Sara Amini: The Stories We Carry and the Friends Who See Them

What can a graphic novel teach educators about belonging, friendship, and the inner lives of young people? Sara Amini is an actor and author whose semi-autobiographical middle grade graphic novel Mixed Feelings started as a collection of essays before finding its real form. In this conversation, she and Tricia dig into why the graphic novel gave her a sharper way to tell a story about not fitting neatly into any one category, and what that means for the kids (and adults) who read it. They talk about humor as a way into hard topics like racism, xenophobia, puberty, and loneliness. Sara explains how she thinks like a director when writing visually, and why graphic novels open up something different in classrooms that text alone doesn't reach. The conversation keeps circling back to a question worth sitting with: what are students carrying that we're not seeing, and what kinds of stories help us notice? Want a free copy of Mixed Feelings ? Email tricia@shiftingschools.com a screenshot of your podcast rating by April 15th to enter.

You can listen to Sara Amini: The Stories We Carry and the Friends Who See Them online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Sara Amini: The Stories We Carry and the Friends Who See Them is an episode from Shifting Our Schools - Education : Technology : Leadership by Jeff Utecht.

This episode is 24:26 long.

This episode was published on Apr 13, 2026.

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