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LitCanon™

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What Story is this
System Telling?

The literary canon is universal—so if you don’t see yourself in it, maybe you were never meant to.

We’re told the classics endure because they speak to everyone—even when their authors overwhelmingly reflect just one race, gender, or identity. When someone different appears, it’s framed as an exception—not a correction. If your story isn’t reflected, the system suggests the problem is you—not the shelf. You’re taught to admire the canon without expecting to belong to it. LitCanon™ challenges the very idea of the canon—because readers don’t just follow trends. We define them. And now, we create what we deserve: canons that reflect and heal us all.

Why Has the System Been Built This Way?

Because the industry was never designed to believe our stories were the standard.

Despite proof that diverse books are profitable, publishing still treats them as exceptions. The system is not broken—it’s working exactly as it was built to. But through LitCanon™, we rewrite the rules. Because stories that reflect the diversity of our lives will not only teach us how to survive but ensure we thrive together as we imagine new futures. And when writers and readers are given the tools to name what heals, we don’t just expand the canon—we transform it.

What Are We Building Instead?

A healing-centered  platform that transforms how books are discovered, shared, and valued.

By placing tools of reflection, connection, and literary equity in the hands of readers, LitCanon™ ensures readers don’t just build canons—they build communities. From story circles and reader salons to highlight trails, healing scores, and personal archives, where every insight shared becomes part of a living, evolving archive that reshapes what literature means, where it lives, and who it serves. Through LitCanon™, we’re building the future of reading—one that heals, remembers, and reclaims.

Our Blueprint in Action:

Here’s how we bring the LitCanon™ vision to life—through tools, gatherings, metrics, and media that transform how books are not only read but heal.

Healing Canons + Reader Profiles

Readers co-create dynamic healing canons—curated groupings of books guided by identity, emotion, and literary archetypes. These profiles track both reader preference and narrative resonance, helping people find the stories they need in the moments that matter.

Immersive Reader Experiences

From curated boxes with sensory elements (tea, candles, perfumes, playlists) to in-person literary gatherings and themed meals, LitCanon transforms reading into embodied storytelling. Each book becomes a portal—not just to understanding, but to healing.

Narrative Reflections + Story Mapping

Each title includes guided tools for readers to document how a story impacts them emotionally, mentally, and socially. Healing Story Maps track reflection, evolution, and the transformative arc of reading over time.

Story Circles + Reader Salons

Books don’t just speak—they gather. LitCanon hosts both virtual and in-person salons, using facilitated dialogue, sound, and storytelling to invite collective meaning-making rooted in care, culture, and community.

Creative Collaboration Studio

Authors are joined by artists, animators, musicians, and designers to craft short films, performances, collages, and immersive visuals inspired by each book. We build story-worlds that honor authors’ intentions and activate the artistic ecosystem around them.

Digital Tools + CanonBox Prototypes

We’re building a suite of interactive tools—including mobile apps, immersive audio guides, and digital canon builders—to help readers document, share, and grow with the books they love. Our CanonBox™ experiences extend the story from page to practice.

A Canon That Reflects Us All

Join us in reimagining what—and who—the literary canon is for. Whether you’re a reader, educator, librarian, author, or organizer, there’s a place for you in building healing-centered literary futures. From reader salons to curated booklists, digital tools to story circles—LitCanon™ is where books don’t just reflect the world, they help us heal it

Partner With Us

Healing By Any Means (HBAM) is the home of Narrative Systems Design—a new field where story becomes infrastructure, healing becomes measurable, and care becomes an engine for economic and systemic transformation.

Through our six initiatives—StoryBank™, LitCanon™, LitIndex™, HEALIT™, the Healing Literary Futures Network (HLFN), and the NSD Impact Studio—we build tools, train leaders, and generate real-time insight to design more just, imaginative, and healing-centered futures.

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The Healing Literacy Framework

In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.

Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.

Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.

Enter, HEALIT

In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.

Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.

Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.