Lillien Waller

Storyteller

United States

I help people, brands and organizations discover what's most compelling about what they do. Then I help them tell powerful stories about it.

Profiles & Features | Ghostwriting | Brand Storytelling | Comprehensive Editorial

"...the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives..."

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I am also an accomplished poet. To learn more about this and other creative projects, follow the link below.

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Portfolio

Profiles & Features

Kresge Arts in Detroit Presents
Her Heart Will Be Weighed and Measured

“That piece was about the death ritual [of Ancient Egyptians] and the goddess Maat,” Ezzat explains, noting that our hearts hold our virtues as well as our sins.

State & Hill | Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Down to Earth

Marina Whitman had never worked alongside the country’s foremost economic thinkers on matters of international policy that would go straight to the president’s desk—all while maintaining a marriage and raising two small children. No woman had.

Kresge Arts in Detroit Presents
How To Draw Your Own Face

Let’s not pretend, Kee seems to say, that the fear of harm (the apprehension) in this image can be viewed outside the broader context of that era’s fear of a “yellow peril”—and this one’s. But who’s in peril here?

College for Creative Studies
One Truth Leads to Another

As Ali Lapetina deepens her relationship to photojournalism, she is also creating a moving document of immigrant and city life.

Kresge Arts in Detroit Presents
Once Said

Toward the beginning of her career, painter and interdisciplinary artist Neha Vedpathak began to experiment with so-called masses, handmade mounds made of materials culled from nature. The mounds are little interventions in what appear to be serene topographies, living installations that are both catalyst and evidence.

Kresge Arts in Detroit Presents
Breath

Greig’s work seems always to circle these concerns: the nature of life and death, grief and time. It observes and explores temporality—that is, the state or fact of being bound by time; that is, temporariness; that is, disappearance.

MSUToday | Michigan State University
Alumna creates and exhibits Black Art Library

The exhibit is unique not only for its emphasis on generations of cultural production by and about Black visual arts and artists but also because museum audiences will be able to read, and touch, the rare materials.

Brand Storytelling (Short-form)

State & Hill | Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
All in the game

Dirty and disheveled, Dukie rocks up to his crew in an alley somewhere off Franklin Street in West Baltimore. It’s the last day of a long, hot summer, eighth grade looming like a threat.

College for Creative Studies
Redocumenting Detroit

Other images signal Detroit’s evolution, orange-and white-striped pylons and stacks of construction cranes—evidence of a city still mending but on the come-up.

State & Hill | Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Focus on Urban Policy

Cities remain vitally important to American life and lives around the globe. They fuel economic growth, produce the majority of American jobs, and cultivate innovation and creativity. But the organism of the city has become incredibly complex—so, too, have the mandates of its elected officials, managers, administrators, and other leaders.

Brand Storytelling (Long-form)

Commonwealth School
Crises in Covid's Shadow

The U.S. carceral system is a public-health crisis marked by widespread violence, overcrowding, and inadequate sanitation, healthcare, and mental-health resources. That was before the pandemic.

Commonwealth School
Purpose-Driven Law

What are the most pressing issues of our time, and how can skilled legal practitioners help us reimagine how society addresses them?

Commonwealth School
09/01/2022
How We Heal

When we say pandemic, we inevitably signal a number of crises that parallel, and have been intensified by, this unprecedented public health emergency.

Commonwealth School
One Economy, Many Lives

But when it comes to how each of us lives within, and perceives, the broader economy, we tend to overlook what we don’t fully understand and, more importantly, can’t see.

Brand Storytelling (Publications)

College for Creative Studies
Alumni Magazine

Visually arresting, promotional 'zine highlights alumni accomplishments for a young adult audience. Inside: Black Panther, muralist Sydney G. James and world-class kicks.

College for Creative Studies
Alumni Magazine

Visually arresting, promotional ‘zine highlights alumni accomplishments for a young adult audience. Inside: The Mandalorian, World of Warcraft and Disney TV's "Big City Greens."

College for Creative Studies
C Magazine

Legacy edition of CCS’s annual magazine deep dives into nearly three decades of the institution’s history, reinvention and expansion and celebrates the tenure of former President Richard L. Rogers.

Social Media Campaign