Stop what you’re doing. Now think about the toughest, most soul-wrenching time of your life, and put it down on paper. Share that piece of your history with someone you admire, after asking them to do the same. And then share those intimate stories with the world.

That’s what Alex Newman, a J. Walter Thompson art director and his award-winning journalist father Kevin Newman recently did in a co-authored memoir called All Out, published by Random House Canada and available in stores today. For the past two years, they both sat down to write (in isolation, later reading the other’s testimonial after each were done) about their experiences coming out — Alex as a young gay man who experienced years of being pushed around at school, and Kevin as a reporter who had endured ridicule and bullying at work (as the creative explains in a National Post article). In a world where connection through communication is desperately lacking, the Newmans found a unique way to share and “confront the hard truths that made them better men.”

You just read about a “Passion Project,” a weird and wonderful thing keeping creatives busy when they’re not hard at work in the agency world. Have your own side project like the one above? Then email Jen Horn with your passion for the chance to be featured.