Miri­am Ruth Black is a sto­ry­teller and a recip­i­ent of sto­ries all her life as a teacher, work­shop facil­i­ta­tor, lec­tur­er and ther­a­pist. Sto­ries of love, loss, grief, resilien­cy, and new begin­nings have nour­ished her imag­i­na­tion. Shay­na, the win­ner of a Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award 2022, was inspired by Miri­am Ruth Black­’s fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry. Black feels as if her ances­tors told their sto­ries through her, and her life had pre­pared her­self to hear them.