After pursuing careers across various fields including police investigation, journalism, law, and politics, Echo discovers her true path in the arts. Echo first becoming a live storyteller with a successful hit show and then a children’s book author, Echo shares lessons from her unusual and unorthodox journey. She reflects on the triumphs and challenges that come with answering the call upon your life. 

After a lifetime of feeling like she doesn’t belong – not in the impoverished city where she grew up, the Ivy League college she attended, nor in the concrete jungle of New York City where she lived after college – writer and storyteller Echo Brown moved to California with $100 in her bank account and big hopes. Echo imagines California will be an idyllic paradise where she will find racial harmony, like-minded people, and cute boys eager to date her. What actually happens in California is heartbreaking, unexpected, and surprisingly uplifting.

2020 was an earth-shattering year for everyone on the planet. Collectively, we faced unprecedented challenges. For Echo, 2020 was the year she almost died. Two months after her youngest brother died of a fentanyl overdose at 30, Echo’s kidneys failed while she was living in Paris, France. She was left with a life in tatters while awaiting a kidney transplant and living on dialysis for over a year. This is a talk about learning to stand again after devastating personal losses with reflections on how to weather the storms that appear unexpectedly in our lives.