From Loss to Legacy: Jeffery Mason Inspires SIBF Readers to Preserve Their Stories
When Jeffery Mason walks into a room, he carries the gentle presence of someone who has spent a lifetime listening — truly listening — to the people around him. At the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), that presence quickly transformed into a quiet magnetism, drawing an attentive audience to hear him speak about memory, loss, creativity, and the power of handwritten stories.
Today, Mason is known worldwide as the creator of the Hear Your Story books — a guided-journalling series that has become a publishing phenomenon, translated into multiple languages and embraced by families across continents. But his path to literary success began not with ambition, but with heartbreak.
A late-blooming writer shaped by loss
Before becoming a celebrated author, Mason spent decades in a very different world: technology and telecommunications. “I used to build systems that connected people digitally,” he told the audience with a soft laugh, “and now I help them connect emotionally.”
His first book, Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story, emerged in 2019 as his father battled Alzheimer’s. Mason had written a list of questions — simple, heartfelt prompts about childhood, love, failures, joys — hoping to understand the man he was slowly losing. But by the time he found the courage to ask, the window had closed.
“So I asked everyone else,” he recalled. “My mom, my uncles, his friends. The more stories I collected, the more I realised how alike we were. It was as if I found my father in the memories he left behind.”
Those handwritten questions in a spiral notebook soon took on a life of their own. Friends copied them. Then strangers. Then came the inevitable questions:
Do you have one for moms? For grandmothers? For couples? For pets?
What began as a private act of remembrance became a worldwide project of connection.
A global movement rooted in simple prompts
The Hear Your Story series now spans parents, grandparents, couples, siblings — even pets — and is available in languages from Spanish and French to Greek and Polish. Despite Mason’s rising fame, his name rarely appears on the covers.
“It’s not my story,” he explained. “I just hand you the pen.”
What makes his series distinctive is its simplicity. Each book is filled with gentle, structured prompts — a bridge between a blank page and a personal memory.
“A blank page can be terrifying,” he said. “Prompts are like paint-by-numbers. Write one sentence or five paragraphs. There is no right way.”
A philosophy against writer’s block
Mason, now 62, rejects the idea of writer’s block altogether — a statement that drew laughter from the audience.
“Doctors don’t get blocked. Taxi drivers don’t get blocked. They just do their job. So as a writer, I write. Some days it’s rubbish. But that’s why we have editors — they come in later and do the vacuuming.”
He encourages his daughters — and his readers — to embrace creativity without fear or perfectionism.
“I grew up in a time when parents said: ‘Get a real job. Don’t be a starving artist.’ I listened to that for too long.”
Now, he says, he tells his daughters to follow any path that makes their heart expand.
Why handwriting still matters
Even in an era dominated by digital journalling apps, Mason insists that real handwriting holds a unique power.
“There is something sacred about ink on paper,” he told the crowd. “I have recipe cards from my grandmother. When I cook with them, it feels like she’s there with me. That’s what I want for others — that sense of presence.”
That philosophy resonated deeply at SIBF, a fair that celebrates books not just as content, but as living objects of culture, memory, and identity.
A message for a distracted world
At the SIBF book club evening, Mason didn’t simply present his work — he invited the audience to participate. He asked them to answer prompts, ask questions, and rethink how well they know the people closest to them.
“The goal of my books,” he said, “is to help you reconnect — with yourself, and with each other.”
In a world increasingly overwhelmed by notifications and noise, Mason’s work serves as a soft but powerful reminder:
Stories don’t live in files or feeds. They live in people — and they deserve to be asked, written down, and remembered.