"Jessica Robinson's stories will make you laugh, cry, and celebrate triumphs, failures, and the enduring power of hope." - Award-winning author and storyteller Laura Packer
"Jessica's stories are poignant, relatable, and gut-bustingly funny," says Packer. "Her life from her 1980s childhood in NJ to NYC of the early 2000s to her 2020s motherhood is shared so clearly, I can feel her joys and sorrows, pains and hopes. This collection of short stories (with a screenplay tossed in for fun) is moving and ultimately hopeful, reminding us that even if our life experiences aren't the same, our stories overlap, and that a well-written story has the power to change readers."
Jessica Piscitelli Robinson has been crafting and performing personal stories through many stages of her life. In Stages: My Life in Stories, she's collected 25 stories that span from her childhood in the '80s to the creation of her own children through reproductive technology. The collection is meant to be read as a memoir in stories. Each story is complete in and of itself, but represents a different pivotal moment, a different stage in the life of the storyteller.
"Jessica's stories create a work of heart. Each chapter reads like a conversation in which I listen to an old friend's experiences, and recognize my own. Thoughtfully written, presented in pastel touches of humor and pathos, this book is an appreciation of all the colors of a life." - Lyn Ford, spoken-word storyteller and author.
Storyteller and author Ed Stivender describes Stages as "a delightful collection of reflections on how Jessica got to where she is today. It is a chiaroscuro portrait of a young woman coming of age at the turn of the 21st Century, describing the difficulties of family life, public education, and of working in the film industry before the Me-Too movement. The balance of light and dark is truly masterful.
"There are interesting genre decisions, like presenting an infatuation with a co-worker as a film script; or the artistic weaving done with the story of Eurydice as it relates to the dissolution of a tricky relationship. One pleasing aspect of the work is the fact that the dark days of early family life are illuminated by the care the author expends on her parents in their final days. And the last stories about the successes of her own nuclear family wrap it up with a burst of life and Hope.