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Hope Tala: Passage Reading – A Story To Tell

June 20, 2026 · 10 min

Show notes

Singer-songwriter Hope Tala reads from her debut album Hope Handwritten in this passage episode of Character Study.


Hope reads the lyrics to A Story to Tell — a song she wrote on a sunny day in Los Angeles when the music wasn't coming and she felt completely stuck — and reflects on why writing has been a solace since she was a teenager, the quiet resistance of making things purely for yourself, and why creativity isn't something reserved for artists. She and Freya talk about half-finished diaries, the 13-year-old boy on a ferry with headphones and a notepad writing songs, and why somewhere along the way we start to feel embarrassed by the urge to make things.

This is a conversation about what it means to have a story to tell — and why all of us do.


🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE

📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work

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