The Women Who Raised Us: Meet the Storytellers

There's a particular kind of courage that doesn't look like courage at first. It doesn't wear a cape. It doesn't announce itself. It looks more like a person walking up to a microphone, taking a breath, and deciding that their story, the messy, beautiful, complicated, human one, is worth telling out loud.

That's what's happening on Saturday, May 9 in downtown Grayling.

The Women Who Raised Us is the inaugural installment of our Storytelling Series, presented in partnership with the AuSable Artisan Village, and it is exactly what it sounds like and nothing like what you're expecting. Five real people. Five real stories. One room full of people who came because something in them knew they needed to be there.

We don't do polished and perfect here. We do honest. We do heartfelt. We do the kind of funny that only comes from having lived through something hard enough to finally laugh at it.

Here's who's taking the stage.

Jamie Medler

Before you knew her as the warm, passionate person she is today, Jamie was a police officer. She competed in bodybuilding shows. She has done hard things - the kind that leave a mark - and come out the other side knowing something most people spend decades trying to learn: the hard moments are just things. Jamie measures every decision she makes by one standard: would her kids be proud? That kind of accountability doesn't let you off easy. Neither will her story.

Emily Olsen-Brandt

Emily is a pastor who has spent her career studying ancient texts and finding exactly how

relevant they are right now, today, in the middle of your actual life. She describes herself as "really a dinosaur" (her husband's words, fully endorsed) and her roar, she'll tell you, is amazing. What most people don't know when they first meet her is that she relies on an robot (read insulin pump!) to survive, carrying that reality while she shows up fully for everyone around her. Her story reveals that the framework for her whole life is a lesson in the thing she most wants you to leave with: take nothing for granted.

Christopher David Alderman

Nobody sees Christopher coming. He used to ride with a motorcycle club. He now reads more than almost anyone you probably know: books, long-form journalism, the kind of political commentary most of us bookmark and never finish. He cares deeply about the state of the world and isn't afraid to say so. And when he opens his mouth, people have to quickly revise whatever assumption they walked in with, which he has learned to enjoy enormously. His story will show you that he has nothing left to hide and one thing he needs you to hear: it's never too late to choose love.

Dani Livermore

Dani will tell you she tries her hardest to be funny, and that attempt is somehow funnier than anything she could have scripted. She's a stay-at-home mom and a community theatre artist, and she loves both without ranking them. The theatre cracked something open in her, she says, and changed her life in ways she's still counting. She met Jessica Alba. She will tell you about it. But what she really came to say, what she needs the room to hear, is that you are not alone. She means it for you, specifically, wherever you are in it.

Beth Toner

Beth is back in Michigan after a long time away, and The Women Who Raised Us is her first event home. She is, in no particular order: a communications professional for a national health foundation, a nurse, a published Star Trek author, and someone who has completed 30 marathons, five ultramarathons, and three triathlons. People don't believe that last part. It's true. She describes herself as intense, kind, and occasionally snarky, and she stands by all three. She came back to Michigan with a message that's going to unlock something in the room: everyone's family is messy. Telling the story is where the healing starts. Maybe even the laughter.

Be in this room!

Saturday, May 9 AuSable Artisan Village Performing Arts Center 122 Michigan Avenue — Downtown Grayling

Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Grab yours before they're gone: mynorthtickets.com/events/the-storytelling-series-the-women-who-raised-us-5-9-2026