Sharing faith through storytelling

Pete Court chats with Aidan from LifeFM and explains the purpose of Stories of Life: to help people tell their true stories of faith well, and to provide a platform for the best of those stories. Selected stories will be published in an anthology before Christmas.

Interview Excerpt

Pete: If someone says, ‘Why do you do this God thing? What the heck?’ To have a simple story that you can say, ‘Well, here, let me put it like this.’

Aidan: This happened and I did this?

Pete: Yeah. For me it was the moment when…or whatever. It doesn’t have to be the moment of conversion or any of that. In fact, most of the stories are those little moments when God has just gone, ‘Hello…’ or little sparks of things that have occurred.

Listen to the full conversation below.

What we look for at Stories of Life

At Stories of Life, our editors select between 30 – 50 of the best submissions for publication in an annual anthology. The stories are true stories, and selected based on three criteria:

• the impact of the story
• how well the stories are written
• how well they illuminate some aspect of the Christian faith

Judges also award first, second and third prizes in the Open (max 1500 words) and Short (max 500 words) categories based on these same criteria.

We do not publish devotionals, Scriptural mediations, or parables. Rather, we publish stories where something happens to someone, somewhere, and they encountered God somehow – think reportage and creative writing mash-up. Stories of Life show God at work, but without the use of Christian jargon. Our writing videos explain how to craft a well-written story from moments or seasons in your everyday life.

Still unsure about what we’re looking for? You can read some of our past winning stories in our archives. You can also send us your story draft in June, via a form on this website, and our editors will give you feedback via email. What you do with that feedback is entirely up to you. Just make sure you get your story to us by 31 July.

Important Dates

1 April – 31 July: Submission Period Open

1 – 30 June: Feedback Month (editors give feedback on story drafts at no cost to writers)

October: Announcement of stories selected for publication

November: Book Launch and Announcement of Prize Winners

A Stories of Life Flyer

(that you can download and share)