TWE 298: Journalist Fernanda Santos Shares How Storytelling Can Empower Us

Don’t miss a BRAND NEW episode of The Women’s Eye podcast with Catherine Anaya as I talk with the multi-talented Fernanda Santos. She’s a journalist, author, speaker, teacher, immigrant, mother and widow. Recently she’s added contributing columnist for The Washington Post to her credits. She believes that storytelling can empower us.

We’ll talk about how sharing her own very personal story has helped her “rediscover joy, one day at a time.” Plus, we talk about why it’s important for us to share our stories; not just the highlights, but the messy and painful parts too. 

“It’s so much easier to endure the challenges and the difficulties in life when we are just open and honest about them. There’s also a lot of power in putting your struggles out there because if you choose to expose your vulnerabilities, then you no longer give people the power to use them against you,” she says.

Fernanda shares how she decides what stories she is going to tell and the decision to write about her very personal thoughts and unpredictable emotions following the loss of her husband in 2017, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer.

She also shares how that decision impacted her and her readers, many of whom had never lost a spouse. 

She also talks about what she, as a professor at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, tries to teach the next generation of storytellers about becoming ‘thoughtful.’

Plus, what you can learn about becoming a storyteller via her monthly newsletter. 

Also, you can enjoy the Zoom vidcast of this conversation right here.

Don’t miss this thoughtful conversation on The Women’s Eye. 

Also, you can meet another fascinating journalist in this interview by Pat Caso. She talks to Dionne Searcey about her journey to Western Africa as New York Times Bureau Chief and and her book, In Pursuit of Disobedient Women.