Students in Professor Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Honors class created the Tell Your Story Walking anthology throughout the fall semester, and it’s now published on their website. The anthology’s first edition holds a collection of stories, poetry, visual art, and multimedia submitted by current and former honors students at Syracuse University.

The new publication is dedicated to Trevor Daley Pierce, the first year honors student who tragically passed away in the fall semester, and includes a personal narrative that Trevor wrote for his honors orientation seminar.

For the past 15 weeks, the anthology class, taught by writer/musician Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, developed a theme, a process and, ultimately, a final publication in print and online. The collection holds over 50 pieces of written and visual work created by 33 contributors and 12 staff members, describing life before and after the coronavirus pandemic through hardships and success.

Nine years ago, Rodgers started an honors class called Tell Your Story Walking—named after a Deb Talan song—in which students write first-person creative nonfiction narratives. In the class, students write weekly stories, refining their storytelling skills and learning how to express their experiences as profoundly as they can. The 2020 anthology contains some of those pieces as well as work created by other honors students.

All of the content of the new collection is available on the Tell Your Story Walking website and as a print magazine. Additional print copies (beyond those supplied to contributors) can be ordered through the website.  

Instagram: @tellyourstorysyr | Website: tellyourstorysyr.com