Surfacing

Or, coming up for air at last!

Greetings, Story Rulers! We’re thrilled to be back in touch!

The last few months have been a period of intense focus for us. We’ve been on a Deep Work Retreat for the Story Incubator Writing Lab, the nonprofit of which this newsletter is a part. It’s been an intense time, and a good one, and it has yielded great results:

• We completed our first original research study on the neuroscience of story, and we’re prepping a second one. We’re watching brains process politically challenging stories in real time, and it is absolutely amazing. The data offer critical insight into how best to tell successful, unifying stories in an era of polarization.

• We completed the screenplay for our first Story Incubator original film, and we’re deep in development on our second feature. Each film takes up one of the hardest, most divisive and intractable issues we face today, and each tells a story that makes it possible for us not only to face those issues, but to come together across our differences to solve them.

• We are currently running two high-level writing labs with thirteen talented, accomplished screenwriters. Some are award-winning writer-directors, some are working TV writers; all are crafting film and television series that tackle polarization in innovative and potentially transformative ways.

• We’ve also been hard at work behind the scenes on this substack, and will be sharing a ton of new material soon. Upcoming posts include a series from Maurice on what AI means for the future of storytelling, a report on our neuroscience research, details about our film projects, and reflections on the role wonder plays in cultural repair.

We’re looking forward to sharing more on all of this with you in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, I give you this morning’s sunrise, not just because it’s gorgeous, but because it is, for me anyway, a reminder always to look up from whatever I’m doing, never to get so caught up in screens, routines, rumination, and work that I lose sight of the gloriousness all around me. May it do the same for you.

Southern Oregon sky, Friday, October 25, 7:31 am.

Southern Oregon sky, Friday, October 25, 7:41 am.

Southern Oregon sky, Friday, October 25, 8:15am.

Same view, same morning, never still, ever evolving, always new, always well worth a moment of time.

More soon! Be well!