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“Tell Our Story.”

• Authored by:
• Peter Husby

The stories I have heard told, graphic and heart-rending, by northbound migrants and asylum-seekers along the Arizona-Mexico border and by Latinx and indigenous campesinos in Central America, have transformed me. Where I was once a concerned but passive on-looker, I am now a determined human rights activist, intent upon bringing stories from the southwestern borderlands to the American public.

On Water (March 2019)

Denver Homeless Out Loud

• Authored by:
• Ray Lyall

An interview with Ray Lyall

On Garbage (November 2017)

This Is the Work

• Authored by:
• Valerie Ireland

I am a twenty-year veteran teacher. I’ve always taught the littlest ones – first grade, kindergarten, and preschool for four-year-olds, otherwise known as early childhood education or ECE. I teach ECE today in a predominantly black district – Denver Pubic Schools – at Hallett Academy, where 99% of the students are black.

On Rules (November 2020)

Alternative Realities

• Authored by:
• Martin Krafft

I met Rachel Heisham Bieri in Missoula, Montana, four months after she had been given a terminal cancer diagnosis. She was forty-five then, only fifteen years older than I was, though she was already a grandmother. Doctors had given her two months to live.

On Alternatives (March 2022)

Hybrid Meeting - A Dramatic Rendition

Water Camp

• Authored by:
• Quaker Oaks Farm

On January 12, 2019, Western Friend conducted an interview with several members of the Quaker Oaks Farm (QOF) community. Located in the Central Valley of California, Quaker Oaks Farm is an environmental and cultural learning center that is supported by Visalia Friends Meeting. Since 2013, QOF has hosted annual service-learning camps, which have brought together youth and adults from Wukchumni, Mexican-American, and Quaker communities in the Central Valley and beyond.

On Water (March 2019)

Women Doing Life

• Authored by:
• Lora Lempert

An interview with Lora Lempert

On Captivity (January 2018)

A Different Gender Story

• Authored by:
• Eli Enochs

Numerous people around the world do not identify with the gender that they were assigned at birth, yet the media tend to focus on one story: There is a teenager who always knew that something was off in their life from a young age. They came to realize that they are transgender (only ever falling under the gender binary of male or female) and then come out to their parents, who either accept them or take some time to do so. This story is told again and again; there’s nothing invalid about it. But it is important to look at other stories as well, to see the full picture of what it is to not be cisgender. Since I am currently in the middle of my own personal journey towards finding my gender, I am sharing my story here as one that does not fit the stereotype.

On Insight (March 2017)

Knowing Oneself as Spirit

• Authored by:
• Sonda Beal

A couple of years ago, I traveled to York, England, for a conference. I realized that the Quaker heritage sites that I had always wanted to see were not too far from there. Planning which locations I could get to easily without a car, I came up with two: Swarthmoor Hall, where Judge and Margaret Fell allowed Quakers to meet back at the beginning of the movement, and Kendal Meeting House, which is the site of the Quaker Tapestry Exhibit.

On Heritage (July 2016)

The Face Under The Face

• Authored by:
• Julie Harlow

When I first went to the Soviet Union in 1984, I expected to meet a hospitable people, if not outgoing. The first thing I learned was that Russians never smile. They look grim. They stare. The women especially would often stare at me and then turn away abruptly. In U.S. culture, this could be interpreted as distancing, judgmental, even hostile. It was definitely uncomfortable.

On Secrets (July 2020)