About Me.
I’m an award-winning writer, storytelling trainer, keynote speaker, and certified experiential coach. My work explores how storytelling can create change, make meaning, inspire action, cultivate connection, and transform division. I work with individuals, groups, and organizations around the world to find, craft, and tell their most meaningful stories.
I live with my pre-schooler in Nashville, Tennessee on land once inhabited by the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Yuchi people.
Read the story of how it all began
I grew up in a very small town in Tennessee. My dad was a family doctor, and every March when I was kid, he spent a week hosting university students from Nashville who wanted to learn about health care in our small town. Mid-week, he gathered the students to share stories. I envied the students for hearing from my dad what I hadn’t yet. I dreamed of being among "the chosen." And at last, when I was thirteen, my dream came true.
Fifteen of us circled in the clinic’s waiting room, on weathered canvas seats, hot pizza beside my mom’s fresh chocolate cookies. I can still see the orange glow of the sunset cast across the dark carpet. I sat, with my feet on the floor like the “adults,” and listened as Dad shared two stories about encounters with patients. I’ve never forgotten them.
He told how he gave an ultrasound to a pregnant woman who revealed that her stomach scars were from when she was three, and her mother set her on fire. And the other about a woman seeking his help for her Xanax addiction who confessed her landlord was forcing her to pay the rent with sex. I remember my stomach churning, like I’d been kicked. These weren’t the kinds of stories I expected to hear. Then Dad challenged us, “Why tell such stories of suffering?” I honestly didn’t know, so I sat quietly, waiting. And then someone said: “Because how will we know how to act if we don’t know the story?”
I believe my dad wanted me to join that night so I’d learn that the world is filled with painful needs; that doing right by the world means attending to those needs; and to do that, we must encounter the stories. This value stuck with me—attending to the pain and need of the world. It sparked a passion that led me to study history, conflict resolution, and to devote my work to the healing possibility of peace through storytelling. Because my dad was right—the world’s pain needs our attention and action.
Today, I have the privilege of supporting people across the globe in the two areas that most enliven me: telling stories and navigating conflict.
My work in storytelling has focused on everything from organizational storytelling, to storytelling for advocacy and social change, to narrative-driven strategy, to storytelling for empathy and connection, to storytelling for entertainment and community cohesion.
My story experience and expertise is sought-after by all types of organizations—from nonprofits like Narrative 4 and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, to peacebuilding organizations like +Peace and the Taghyeer Change Movement, to musical groups and museums, to corporations like Accenture and VMware, to government-entities like NASA, and more.
My story-work has taken me the world over. With over 20 years of visits to Israel and Palestine, I found a deep passion for peacebuilding that has since led me into South Africa, Rwanda, Ireland, and U.S. prisons. During my graduate studies in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin, I lived in Belfast and fell in love with live public storytelling and the use of story as a tool for transforming conflict. I’m the founder and host of Tenx9 Nashville, a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night for the telling of true stories on stage based on a theme. Tenx9 is now Nashville’s longest running storytelling event, with over 10 years of monthly events and over 1,000 stories told.
I am the author of multiple books, published articles, and contributed book chapters. I am also the co-editor of the popular Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers, and my 2020 award-winning book I Am Not Your Enemy received praise from internationally acclaimed authors, like Ishmael Beah, Pádraig Ó Tuama, Raja Shehadeh, and National Book Award winner Colum McCann.
I have spoken across the United States, from New York City to Seattle to Malibu to Fort Worth, including TEDx Nashville in 2022. My work has been published and discussed with reputable places like Sojourners, BookPage, National Catholic Reporter, The Tennessean, The Mennonite World, The Porch Magazine, and Plough Magazine.
I live in Nashville, Tennessee. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @michaeltmcray.
Bios for Event Use
Three SENTENCE BIO:
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert and trainer, certified experiential coach, and dynamic keynote speaker. He is an award-winning author and the founder of Becoming Restoried. You can learn more at www.michaelmcray.com and @michaeltmcray on Instagram.
SHORT BIO:
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert and trainer, certified experiential coach (CEC2, ISEP), and dynamic keynote speaker. He is the founder of Becoming Restoried, a coaching practice for people yearning to reconcile to their life stories. Michael is the award-winning author of I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World. His facilitation and story prowess have attracted names like NASA and TEDx. He lives in Nashville, TN. Learn more at www.michaelmcray.com
LONG BIO:
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert and trainer, certified experiential coach (CEC2, ISEP), and dynamic keynote speaker. He is the founder of Becoming Restoried, a coaching practice for people yearning to reconcile to their life stories. Michael is the award-winning author of I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World, and he holds a Master’s in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation from Trinity College in Dublin. His facilitation and story prowess have attracted names like NASA and TEDx. He lives in Nashville, TN.
In case you want to know…
Education
Certificate, Integrated Somatic Trauma Therapy | The Embody Lab, 2022
Certification, Conflict Coaching | Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, 2021
Executive Certification, Public Narrative: Leadership Storytelling, and Action | Harvard Kennedy School, 2020
M.Phil, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation Studies | Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, 2013
B.A., History | Lipscomb University, Nashville, TN, 2011
Publications
I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World, foreword by Ishmael Beah (winner of 2020 Best Book Award in Social Change) | 2020
Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers, with Claire Brown | 2019
Where the River Bends: Considering Forgiveness in the Lives of Prisoners, foreword by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu | 2015
Letters from “Apartheid Street”: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine, foreword by Lee C. Camp | 2013