About Michael.
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert, experiential coach, and keynote speaker who helps people and organizations become better stories. He’s the Head of the Istoria Institute, a global hub for narrative intelligence; the founder of Becoming Restoried, a life-story coaching practice rooted in experiential healing; and the host of Tenx9 Nashville, the city’s longest-running monthly storytelling event with over 1,000 stories told across 12 years.
Michael is the award-winning author of I Am Not Your Enemy and the forthcoming book The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New (October 2025). Michael has brought his work to places like NASA, TEDx, Cisco, Accenture, and beyond.
He lives in Nashville with his son and a deep love for wonder, words, and the wild.
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.
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Michael McRay is a storyteller, sought-after experiential coach, and narrative guide for the brave and brokenhearted. He is the founder of Becoming Restoried and Head of the Istoria Institute, a global center for narrative intelligence. Michael’s work lives at the intersection of story, trauma integration, and conflict transformation—helping people reckon with the narratives that have shaped them and reclaim the agency to shape what comes next.
To Michael, story isn’t just performance—it’s practice. It’s how we make meaning, metabolize pain, and build bridges between worlds. His storywork has been sought after by organizations ranging from NASA and VMware to Cigna and grassroots peacebuilding movements. In 2022, he was featured as a TEDx Nashville speaker.
With a master’s in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation from Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, Michael has spent over two decades traveling to Israel and Palestine and sitting in story circles from Cape Town to Kigali to US prisons. In 2013, he brought a bit of Belfast home and founded Tenx9 Nashville, now Nashville’s longest-running storytelling series. Over 11 years and 1,000+ true personal stories later, Michael is still hosting it—because he believes gathering to tell the truth of living might be one of the most sacred things we can do.
Michael is the author of multiple books, including I Am Not Your Enemy, winner of the 2020 Best Book Award in Social Change from the American Book Fest, and Keep Watch With Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers, co-edited with Claire Brown. His writing has received praise from internationally acclaimed authors like Ishmael Beah, Desmond Tutu, Raja Shehadeh, and Colum McCann.
His next book—The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New—releases October 21, 2025.
He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his son Rowan, pursuing his purpose: to use the power of story to make meaning, heal harm, and repair relationships.
This is Michael’s work—to walk with others into the dark forests of their lives and help them find the wild way through.
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Three SENTENCE BIO:
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert and trainer, sought-after experiential coach, and dynamic keynote speaker. He is an award-winning author and the Head of the Istoria Institute for Narrative Intelligence. You can learn more at www.michaelmcray.com and @michaeltmcray on Instagram and LinkedIn.
SHORT BIO:
Michael McRay is a nationally recognized storytelling expert and trainer, sought-after experiential coach, and dynamic keynote speaker. He is the Head of Istoria’s Institute for Narrative Intelligence and 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 next book, The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New, releases October 2025. His facilitation and story prowess have attracted names like NASA and TEDx. He lives in Nashville, TN. Learn more at www.michaelmcray.com
In case you want to know…
Education
Certification, Experiential Coach (Level 2) | International Society of Experiential Professionals, 2023
Training in Psychodrama (1 Year) | International Society of Experiential Professionals, 2023
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
Forthcoming
The Wild Way: Navigating the Space Between the Old Story and the New | forthcoming October 2025
Narrative Intelligence, with Harris III | Spring 2026
Becoming Restoried: Transforming Our Experiences of Pain into Stories of Purpose | 2027
Past
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