Hillary is an MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago, a freelance writer and development editor. She has enjoyed a previous career in photojournalism and other plastic arts. She is pasionate about stories both as an avid reader and writer, believing that the writer's job is to tell stories, which as David Huddle puts it, "better prepare us for death." The trick with life is to deal with the fundamental human frailties which are universal to all of us in the best way we can, learning to work with them and not against them. Acceptance not war. Hillary has coached students at the university level, as well as fourth graders, and grown up adults in using the process of journal writing to release the stories we all have hidden away. The aim is to tell these stories as well as they can be told and also to use th ewriting process as an aid to attaining deep, emotional and psychological healing. Her process in working with students is based on the Story Workshop methods created and developed by John Schultz, professor emeritus at Columbia College. The process assumes that all stories have their roots in oral telling and that everyone has a story to tell. We do it naturally every day of our lives, in the office, over the phone, sitting at dinner; we say, "you'll never guess what happened to me," and then we tell it. The best written tales all bear the imprint of these origins and embrace the idiosyncrasies of each author, their unique voice, attitude, and experiences. They also bear all the trademarks of the best oral story telling strategies, using clear gesture and full engagement of all the senses to get the listener to hear and see and feel what happened. Sharing of tales can be fun, entertaining and very much a healing experience.