“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”

— Toni Cade Bambara

In Artify Your Storytelling, Emmy-winning filmmaker and Academy Nicholl Screenwriting Quarterfinalist Lisa Russell shows how to harness the power of art and creativity to craft stories that drive transformative change. As a pioneering storyteller at the United Nations who also has award-winning storytelling work on racial and gender inequality, Lisa demonstrates how artified storytelling can challenge the status quo and inspire systems change.

This book is for activists, artists, speakers, business leaders, and anyone who believes in storytelling’s power to create a more sustainable and equitable world. Whether you're working on a report, personal narrative, speech, or other forms of storytelling, Artify Your Storytelling equips you with the tools, insights, and creative techniques to craft compelling narratives that move audiences and spark real-world action.

You’ll learn how to explore different art forms—from poetry and visual arts to screenwriting and performance—and how they can influence your stories. Engage your audience emotionally, aligning your storytelling with values of equality, sustainability, and justice, and learn how to leverage storytelling for impact, crafting stories that drive change and challenge harmful systems.

A central theme of Artify Your Storytelling is understanding power and how it shapes every story. When you artify your storytelling, you begin to see everything through the lens of power dynamics. Who holds power in a story? Who gets to tell it? Who benefits from it?

This book is part of a broader initiative called Arts Envoy. Through Arts Envoy, Lisa Russell offers training, an AI platform, and guidance to help you artify everything—whether it’s your advocacy, work, or personal storytelling. Arts Envoy provides resources to empower you to craft impactful, creative narratives that drive social and environmental change.

Through Artify Your Storytelling, you’ll learn to turn creativity into a force for real-world change. This book is more than just a guide to storytelling—it’s a roadmap for using storytelling as a tool for justice, sustainability, and progressive action.

If you’re ready to artify your storytelling and inspire action, this book is your essential guide to making a meaningful difference.