Many books and resources have helped me in creating this site and exploring the elements of vulnerability, sharing, and building community through creation and storytelling. Hopefully some of them will also be helpful to you.
Brené Brown's book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead is an excellent read - if you don't have the time, a great place to start in her work is her TED Talk, The power of vulnerability. I also like another TED talk she gave, Listening to shame.
Another helpful book for me has been Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life, by Ronald and Patricia Potter-Efron. I've actually never read this one cover-to-cover, but instead go and read bits of it to better understand shame and my conflicted relationship with it. Letting go of shame has helped me to be more open and share, and furthered my ability to make connections.
I love the stuff coming out of Button Poetry and I have found inspiration in the ways in which many of the poets that are published there take their personal experience and create poems that are real and more narrative in nature. Their autobiographical nature, but in an artistic way, was something that I thought would be a great element for this project.
There's lots of other places on the Internet that have inspired this work. Some of them are Humans of New York, PostSecret, and i_weigh. These sites show vulnerability, openness, and storytelling in a way that welcomes others to respond with their own personal experiences as well.
One book I read years ago that first steered me into exploring my own creativity was The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander. Reading that helped bring me to creating this project today.
Finally, sometimes I think the most inspirational things are also the simplest things. And so I will also say that there are many people, places, and moments along the way that helped spark something for this project. I've found it helpful to pay attention to those voices that resonate with me or make me pause, and seek them out more. I would welcome any suggestions for other resources to check out - please Contact Me.