Stories that Save Us with Sharon Fennix

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This week, we’re joined by Sharon Fennix—a hotline coordinator with the Transitions Clinic Network (TCN), a community leader shaped by lived experience, and a storyteller whose creativity helped her survive 38 years of incarceration. Sharon’s journey has taken her from running fashion shows and directing original plays inside prison to becoming a trusted source of support for people navigating the vulnerable first steps of reentry. She brings wisdom, humor, honesty, and a remarkable ability to see the human story beneath the surface.In our conversation, Sharon reflects on how storytelling became her lifeline on the inside—how sewing costumes for fashion shows grew into writing and directing full productions that helped people connect across divides. She talks about the complexities of coming home after decades away, and how being met by someone who shared her lived experience helped her rebuild trust, autonomy, and a sense of possibility. Today, she offers that same grounding presence to others through the TCN hotline.Sharon also shares her experience co-producing “Journeys of Healing: Stories of Resilience and Transformation,” a Nocturnists Satellites event hosted by Transitions Clinic Network in Los Angeles in 2025, made possible by a generous grant from the California Health Care Foundation.Sharon’s story is full of courage, creativity, and hard-won wisdom. We hope you’ll listen and feel as inspired as we did.Enjoy,Emily and The Nocturnists TeamFavorite moments from this week’s episodeEach One Teach One“Inside, we used to say each one teach one. Go out, tell someone what you learned, and bring them back. That’s how I approached the parole board. I told them, I’m here to teach you who I am—not who I was. And when they said ‘found suitable,’ I hit the floor. Because I knew that storytelling had set me free.”Stories as Healing“Every show I did was someone’s story—women who’d been hurt, abandoned, trafficked, silenced. When they performed, they could finally see their lives from the outside. That’s what storytelli