Lost & Found: Personal Stories of Loss and Discovery

“Lost and Found” is the eighth themed collection from the Personal Story Publishing Project. It is 45 stories, 750-800 words each, from 45 writers sharing personal experiences from their lives on the theme of “Lost & Found: loss and discovery—trials, serendipity, and life after.”

Forty-five writers share insightful, touching, and thought-provoking stories about the trials and casualties of losing something or someone near and dear to them. Or they write of an unexpected experience, a serendipitous discovery, that like the loss changes something, changes everything. These stories from their lives reflect our collective human experience, moments that divide life into a before and after, creating at a point of transition a time of reckoning with a changed reality—something gone, something new—a past and a future.

Randell Jones is the editor and publisher of the Personal Story Publishing Project. He is an award-winning writer about the pioneer and Revolutionary War eras and North Carolina history. For 13 years, he served as an invited member of the Road Scholars Speakers Bureau of the North Carolina Humanities Council. In 2013, the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution conferred upon him its national History Award Medal. During 25 years, he has written 100+ history-based guest columns for the Winston-Salem Journal. He created the Personal Story Publishing Project and the companion podcast, "6-minute Stories" to encourage other writers. He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.