Rosetta Stone: Story 11/100
Two years ago, someone shared a writing contest with me and invited me to enter. The contest was a call for submissions of monologues about homelessness. The winning submission would be performed on the streets of Chicago to raise empathy from people who are housed toward the struggles of living on the streets.
Having just returned from The Just Say Hello Tour, I had a lot to say on this topic, but I had never written a monologue before. I was known to dabble in some poetry, but performance art? No way. Not my thing.
My friend urged me to try, anyway. “You never know,” she just kept saying.
So, I decided to take a solid swing at the task. I wrote four or five different monologues in the voices of people I had interviewed on tour, and then I picked my favorite and submitted it.
It won. I was shell shocked. I received my first ever payment for writing ($300), and a much needed confidence boost. I always knew I wanted to write. I just didn’t know that people wanted to listen.
I still consider this one of the best pieces I’ve ever completed. Some day, I hope to return to these monologues, and complete a powerful video series of people performing them. Maybe it would help people start to let down their walls and their judgments, and lean in to say hello.
