Author and Photographer
Author Margaret Braun
Margaret Braun is Co-Founder and past Executive Director of the national DES Cancer Network. Margaret played a key role working with legislators, scientists, and the National Cancer Institute to gain legislation for DES medical research and education. She has consulted on DES studies. She serves on the NCI steering committee overseeing DES medical research in the U.S. (now 15 years of studies on the longterm health of DES-exposed people). Her work as a DES activist, and her experience as DES daughter and DES cancer survivor inspired her to write DES Stories.
Margaret says, "After years of working with young people facing overwhelming losses from DES, my heart was full of a thousand stories in search of a voice to speak. DES happens on the body, yet we tend to leave the body out of the telling." DES Stories shows real people, telling their stories in their own words, "When you say your story you can heal, bear witness, and change the world."
Photographer Nancy Stuart
Nancy Stuart is an award-winning portrait photographer and the Executive Vice President and COO of the Cleveland Institute of Art. Stuart is past Associate Dean of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology, and a professor of photography. Her DES Stories portraits have shown throughout the US and awarded a John Kobal prize at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Stuart admires the people she photographed for DES Stories. "Each person gives a human face to something that cannot be seen. By looking into the camera they break through the anonymous wall around DES. They are the healers and storytellers."