The ideas listed below are meant to show how my personal “Project Brave Woman,” which exists on this site, could be expanded as a concept into a larger brand and online community post-graduation.
The four interviews and two memoir essays are examples of the kinds of content I would hope to gather from other women and include on a community-based Project Brave Woman website. Every piece of content would relate to a woman’s personal experience of female bravery and authenticity through storytelling. Female contributors could write about or interview their own real-life female role models (ex: friends, family members, co-workers, teachers, mentors, and even public figures, if the site grew to support that). They could also write about published stories that inspired reflection on an aspect of identity/authenticity-building or bravery in women. These could include pop culture criticism and analysis of movies, television, books, music, plays, online series, podcasts, or other kinds of content (examples of this kind of content would be an essay on what Arya Stark from Game of Thrones taught someone about bravery, or what Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird reveals about mother-daughter relationships).
The idea would be to build an online collection of personal stories, and reflections on personal stories, to share with an audience. Dreaming big, this written content could be expanded to include original artwork, songs, videos and other forms of media that also explored these topics. Examples of already-existing online platforms that Project Brave Woman would draw inspiration from are Hello Sunshine and Rookie Mag.
In addition to the written content, Project Brave Woman would include aspects that invited audience participation and collaboration. This could include a monitored message board or social media group, which would allow our audience to communicate with each other, share resources, and build community. Social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram would also be used to share content related to the site and to interact with audience members. A bi-weekly or monthly newsletter would share resources and curated content with readers to keep them engaged in the site and its mission. And, finally, the open-contribution policy of the site, which would encourage readers to submit their own stories for publication, would allow for reader participation at the very heart of the website.
This podcast would take the idea of the “as-told-to” written stories that appear on this site and turn them into edited audio stories. These audio stories would be grouped together based on their similarity in content, or their similarity in theme, and would be edited and produced into polished podcast episodes. These episodes would air weekly during 10-episode seasons, and would provide the PBW audience with an additional way to engage with female storytelling.