Hey y'all, Lavar Burton here. I'm back with another season of short stories on Lavar

Burton reads starting January 28th. This season you'll meet a vampire dad,

satar wedding crashers, ascension, war robot, and a shape-shifting con man just to name a few characters.

In the credits of every episode you hear me mention the name Juliah Marie Smith. She is my producer

and today I have the great pleasure of having Juliah Marie Smith the best in the business on Mike.

Jules. Hi. Hi, Lavar. We thought maybe it would be kind of nice to let people know some of the

stuff that goes on behind the scenes, what goes into the production of an episode, what your

voices sound like as they're emerging and taking shape. But first when you're not here,

what have you been doing the last few months? Well, I started way back in the summer thinking

about race relations in America. And I felt very strongly that I just couldn't be silent anymore.

That I really wanted to weigh in on this conversation that we are having about race in America and

racism that still continues to grip this country. And so I thought long and hard about not just what

I wanted to say but how I wanted to say it. And what I eventually came up with was a series that

I call This Is My Story. And it's a series of first-person accounts. The stories are less than

three minutes and they are all experiences, recounted experiences that black people have all the

time. And it's sort of a window for folks into what it is like being a black person in America.

Roots was a moment in time when America had a new common understanding, both black and white

America, of who we are and who we are to each other. And I really feel like this is another

potential moment like that, a moment where we actually need a little more understanding of who we are

and who we are to one another. So this is a series that is designed to inform and enlighten.

And it's done with simple storytelling. I'm very proud of it and I hope you'll check it out. You

can find it on my Twitter feed at Love Arbureton and it's also on YouTube just search Love Arbureton or

...