One companion who remembers you. Four ways to practice.
It is a conversation out loud, on your phone. You tap once and speak; the companion listens and answers in her own voice. Put her on your home screen (one tap to install) and she is there whenever you want her — or talk here in the browser on a computer or tablet.
You pick a companion — or invite up to three — and start talking. That is Call Clare, and most visits are just that. Three rooms sit beside it. What you tell one companion, the others know, and each takes it up in their own way. Every room is the same practice: conversation that is engaging, expansive and eloquent. That is what we aim for, and the standard we hold our own work to.
Call Clare
Bring something, or bring nothing. Your companion has something either way.
Tell your companion about your week and they stay with it, ask the question a good listener asks, and remember it next time. Arrive with nothing in particular and they bring something of their own: a thing noticed this morning, or an essay read from The Marginalian, Aeon or Psyche, and what it stirred. A card shows the title, the writer and the site, with two links: the article from its top, and the passage your companion means. You read it there, on the writer’s own site, then come back and talk it over. We link to the original; we never copy it. Say “keep it light” and they keep it light. A visit ends when you are both done.
My Stories, the book club and the Worlds are not settings on the conversation. They are rooms of their own. You enter each on purpose: one keeps what it makes, one reads with you, one stages an evening.
My Stories
The stories of your life, in your own words.
This is where you tell the stories of your life: the people, the places and the moments that meant a great deal to you. Your companion asks the questions that bring each story out, and it goes down in your own words. Edit it on this site, share it with the family you choose, print it as a small book, or download it as text, a Word document or a PDF. Story by story, they can grow into the larger thing: your life, told a chapter at a time.
The book club
Read a chapter of your own copy, then talk it over.
Choose a book from the shelf and read a chapter on your own. Then come and talk it over with your companions, who have read only as far as you have, so nothing is given away. Go on a chapter at a time, or say the page you are on. Want a book that is not on the shelf? Ask for it. When enough readers ask for the same book, we write to its publisher for permission, buy it, and add it to the shelf.
The Worlds
An evening you step into.
Lake Geneva, June 1816: the summer of the ghost stories, when Mary Shelley began the tale that became Frankenstein. Join the company by the fire, and feel the idea being born. You are a guest there as yourself. The characters draw you in, hand you the floor, and remember you between visits. One world is open today.
After each visit, the night’s work begins. We think of it as the three Fates of the old story. The first measures what was said and decides what to keep: small things fade in a few days, and the things that matter are kept for good. The second spins what is, so each companion wakes up to date with you. The third prepares what will be. The companions confer about your day and leave each other suggestions: one might tell another, “when they mention their brother, you would know what to ask.”
And now and then a companion dreams about what you told them, and offers you the dream. Like the old prophecies, a dream is not always plain. What it means is yours to find.
Then the shears: the word-for-word record of the visit is cut the same night, unless you turned on “Help my companion learn” in Settings. What stays is the companions’ notes, and the stories you keep in My Stories.
You can use your phone, opening Our Aria from its icon on your home screen, or sign in and use it directly from the website on a computer or tablet. The website is also where you manage your account, add credit, and edit the stories you keep — or download one as plain text, a Word document or a print-ready PDF.
Pricing is reviewed monthly. Two voice modes: the Aria voice (the default) at $3 an hour, or Device at $2 an hour. Read more about pricing.