NewStories President Bob Stilger has called Japan one of his homes since his student days in the 1970s. On March 11, 2011, after the Triple Disasters of Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Explosions, he felt called to help people rebuild the communities they wanted, rather than government simply recreate the past. In 2015 he published a book about this work in Japanese, followed by an English edition in 2017.

AfterNow: When We Cannot See the Future, Where Do We Begin? is Bob's story of engaging with people to discover what is after now? It's his story and the story of thousands in Japan. AfterNow offers insights about how change happens, NOW, when the old is crumbling and the new is beginning to emerge. The book shares perspective on how grief turns into action after overwhelming loss and how people create the new from a future that had disappeared. AfterNow provides a foundation for NewStories work.