Indy website Speak Your Story gives women across U.S. a voice

• Speak Your Story is raising money to create a larger platform and reach more women
• Organization is hosting an event on empowering women Tuesday at IndyFringe Basile Theater

Six months ago, two young attorneys from Indianapolis went public with two personal, painful stories — one about abortion, the other about severe depression.

Teal Cracraft and Katie Morris hadn’t shared their stories with many people, including some family members. It was a bold move and one they hoped would inspire other women to do the same.

They launched www.SpeakYourStory.org to provide a “safe space” for women to speak about their life experiences through stories, music, poetry, art, etc. “Always Take the Adventure,” “Giving Yourself Permission,” “Dear Guilt” and “My Mother’s Gaze” are among the contributions to the site, which publishes new material every Wednesday.

Submissions are unfiltered, unedited (mostly) and judgment-free.

That last part is key. There is no room for shame or criticism on this platform. Speak Your Story’s mission is to empower women and give them a stronger voice in today’s world. About 15 percent of contributors ask to remain anonymous.

“There are not any good representations of real authentic women in movies or TV shows or pop culture,” Morris said. “Let’s stop waiting on other people to tell our stories. Let’s create this space and stand up for ourselves and say, ‘This is what it means to be a woman. This is what our lives are like.’ ”

Morris, 34, is married and works in research administration at IUPUI. Cracraft, 35, is also married and the mother of a young daughter. She has worked full time getting the website off the ground and does contract work for a legal staffing firm.

The two, who met after moving back to the Indianapolis area about five years ago, want to expand their website and launch a podcast, diving deeper into issues, as well as publish an anthology of themed stories.

Morris grew up in New Castle and attended law school at Temple University in Philadelphia. Cracraft grew up in Zionsville and attended Whittier Law School in Southern California. They soon grew disillusioned with the adversarial nature of law, vowing to become better advocates for women.

Cracraft had one goal at the start of the year. “I said, ‘2015 is the year I stop living in fear. I’m going to be big and bold.”

That suited Morris, who had been sitting on an idea for a while. She told her friend, “It’s so beautiful in my mind, but I don’t know if it’s going to be that beautiful if we bring it out into the world.”

Together, they did just that. Self-funded from the start, Speak Your Story launched in March with a handful of submissions written by the co-founders, friends and family. Eventually, a network of contributors began to form around the country, expanding every month. They’ve published 80 stories in various forms and are averaging 1,000 visitors to the site each week.

“We’ve done this website from scratch,” Morris said. “Neither of us knew what we were doing. We’re proud of it, but we know that to grow, it needs to have a lot more components to it.”

Recently, the two talked more about Speak Your Story, secrets, stigmas and what success looks like 10 years down the road.

Is there anything else like this out there?

Cracraft: “There’s really no space like ours. There are blogs that allow people to talk about different things. Some are more feminist-oriented, talking about current events. We’ve also invited multimedia, so it doesn’t have to be a written story. There’s an amazing graphic artist battling breast cancer who shared this beautiful photo journal she created about her experience.”

Morris: “A woman gave us an original song about wanting to be heard. Most people are drawn to writing, but we’re hoping that we get more unconventional forms.”

Cracraft: “We had one lady almost 90 years old who submitted a photo of her and her best friend and a short story about friendship. It’s just awesome.”

Why don’t you allow comments on postings?

Morris: “We want this to be the safest place it can be, so no ads and no comments. Your whole life is narrated, I feel, and your whole life is judged. You’re putting yourself out there every day, and this is a really brave thing to do. We want it to be safe and an inviting, inclusive place, as opposed to a place where people will argue with you about your experience.”

Do you have secrets or struggles you’ve shared that have brought you here today?

Cracraft: “The most difficult story I shared was about my abortion. I hadn’t told my family, so it was hard to say that this is an experience I went through and I’m going to talk about it for the world to see. At the time, it was traumatic and shameful, but it was 10 years (ago) before I published this story. For me, writing it was more political. You have all these conversations happening about abortion, but they’re happening in silos. There are not a lot of women coming forward. I was raised in a household that is pro-life, and I made this choice for myself, and it was difficult. I feel like when we’re having the political conversations, it’s not about the woman’s actual experience. Also, I have a daughter, and I look at her future and think, I don’t want her to grow up in a world where she doesn’t have a choice. That’s terrifying to me.”

Morris: “Mine was told through the lens of my trip to Budapest (her first time traveling alone internationally), but it really goes back years. For more than eight years, I’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression. The first time (it hit), I was in law school and almost dropped out. I couldn’t leave my bed; if I did, it was to get to my couch. Thank God I survived. I had a couple friends who urged me to talk to a therapist. She saved my life.

“It came back 2 1/2 years ago. It was milder but still kept me on the couch and totally distant from my life. About six months ago, light started taking the place of darkness. The trip was completely transformative, and it was like I found this strength, this voice that’s mine but also not mine. It gives me confidence and faith and healing.”

You’ve launched a crowd-funding campaign for the publication of themed anthologies and podcasts. Three weeks into your monthlong campaign, you’ve raised more than $8,000 of the $10,150 you need. What’s your vision for the expansion?

Morris: “Our vision is that this would be a multimedia platform for telling stories. We’d like to bring the stories to as many women as possible, so that’s why we’d like to take it into other forms that can reach women and also dive deeper into it. That’s what the podcast is going to be about: Having women tell their stories live but then talking about the issues that are raised. Eventually, we’d like to have workbooks and a whole Speak Your Story brand that’s built on empowering women. That’s the dream. One piece at a time is how we’re planning to get there.”

Are you ready for success?

Cracraft: “The exciting thing is that without money and just the two of us doing guerilla marketing, we’ve had so many people coming to the site every week. If we actually had funding, the sky’s the limit.”

Morris: “Our dream is to have a foundation that can fund some of our storytellers’ biggest dreams in the form of micro grants. Other than that, we want to run this amazing, empowering organization that brings women’s stories all over, whether it’s through live events like a TEDx-type conference or documentaries.”

Cracraft: “We’re trying to make the model here and meeting with different organizations to figure out how we can partner with people and get mutual messages out. Once we have our Indianapolis model, we’d like to be able to replicate that in other places.”

Is your audience all women?

Cracraft: “It’s about 50-50, which is awesome.”

What do you think that means?

Morris: “Someone asked me if I thought it was voyeurism. I don’t think that’s it. More like allyship, the recognition that we can’t have a society that is what we want if 50 percent of us are sidelined and not heard. The more that men recognize that, the more they want to be engaged with what’s going on with us. Maybe that’s idealistic. That’s the world I want to live in, so that’s the story I’m going to tell.

“We’re advocating for women in a totally different way, in a way that lifts up our voices and is not fighting with anyone, is not threatening to anyone, is just good.”

Learn more

• To submit a story, go to www.speakyourstory.org/share-your-story.
• To donate, go to www.indiegogo.com/projects/speakyourstory#/story.
• Speak Your Story is partnering with IndyFringe and Storytelling Arts a Jabberwocky on Tuesday at the IndyFringe Basile Theatre, 719 E. St. Clair St. It will feature five storytellers and begins at 6 p.m.; doors open at 5:30. Admission is free.

Call Star reporter Maureen Gilmer at (317) 444-6879. Follow her on Twitter: @MaureenCGilmer.