Stories That Stay:
How Stories of Identity Shape Us
Hosted by Shamm Petros & Dwight Dunston
A podcast where healing happens at the intersection of art, science, and storytelling…
This fall, Lion’s Story is launching Stories That Stay: How Stories of Identity Shape Us. Hosted by Shamm Petros and Dwight Dunston, this is a podcast where healing happens at the intersection of art, science, and storytelling.
Each episode blends powerful first-person storytelling with mindfulness practices and over 35 years of racial literacy research to help listeners navigate race, identity, and difference with courage, competence, and curiosity.
Through our signature First Story question—“What is your earliest memory of race or difference?”—guests share formative moments, and together we explore those memories using tools that support healing, growth, and transformation.
Season One features inspiring voices like Lisa Nelson-Haynes, Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards, and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Osahon Tongo—along with educators, artists, and leaders who are unafraid to be vulnerable in sharing how early experiences shaped their lives.
Whether you’re an educator, a leader, or simply someone curious about the power of story, Stories That Stay will give you new ways to listen, reflect, and craft your own story. Episodes drop this fall subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen Wherever You Get Your Podcasts
Listen Now
-
![]()
Episode 1 - Lisa Nelson Haynes
In this premiere episode of Stories That Stay, co-hosts Shamm Petros and Dwight Dunston talk with Lisa Nelson-Haynes, Executive Director of Lion’s Story and former Chief Program Officer at StoryCorps. Lisa shares a searing childhood memory of racial disrespect and her father’s fierce response—an experience that shaped her confidence and her calling. Together, they explore the pride, calm, and trauma woven into that moment and how Lisa has carried its lessons into her decades of work using storytelling as a path to healing and justice.
-
![]()
Episode 2 - Osahon Tongo
French Toast at Daycare: Osahon Tongo on Love, Care, and Memory
In this episode of Stories That Say, hosts Shamm H Petros and Dwight Dunston engage with Emmy-winning filmmaker Osahan Tongo, exploring the intersection of identity, storytelling, and emotional healing. The conversation delves into Tongo's early memories of difference, the role of family in shaping identity, and the impact of food and care in relationships.
Osahon Tongo traces an early memory—“French toast at daycare”—into a present-day meditation on love, parenting, food as care, and what it means to see “tears in the cape” of a parent. Osahon also reflects on family, migration, and stepping into responsibility as elders age.
-
![]()
Episode 3 - Merrill Garbus
Wonder and a Will to Live: Merrill Garbus on Whiteness, Grief, and Practice
In this episode of Stories That Stay, hosts Shamm H. Petros and Dwight Dunston welcome musician and producer Merrill Garbus—best known as the creative force behind the experimental pop project Tune-Yards—for an intimate conversation about whiteness, grief, embodiment, and the daily practice of returning to awareness.
Guided by the First Story prompt, Merrill recalls her earliest memories of difference: looking at her own body beside another child’s, traveling between suburban Connecticut and the Bronx, and sensing inherited messages about safety, belonging, and worth. Through Shamm and Dwight’s grounded facilitation, she names the emotions that accompany these memories—fear, avoidance, shame, gratitude, grief—and locates where they live in her body.
Together, they explore how generational stories live in the nervous system and how racial literacy practices offer tools for noticing, regulating, and staying with discomfort.
-
![]()
Episode - 4 Inua Ellams
The Weight of Difference: Inua Ellams on Identity, Abandonment, and Creative Survival
What does it mean to carry an early story of difference—and to turn that wound into art? In this episode of Stories That Stay, hosts Shamm H. Petros and Dwight Dunston welcome Inua Ellams, the Nigerian-born poet, playwright, and performer behind Barbershop Chronicles, Three Sisters, and The Half-God of Rainfall.
At age four, Inua and his twin sister were placed in separate classrooms. That single moment—filled with anger, confusion, and loss—became the first edge of a lifelong exploration into belonging and abandonment.
Together, they breathe, reflect, and stay with discomfort—modeling the Lion’s Story practice of noticing, naming, and transforming racial and emotional stress into deeper understanding.
