Inside Stories

INSIDE STORIES PODCAST 34: WOMEN ON THE RISE TELLING HERSTORY

2012-05-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

WORTH logo In this Mother's Day episode of the podcast, we visit the Monday night writing group of WORTH -- short for Women On the Rise Telling HerStory -- a New York City-based advocacy and leadership organization for women prisoners past and present. At this session of the group, participants write about mothers and motherhood. How can writing about your mom increase your leadership

INSIDE STORIES PODCAST 33: CASTING DIRECTOR AND THEATER DIRECTOR WILL CANTLER

2012-04-15T21:00:00.002-04:00

The latest podcast episode is a conversation with Will Cantler, a casting director with Telsey + Company, and an artistic director at MCC Theater, both in New York City. I was interested to hear how a casting director helps put flesh on the bones of a story for the theater, film, or television. Will and I talked about that and his 26-year labor of love, the MCC Theater, which produces

STORIES ABOUT STORIES: "THIS AMERICAN LIFE" RETRACTS

2012-03-20T20:00:00.004-04:00

Another in a series of posts of "Stories about stories" -- segments from "This American Life" and other sources that are about storytelling itself. "RETRACTION": The entire last episode of This American Life is a discussion of why the show had to retract an earlier episode, which was of theater artist Mike Daisy's "reporting" on Apple Computer's manufacturing practices in China. Turns out

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: JAPANESE ART, ORAL HISTORY, AND NARRATIVE THEOLOGY

2012-03-18T20:00:00.011-04:00

STORYTELLING IN JAPANESE ART: The Metropolitan Museum has up an impressive show on the topic through May 6. And, handily, they have some great images and explanatory text on their website, so click the link above. The stories are as varied as the format -- myths, war stories, tales of adventure and romance, told through text and illustrations on playing cards, folding panels, and, most

STORIES ABOUT STORIES: STORIES IN / OF LOVE

2012-02-25T19:00:00.014-05:00

Another installment in a series of "Stories About Stories," in which I post segments from This American Life and other sources, about storytelling itself. "MARRIAGE AS RERUN: Many couples eventually encounter this problem: One person in the couple trots out the same story over and over, and the other person has to just listen. But what do the stories we tell in front of our significant

STORIES ABOUT STORIES: CAMP STORIES, AND LIFE-CHANGING BOOKS

2012-02-19T20:00:00.017-05:00

The third installment in a series of "Stories About Stories," in which I post segments from This American Life (and occasionally other sources) about storytelling itself. "THE FAMILY THAT READS TOGETHER: The story of a book that changed a family's life, but only temporarily and not for the better. David Sedaris describes what happens when he finds a dirty book in the woods and shares it with

STORIES ABOUT STORIES: ARABIAN NIGHTS, AND REALITY TV

2012-02-12T20:00:00.025-05:00

Here's the second installment in a series of "Stories About Stories," in which I post stories from "This American Life" and other sources that are about storytelling itself. In preparation for Valentine's Day, these two stories deal at least loosely with romantic love. The first, of course, is about the mother of all "stories about stories," namely "The Arabian Nights." The second is a

STORIES ABOUT STORIES: "SUPER DUPER"

2012-02-05T20:00:00.042-05:00

Here's the first post in a new series, which I will descriptively call "Stories About Stories." The WBEZ radio program This American Life is known, of course, for its excellent stories -- mostly factual, with the very occasional fiction tossed in. In each installment of this series of blog posts, I'll link to one or more This American Life stories that are about stories or storytelling itself.

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: PRESIDENT LINCOLN, COMMUNITY PLANNING, MIDDLE AGE

2012-01-29T20:00:00.001-05:00

PRESIDENT LINCOLN, STORYTELLER: A post by historian Louis P. Masur on the New York Times "Disunion" blog, about President Lincoln's renown as a storyteller. (Image above is from that NYT blog post.) Masur writes: "Lincoln loved to tell stories. Anyone who met with him commented on his endless supply of anecdotes and jokes. Count Adam Gurowski, a Polish exile who worked in the State Department,

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: NARATIV E-COURSE, AND OBAMA'S DATA MINING

2012-01-22T18:00:00.013-05:00

2 6 PRINCIPLES from Narativ Circle on Vimeo. NARATIV E-COURSE: Narativ is an organization that trains corporations, nonprofits, and individuals on how to listen to and tell stories. In exchange for your name and email address, you get access to the workbook and six short videos they have in their free e-course. In the first video in the series, above, the organization's co-founder Murray

MOVEMENT STORYTELLING

2012-01-09T20:00:00.012-05:00

Here's the beginning of a post I wrote for the Orton Family Foundation's blog, "Cornerstones." Click here to visit their blog and read the whole post, which is about the stories that social movements tell to and about themselves. Like other gay bars of the 1950s and 1960s, the Stonewall Inn in New York City was subject to regular police raids. Mostly, patrons were so afraid of being

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: CREATIVE COMPUTERS, AND TWITTERATURE

2012-01-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: LISTENING

2011-12-18T20:00:00.004-05:00

LISTENING IN TEXAS: The Texas After Violence Project uses storytelling to increase the peace. With the tagline "Listening for a change," the organization "works to create a foundation for public dialogue on violence in Texas, especially murder and execution. We carefully listen to people affected by violence, including friends and family members of murdered and executed people, as well as

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: STORY-SHARING PLATFORMS

2011-12-12T00:42:00.001-05:00

STORY-SHARING PLATFORMS: A couple story-sharing platforms I've heard of or been exploring recently, one small and beautiful, another is sprawling and stripped-down. Cowbird.com is a new site that describes itself as a "small community of storytellers, interested in telling deeper, longer-lasting, more nourishing stories than you're likely to find anywhere else on the web." The site enables you

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: FORGETTING, REMEMBERING

2011-12-04T20:00:00.044-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy TIMESLIPS STORYTELLING: An NBC news story about the TimeSlips storytelling project for seniors with dementia. Check out my summer 2010 podcast interview with project coordinator Anne Basting, who also wrote the book "Forget Memory: Creating Better Lives for People With Dementia." TWEETING WORLD WAR II: A New

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: NEW MEDIA STORYTELLING

2011-11-27T18:00:00.004-05:00

Above, a 4-minute video of Joe Sabia talking about the evolving technology used to tell stories. On a related note, take a look at this New Scientist article that lays out some fine examples of e-storytelling; also worth checking out is the more complete electronic literature collection from which it draws. I'm relieved to report that neither the video presenter nor

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: LISTENING, IMMERSION, AND PEACE-MAKING

2011-11-20T20:00:00.001-05:00

LISTENING: Above is a TED talk by Julian Treasure, on the topic of listening (sorry for the funky dimensions). It has to do not just with how we listen to other people, but how we take in our whole sonic environment. On the TED website there's an interactive transcript of the talk, and more information about the speaker's work on his blog. GETTING LOST IN STORIES:

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: QUOTES ON STORYTELLING

2011-11-13T20:00:00.010-05:00

This weekend, some quotes on storytelling. The first set of quotes are selected from this excellent page of storytelling resources and websites, assembled by Elizabeth Figa, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Sciences. The second set of quotes, starting with the one by Salman Rushdie, was gathered and presented by Patti J. Christensen on

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: STORIES IN WAR AND PEACE

2011-11-06T11:00:00.095-05:00

DEPT. OF DEFENSE RESEARCHERS STUDY NARRATIVE: The continuing saga of a project I wrote about early last year. The Pentagon's research arm is studying -- well, to put it plainly, how stories create terrorists. In a project it calls "Narrative Networks," the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is soliciting research proposals "in the areas of (1) quantitative analysis of

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: HALLOWEEN, GRIOTS, AND STORYWORLD

2011-10-30T14:13:00.000-04:00

AN INTERACTIVE HALLOWEEN STORY: Here's a fun, interactive Halloween story, or rather an Alternate Reality Game (ARG), called "Home: A Ghost Story." As described in this Wired story where I originally learned about it, it's a "twenty minute supernatural thriller" that "mixes together video, telephone calls, and text messages to cook up a powerful brew." Check it out. ONE'S NEW GRIOT PROGRAM:

"THE INFLUENCING MACHINE: BROOKE GLADSTONE ON THE MEDIA"

2011-10-23T20:00:00.016-04:00

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Brooke Gladstone www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive The media have biases, alright, just not the left-right ones we may think of. So says Brook Gladstone, co-host of NPR's "On the Media," in her smart new-ish book, "The Influencing Machine." Here's a, um, comic book -- illustrations by

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: STORYVERSE, ECONOMICS, AND TELLABRATION EVENTS

2011-10-16T17:00:00.034-04:00

SMALL DEMONS CREATES A "STORYVERSE" AROUND BOOKS: As described in the video above, Small Demons is a new app (request a free invitation to try it in beta) that has links and pop-up features on the people, places, movies, books, songs and other details that appear in a growing library of novels they've indexed (1,000 by mid-November, and aiming for 50,000 by next spring). You select, say, "The

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: THE NATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL

2011-10-09T18:00:00.046-04:00

TOUGH TIMES FOR THE NATIONAL STORYTELLING FESTIVAL: I wish I had been in Jonesborough, Tennessee this week! That's the location of the 39th Annual National Storytelling Festival, which wrapped up on Friday. Alas, much of the news surrounding this year's event has had more to do with the parent organization's financial troubles than with the storytelling itself. Watch the video above for

THE CRAFT OF HISTORY: CHRISTA ORTH ON THE WORK LIVES OF PORTLAND QUEER PEOPLE

2011-10-01T14:00:00.002-04:00

It's 1973, and Steve Harmon, the first male phone operator in Portland, Oregon is taking directory assistance calls. His story is told -- with poignant and period details like the blush that steals over his cheeks when he comes out at work, or the "finger-condoms" the operators use -- by Christa Orth in the video above. She's reading from her chapter in the Lambda Literary Award-winning

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: MISERY LOVES COMPANY

2011-09-25T20:00:00.002-04:00

But let's be fair. It's not just misery that loves company, it's most other moods and people! A New York Times story from last February explores how "When Patients Share Their Stories, Health May Improve." The article opens with the case of a man awaiting a liver transplant. He exercised to make sure he could withstand the operation itself. But he was still afraid that he wouldn't be strong