Read more

• 2024-11-03

  Progress + gratitude

  Hello everybody. I have just finished rewriting the 9th chapter of Working with Stories. I have 5 chapters left to go. The writing is going well, and I am gaining confidence in my hope that WWS4 will be more helpful to people than WWS3 has been. I’m wrapping up my gift to the world, and… Read more

• 2024-07-23

  Surgery

  Major surgery. Not for me. For Working with Stories. Lately I have been expanding my book Working with Stories into a four-book series: Recently I finished writing Working with Stories Simplified, which I started working on two years ago when I was building my online courses. Next on my list was the updating of WWS… Read more

• 2024-07-06

  One down, three to go

  I have just uploaded my finished book manuscript for Working with Stories Simplified. You can download it on the “More” page at workingwithstories.org.  Now an update and an explanation. When I wrote here last, I was looking for a job, having given up on making (enough) money from consulting and online courses.  I looked for… Read more

• 2023-05-01

  New course and book developments

  I have updates for you.  Working with Stories is changing I spent most of 2022 writing materials for my new PNI Practicum courses (about which more below).  Both of these resources have been appreciated by my students. However, I don’t want to keep them behind a paywall. It’s not how I do things. So this… Read more

• 2018-03-07

  Stories, narratives, and hasty generalizations

  This blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it in Chapter 16. Read more

• 2015-06-24

  250 and thanks

  Hey everybody. I wanted to tell you that I’ve sold 250 copies of Working with Stories. Hooray! I’ve been thinking of 250 as a significant number for years, mostly because my husband told me he’d read somewhere that the average non-fiction book sells 250 copies in its lifetime. When I told him about this the… Read more

• 2014-06-01

  Go ahead (WWS is for sale)

  This is a photograph of one of my favorite coffee mugs. In case you can’t see it on the photo, the mug says: When it is time to be still, then stop; When it is time to act, go ahead. I am showing you this particular coffee mug because I’ve been staring at it for… Read more

• 2014-02-28

  Proof

  A proof, that is. A proof copy of the book. I’m still working on a million little details, and there is indeed a devil in them; he and I are on a first-name basis at this point. But I am getting very close to the end of this journey (for the first book, anyway). I… Read more

• 2013-12-06

  Return chapter and (drum roll) completion of first book

  The full version of Working with Stories, with all twelve chapters complete, is now up on the web site. I started working on the third edition of the book when I started this blog, in October of 2009, so that makes four years I’ve been working on the rewrite. It’s hard to believe I’ve been… Read more

• 2013-10-22

  Intervention

  Here it is: it’s the intervention chapter for Working with Stories. It came out to eighty-some pages with figures. I’ll throw the table of contents at you, as an advertisement to get you to look at the chapter. Chapter 11: Narrative intervention Ideas for intervention – – – Listening to stories that need to be… Read more

• 2013-08-20

  Illustrated

  I’ve just posted an updated version of Working with Stories on the web site. The most interesting thing about the new version is that it has about 300 figures in it. This should put to rest all the “such a long book and no pictures!” comments. I hope you like the pictures. I thought a… Read more

• 2013-07-01

  Finally sensemaking

  I am proud to announce that I have finally released the pre-publication version of the rewritten Narrative Sensemaking chapter for the third edition of my monster book. You can find it on the Working with Stories web site (look where it says “NEW!”). The chapter came out far too long, and it took nearly a… Read more