STORIES OF AND BY PEOPLE WITH A CAUSE characters MAGAZINE ISSUE #1 Fear & Hope MUDDY WAYS FEAR AND HOPE IN RUSSIA JOHN JIM’S STORY: A TWITTER SERIES THE HERMETIC COCOON OF THE ISOLATED TOURIST THROUGH THE BLUE HOME CONNECTIONS FUNNEL OF LOVE HELPING CAMBODIA IS LIKE BUYING A BEAUTIFUL BROKEN MUG THE HIDDEN HUNGRY STORIES OF AND BY THE NON PROFIT SECTOR characters Letters from MAGAZINE Table of Contents the Cofounders ! is magazine was born over summon the irrational exuberance to try Photo Essays breakfast one year ago, when I showed to set it down. Because it will make a Mark the moving short story I’d been di# erence in a way that taglines, mission reading on the metro that morning. It statements or technological bells and CIRCLE CENTER 3 was a prize winner in the Mississippi whistles cannot. It is a direct conduit Review written by my cousin, Elisabeth to someone else’s heart, because it came WHY I HAVE HOPE 12 Cohen, and it launched an impassioned from your own. Featured Stories conversation about why storytelling Because we think this is so matters. important, we decided that morning MUDDY WAYS 6 THE FACES OF SURVIVAL AND LIFE 20 ! e story was called “Irrational to create Characters. It’s both a call to Exuberance,” which happens to be an tell your story and celebration of good apt term for the creative process. We fall storytelling by people who are seeking FEAR AND HOPE IN RUSSIA 8 CASA DE LOS ANGELES 36 in wild love with an idea, yet when we set to change the world. ! e $ rst law of it down in words, it becomes a de" ated story is to show, don’t tell, so we are not and devalued bit of what we imagined. telling you how to write a story (as if JOHN 11 Katya Andresen, Cofounder ! is is the maddening twin we could). We are showing you stories truth of story. It packs such power that that matter. We called it Characters every other form of communication is because in these pages are authors - JIM’S STORY: A TWITTER SERIES 14 " at and feeble by comparison. And yet, characters trying to do good in the as Flannery O’Connor said it so well, world - along with the characters within “Most people know what a story is, until their own experience and imagination. THE HERMETIC COCOON OF THE ISOLATED TOURIST 18 they sit down to write one.” A cracking It’s a motley, entertaining and inspiring good story could change the world, if crowd you will most certainly want to only we could write it. meet. THROUGH THE BLUE 19 We are hell-bent on trying, ! ank you to everyone who along with you. brought together these characters. First ! at’s because we spend much and foremost, Elisabeth, who agreed to HOME CONNECTIONS 22 of our waking hours working with be its editor. ! is is only $ tting as she good causes, and we know that there was the original character who started FUNNEL OF LOVE 24 are thousands of people among us who this story. Taughnee Stone and Jake hold within them extraordinary stories. Van Ness created the stunning design, ALSO IN THIS ISSUE ! at includes you. Maybe it’s the story and we are grateful for their talents. HELPING CAMBODIA IS LIKE BUYING A of who you are or what you do or why And last, but most important, thanks BEAUTIFUL BROKEN MUG 38 LETTERS FROM THE EDITORS you came to care for a cause. Maybe it’s to everyone who had the courage to tell an incomplete tale, a slice of everyday their story, in public, in these pages and experience, that - if told - would on the Characters website. You show a THE HIDDEN HUNGRY 40 HOW TO CONTRIBUTE YOUR STORY transport us out of ourselves and thrust cracking good story can be told, and we us into your shared space, never to be can write it. the same. We don’t know what your story is, but we do know this: You must 2 3 ISSUE #1 characters MAGAZINE Letters from the Cofounders Letter from the Editor When I was four I carried my writer’s mettle. It requires courage. And ! e critic F.R. Leavis said that the personal life, as does Mark. If there are any people own hand-painted “Jim Crow Must a willingness to expose one’s self in ingredients of great literature are “a vital capacity out there who have more legitimate reasons why Go” sign on the picket line outside the public. And it can always be better. for expression, a kind of reverent openness before they couldn’t start a magazine in their “free time,” racially-segregated amusement park If we are serious about our life, and a marked moral intensity.” It is the “marked I haven’t met them. And yet, Mark and Katya, like near my home. Social protest was the business of leaving this silly little moral intensity” which to me is the most striking our writers, did not let this stop them. closest thing my agnostic Jewish family planet in better shape than we entered quality of the pieces in this issue; collectively, they As James Baldwin put it, “! ere is never had to religion. it, however, we have no other choice possess a strong current of moral energy powered time in the future in which we will work out our Having grown up in the do-than to give storytelling our all. I am so by the work and ideals of their writers. In the salvation. ! e challenge is in the moment; the time gooder sector, I am in awe of the power grateful to the writers in these pages for United States and internationally, our contributors is always now.” of stories to inspire action, to summon showing the way. are working to bring food, safety, justice, and moral courage, and to change the course medical care to those who lack it. of history. It isn’t easy. In light of that, it is not Elisabeth Cohen, Editor Stories are older than written surprising that most of the writing here concerns Mark Rovner, Cofounder language. Stories have started wars challenges – from the self-imposed, such as and built civilizations. ! ey renew and an endurance swim in Je# Tow’s “! rough the sustain our faith traditions. ! ey have Blue,” to negotiating linguistic or cross-cultural freed slaves and upended tyrannies. confusion, in Phil Caldwell’s wry “Helping ! ey teach us what it means to be a Cambodia Is Like Buying a Beautiful Broken good person. Mug,” to navigating the emotional, logistical, and For me, practicing the craft legal hurdles of international adoption, in Becky of storytelling is among the most De Nooy’s a# ecting “Fear and Hope in Russia.” rewarding, and most humbling, parts Sometimes the struggle leads to honest, painful of my work. Storytelling tests every realizations about the writer’s ability to cope, as in Kathleen Colson and Marley Rave’s accounts of experiencing and witnessing privation. Leavis’ “openness before life” is a mixed blessing, as our contributors open themselves to experiences in the hope of improving the world, and risk distress, discomfort, pain, self-doubt, and failure in doing so. It is a quality Katya and Mark value, too. When Katya told me about her plan to start a magazine with Mark, I was startled. She is among the most energetic people I know, but she has a tremendously busy and full professional and 4 5 ISSUE #1 characters MAGAZINE Muddy Ways Kevin Martone back then, because we sold a lot of cows and we sold them sitting in Great Uncle Ralph’s chair on the porch of the quick. Every day was the same. Mama raised hell in the saloon. He’d say hey to us, but we’d just wave and move morning as we hopped into the back of that car and Daddy along. Mama told us the devil had gotten into Daddy just drove o# through the muddy road. Me and Benny watched like he’d gotten into Great Uncle Ralph. She didn’t explain the wheels dig deep ruts into the mud and horsecrap. I guess when we asked what she meant, but she said Daddy’d end Kevin Martone we liked the car, too, although I think Benny missed the up dead on that porch one day just like Great Uncle Ralph. warm ooze on his feet. We only looked up from the road We didn’t know any better. We stayed away from Daddy and Muddy Ways when Daddy honked at people and horses walking along the that car, too. If the devil had gotten Daddy, we were sure he ! e car changed everything. Our family’s $ rst car. who knows what. I didn’t know and Benny didn’t know, that’s road the way we used to do. ! e only thing that changed came in that Ford Model T. It was September 1922 and my father had just been willed the truth. But Daddy knew. I think that’s why he and Great each day was Miss Peterson. All of a sudden, she had a new Sure enough, Mama was right. When Daddy turned a car from his Uncle. Great Uncle Ralph. My father hated Uncle Ralph didn’t see eye to eye. All I know is Great Uncle dress or new necklace or some new smell on her every day up dead, nobody said a word. ! e sheri# came by again, and Ralph. Couldn’t stand him.