A Note from the Founder

When I was a child, my grandfather — Sunny Jim, a remarkable storyteller in his own right — took me to the cinema for the very first time. The film we watched was The NeverEnding Story.

Although I didn't have the language for it then, I was profoundly struck by the idea that all of our individual stories are intricately connected — and entranced by the notion that we are all part of a never-ending story. That experience seeded a lifelong love of story — one that would quietly shape the course of my life.

Years later, in my first year of university, I encountered the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who wrote:

"Man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a storytelling animal."

(After Virtue, 1981)

He argued that it is only through the stock of stories — passed from one generation to the next — that we come to understand ourselves, each other, and the world we inhabit.

During my Master's, I came across a word coined by writer John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows — sonder:

"The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."

It lodged quietly in my mind — and kept reverberating.

After more than two decades dedicated to the study and telling of stories in all their forms, these two foundational seeds — MacIntyre's philosophy and Koenig's word — grew into an idea I could no longer ignore.

Sonder: a storytelling platform by the people, for the people.

A living, breathing archive of human memory.

A never-ending story.

Thank you for being here — and for adding your voice to the story.

~ The Founder
Sonder Broadcasting

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