Why do we tell stories? This is the motto for a three-way conversation with those who tell stories, whether fictional, real, or a cross between the two. We reflect on the human need to create narratives, not only to represent the world and its past, but to reveal it in all its possibilities, and make it live in the unique way that, sometimes, only literature can reveal. Telling stories is like planting seeds, it activates everyday gestures of memory, care, persistence. During this conversation, we also explore the personal and political importance of fiction, a place where words become resistance and the imaginary a territory of contagion. The meeting brings together three writers who explore these paths through the writing of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida, author of several fiction and literature books, Inês Brasão, sociologist and historian, who has recovered the forgotten history of slave labour, and Inês Lampreia, author of No tempo dos Super Heróis (In The Time of Superheroes) (2024) who, based on memories told by her grandparents, evokes the life and resistance of the Alentejo countryside in the mid-20th century.