<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
List folks,
I am enlisting your help in a way that is different than I have in the past,
but I'm confident you will be as remarkable in your assistance with this job
as you have been other times I have asked you for help.
I am an independent public radio documentary producer and I am producing a
documentary portraying the human face of Celiac Disease. The program,
titled "Gut Reaction," will air on the national public radio documentary
series "Soundprint" later this year.
What I need from you are your personal life stories (more details shortly).
The program has two purposes. First, it will explain to that vast portion
of the American public that has never heard or celiac what the disease is,
how widespread it is, and that many of the people who are listening have the
disease and do not know it or have the disease and have been diagnosed with
something else. Second (and equally important), the program will tell its
story -- of pain, discomfort, confusion, frustration, embarrassment,
discovery, recovery and endurance -- in the voices of actual celiac
sufferers. This approach will make the massage personal and take it out of
the abstract realm which can be dismissed as something that is a problem of
"other people."
I want to be very specific about what I'm looking for so please read this
next part carefully.
I am looking for adults who learned they had celiac as adults -- people who
suffered all their lives until they found out that they had celiac. I would
like to hear from people who went to various doctors over the years and were
given various diagnoses other than celiac, or were told "We just don't know
what's wrong with you." I will want to ask you about your symptoms and the
impact they have had on the way you have lived your life. So I need you to
think hard about how comfortable you will be talking about embarrassing life
experiences that were caused by your celiac and expressing your
embarrassment and emotional pain, as well as your physical pain. I am
looking for people who are good storytellers and who have an interesting
story to tell. That's what will be most important in conveying the
information that I will want to get out through this program.
This is a journalistic endeavor. Therefore no one will be paid to appear in
this program, but you can imagine the good you will be doing by informing
other people who are currently as in-the-dark as you were before you were
diagnosed.
Please write me your story in the most engaging way you can, including as
much detail as you think I need to know.
If I select your story, I will need to contact you (please tell me a way to
do that) and get you to a radio station to record your story. Unless you
live near Washington, DC in which case I will ask you to come to my studio
to tell your story.
For the last thing I'm going to write here, I ask the indulgence of the list
manager. I do not mean this to be promotional.
For an example of the impact this storytelling approach can have, please
listen to my documentary "We Were On Duty," about the survivors of the 9/11
attack on the Pentagon. You can hear it in the "Documentaries" section of
my website -- http://www.rlpaulproductions.com/doc.html
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Richard Paul
rlpaulproductions, LLC
http://www.rlpaulproductions.com
3704 Alton Pl., NW
Washington, DC 20016
(202) 364-0860 - main
(202) 352-7259 - cell
Documentary productions/Fundraiser production
* Visit the Celiac Web Page at www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html *
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