Off the Page

Sarah Lewis is a coterminal master’s student at Stanford University in the English Department, having pursued a BA in English and Music. She was a recipient of a Stanford Major Grant for playwriting and a winner of Sunken Garden Poetry Festival Fresh Voices Competition. Her dramatic work has been performed at the All Together Now Festival in Waterford, Ireland, as well at Hartford Stage's Write On Festival in Connecticut, and at Stanford. She was the Editor in Chief of Mahberet Magazine at Brown University, an intern at the National Theatre School of Ireland (The Gaiety School of Acting), and one of the first two women to be accepted into Fleet Street, a 40-year-old musical comedy group at Stanford. In musical theater and opera, she has portrayed everything from a murderous pâtissière (Mrs. Lovett), a flying nanny (Mary Poppins) and a petulant Russian prince (Orlofsky).

Phoebe Oathout lives in Baltimore with her girlfriend and is a student at the Hopkins Writing Sems in Fiction. Before that, she worked as a financial aid assistant at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. She holds a BA in English and an MA in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. She's at work on a novel and collection of short stories.

Joseph Rios was named Fresno's Poet Laureate in 2023. He is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn), winner of the American Book Award and was named one of the Notable Debut Poets by Poets & Writers Magazine for 2017. His poems can be found at Poem A Day, Huizache, The Rumpus, the San Francisco Chronicle, and on Metro buses and trains in Los Angeles. He lives in Fresno.

What would you do for the sake of a story? In this live story, recorded at the 2024 Senior Story Slam, Alina Wilson shares the story that spawned this series on Nakedness for State of the Human.

Jared Klegar is a current senior at Stanford University. His writing has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is an editorial assistant.

Growing up with Indian immigrant parents in a Wyoming college town, Aru was used to the tension of what her parents expected her to be and the person she was actually becoming. In this story, recorded at First Person Story in April of 2024, Aru takes the risk of emotional nakedness with her mom–even though it may leave her feeling exposed.

www.firstpersonstory.org

www.storytelling.Stanford.edu

Being naked–or seeing others naked–can evoke a firestorm of emotions . . . everything from freedom to vulnerability to sensuality to shame. In three stories pulled from the Storytelling Project archives (created in 2012) we explore the glory and grit of stripping down.

Destiny Cunningham learned shame early. The comments that teachers, church leaders, and other kids made about her body led her to wear clothes like armor, hiding herself from others so she wouldn't be noticed. Years later, Destiny and her friends decide to visit a nudist retreat in the hopes that she'll learn how to become naked without feeling exposed.

“Back to the Garden” tells the story of an organic farming couple, Jose and Rich, who are committed to sustaining the environment . . . and who don't believe in climate change. This episode explores how that dissonance might be possible, the power of language, and whether or not the term "climate change" will help save the planet.

Produced by Anna McNulty, Shameeka Wilson, and Laura Joyce Davis.

Jared Kleger is a current senior at Stanford University. His writing has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, where he is an editorial assistant.