Happily ever after, sometimes
Tell me a story. That tender and urgent imperative appears to date to early in humankind. “We are simply hardwired to stories,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder. “People like to receive stories,” and to tell them too. “You can argue with a political question,” added novelist and writing activist Erika Duncan, “but you can’t argue with a story.” Kidder and Duncan, founder of the Herstory Writers Workshop, participated in a panel discussion Thursday on the uses of narrative and the deep human need for stories that amuse, surprise, instruct, and otherwise make temporary sense of a disorderly world. “Tell Me a Story,” sponsored by Harvard College Students for Scholars at Risk, drew a standing-room-only crowd to Lamont Library’s Forum Room. The seven-member student group, led by event emcee Madeline Holland ’15, adds undergraduate energy to Harvard’s longtime Scholars at Risk chapter, which each year sponsors a brief refuge at the University for...