A friend of mine teaches graduate students at a prestigious university. He also has a second grader at home. One day he was making a little presentation on storytelling to his little daughter’s class. To get their attention, he started by yelling, “Be a lion!” Immediately, the children started growling. Some waved their hands like […]
For The Unsure
May 5, 2023 by Leave a Comment
It’s July 1966. And it’s sweltering hot in Austin Texas. Claire Wilson and her boyfriend Tom Eckman are taking summer classes at the University of Texas. Hot as hell They just got out of an anthropology test. So they head over to the Student Union, to hang out for a while. They’re just starting to […]
What A Story Is Not
May 2, 2023 by Leave a Comment
It was a quiet Tuesday morning in my hometown on the edge of the prairie. The sun had just begun to peek over the tops of the trees. The birds were just beginning their morning serenade. Ahhhhh It was a quiet and serene morning in my little world. I had just sat down for a […]
To The Whispers
April 28, 2023 by Leave a Comment
They come from behind you. Oh, so quietly. They silently sneak up on you. And dance in your imagination. Be quiet They won’t hit you between the eyes. They won’t come screaming in your face, “This is who you are. This is what you must do.” Rather they creep slowly on little feet of silence […]
Marinating In The Mediocre
April 25, 2023 by Leave a Comment
It started out innocently enough. Quite pretty, actually. Lovely little messages, dripping down. Falling lightly in our collective lap. Then things changed The wind shifted and the messages increased. Now filling the sky, turning everything in their way into a messy soup. Each message now propelled horizontally like a bullet stream. Making everything indistinguishable, indecipherable […]
Scared: A Storyteller’s Tale
April 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment
It’s lurking in that white piece of paper. Be careful, my friend. The Scared might get you. The Scared is everywhere. And it’s waiting for you For some people, it’s waiting for you on an airplane. The Scared is out there in the audience you’re about to address. If you’re an artist or a storyteller, […]
The Only Story In The World
February 25, 2020 by Leave a Comment
The debate was over what makes up a great story. The crowd filtered into the gym. They took their seats. Wedging themselves into the metal folding chairs that can turn your butt to stone in an instant. A small podium faced them On one side of the podium sat the traditionalists. Joseph Campbell, Keith Browning, […]
To The Dreamkeepers
February 5, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Neil Gaiman is a sage of storytelling while he’s awake. And one of the most interesting people alive. But there’s something you may not know about him. He is also a masterful weaver of whimsical, intensely interesting stories while he’s asleep. But dreams are fleeting So, over the years, his wife, musician Amanda Palmer, has […]
Experiences: Safe Havens For Tribe Action
January 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment
It was an amazing evening. The Robin Hood Foundation had just raised $101,000,000. In one night. At one event. Some people looked at the result and decided the tactic was the secret. It was not The gala itself is not the story. The real story has two parts. First, it’s about all the efforts that […]
The Storyteller’s Promise
December 18, 2019 by Leave a Comment
A Manifesto by Rebecca Solnit. Edited (with apologies to the author) to fit the Art Of It style. Or lack there of. Stories surround us like air. We breathe them in. We breathe them out. The art of being fully conscious in life means seeing the stories and becoming their teller. And not letting them […]
