Our Stories Program
Our Stories Program & Collection
Inspiration for a New Program
Our Stories Program & Collection has been developed at Moffitt Cancer Center for the purpose of providing a forum for patients and family members in the area of expressive writing and journaling.
The program is dedicated to the memory of Margaret N. Smith, a Tampa resident and Moffitt lung cancer patient. Margaret had always been a prolific writer and during her diagnosis and treatment she continued to put her thoughts, experiences and emotions on paper. Family members and friends felt it was important that Margaret’s voice be shared, so they approached the Center about publishing her writing. Moffitt’s Psychosocial and Palliative Care Program – in collaboration with the Arts in Medicine Program and Patient Education Department – quickly championed the cause, creating the Our Stories Program & Collection.
Margaret’s personal narrative, Gasping for Air, Grasping for Hope – Sharing Lung Cancer with Friends, has been published as the inaugural edition of the Our Stories Collection. Her moving testimony provides inspiration to others living with cancer and serves as a personal legacy to Margaret as a woman, mother, wife, daughter and friend.
Copies of the book are available in the Patient Library and Welcome Center and the Arts in Medicine Open Studio, both located in the Moffitt's Rothman Clinic Building.
What Is the Our Stories Program & Collection?
This program has several main components that include a number of projects and activities.
Our Stories Program:
• Scribes Hour, a weekly event, offering expressive writing and journaling opportunities
• Periodic workshops on expressive writing and journaling
• Seek and Speak Your Story is a program empowering patients, families and friends to discover and share their own personal cancer story. Inspired by the belief that everyone touched by cancer has a story to tell, the Seek and Speak your Story program aims to open hearts and minds, give meaning to life experiences and connect people in a fundamental way. It is a series of four workshops, three hours each, held at Moffitt Cancer Center. Offered periodically throughout the year, Seek and Speak your Story is led by a dynamic cancer survivor and story teller who guides participants through the healing process of finding and telling their story. The program ends with a moving performance for family and friends. For more information or to register, please contact Jo Ranney at 813-931-8413 or 813-503- 5563.
Our Stories Collection:
• An ongoing call for stories
• A bound collection of patient and family works housed in the Arts in Medicine Open Studio and the Patient Library and Welcome Center.
• A library of published books written by cancer patients from across the country about their experiences
Call for Stories about Life and Living with Cancer Written by Patients, Family Members and Friends
How to Submit a Story
You are invited to submit your personal stories about life and living with cancer to the Our Stories Collection. Selected stories will be made available as an inspiration to patients, family members and friends, as well as Moffitt faculty and staff.
Your story may be in the form of an essay, poem or brief reflection. Subject matter may include, but is not limited to, diagnosis and treatment, finding meaning, and communication with friends, family and physicians.
What to Submit
• Your story, typed as a Word document. It should be non-fiction.
• Our Stories Collection Form
• Authorization, Assignment and Release Form
Please keep copies for your records.
Method for Submitting Stories
• Please print your story and the required form (Our Stories Collection Authorization, Assignment and Release Form) linked to above.
• Complete and sign all forms as indicated.
• You may drop them off at the Arts in Medicine Studio on the 3rd floor or the Patient Library and Welcome Center on the 2nd floor of the Moffitt Clinic Building or mail them to:
Our Stories Collection
Patient Library & Welcome Center
12902 Magnolia Drive / MCB-PERC
Tampa, FL 33612-9497
• If you wish to e-mail your story, please send it to: stories@moffitt.org. You may send scanned copies of the signed forms or mail them to the address listed above.
The purpose of the Our Stories Collection…
is to provide inspiration to others going through the cancer experience.
With that goal in mind, we ask writers to refrain from using their stories as a forum for discussing matters that are more appropriately handled by the Patient Relations Department at Moffitt or any other facility where the care was received.
Guidelines
Submissions must be free of comments about the quality of care provided at Moffitt or any other healthcare facility. Quality or patient satisfaction concerns can be addressed by calling the Patient Relations Department at Moffitt Cancer Center at 813-745-8475.
• Language must be appropriate for all ages, with no profanity or vulgarity. • All stories submitted will be reviewed by members of the Our Stories Collection Committee and proofread for typographic errors.
• Periodically stories will be selected for compilation, bound and placed in the Arts in Medicine Open Studio and the Patient Library & Welcome Center. Stories may also be used in other Moffitt publications, such as newsletters and journals.
Contact Information
If you have any questions, please contact the Our Stories Program & Collection at stories@moffitt.org or call 813-745-1811.