Listen to this - The Boston Globe

Listen to this - The Boston Globe

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Winners of the Brother ( Hugh Morgan) Blue and Ruth Hill Award, 2010

Today, the winners of the 2010 Brother Blue and Ruth Hill award met to celebrate and install their plaque at Toscanini’s in Central Square Cambridge. “This is where it all started” said the massmouth founders, (from top left) Norah Dooley, Andrea Lovett, Stu Mendleson and Doria Hughes. "Toscanini's has been so good to us. They've donated "office" space, performing space, ice cream, a prize for the Big Mouth Off and sponsored our videos at cctv as well," said Dooley. She comes from the same borough of NYC as Gus and Mimi also was at the Boston Museum School at the same time as Gus Rancatore. All the Brother Blue winners are loyal fans of Toscis ice cream, the amazing baristas and the excellent coffee.

The massmouth team reminisced about how Brother Blue and Ruth had attended and performed at the first massmouth event at Toscanini’s in August of 2008. "He is missed but he lives on in the stories, " they said. Each year LANES.org honors those who “give their lives to storytelling” at their annual conference, Sharing the Fire.

Excerpt from this massmouth blog:

"On Saturday, March 20, 2010, massmouth founders Norah Dooley, Doria Hughes, Andrea Lovett and Stu Mendelson were awarded the Brother Blue and Ruth Hill Award by the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling in recognition of their extraordinary commitment and efforts to promote a broader understanding of the art of storytelling and the support of storytellers in the development of their art. It serves, as Brother Blue (Hugh Morgan Hill), has said, “To honor those who give their lives to storytelling to change the world.”

When the award was announced the crowd rose to their feet and cheered, in delighted recognition of all that massmouth has done to build storytelling in Massachusetts." - Laura Packer, Storyteller

The massmouth founders have been having an eventful year –in October they started a series of story slams in Greater Boston. Ms. Dooley helped secured a not-for-profit umbrella agreement with The National Storytelling Network, so that any donations can be tax-deductible and Ms. Lovett has been profiled by The Boston Sunday Globe. Doria Hughes served as a judge at the last Cambridge slam in addition to many local gigs. And Stu Mendleson has been traveling in Africa, teaching drumming and hosting massmouth open mics, with Doria Hughes, for over a year.

Storytelling excellence

by Laura Packer

Last month at Sharing the Fire: Northeast Storytelling Conference Bill Harley presented a keynote that raised worthwhile questions about storytelling as an artform. He challenged the storytelling community and storytellers as artists to strive to be better, to not settle for the label of folk art but to do the necessary work to raise storytelling to the same level as theater, dance and other fine arts. This rings resonant with my work as a producer and performer. I believe that yes, we are all storytellers, because that it is part human nature to tell stories. But as performing artists we have a responsibility to always improve our art, to work on the craft, to not just assume that the label “storyteller” makes it okay to be sloppy.

Bill Harley laid out several questions we can ask ourselves to help us become better artists. If we take ourselves and our work more seriously the world will too. In the next few weeks leading up to the Big Mouthoff I’d like to look at some of these issues in detail with the hopes that it will help all storytellers of every stripe, from slammer to epic performer.

Harley has the following checklist for every performer to consider as they develop a piece (to read it in detail click here. And you should):

• Narrative Form
• 
Language

• Voice and Physical Instrument
• 
Performance Skills

• Relationship with the Audience

• Show Structure

• Aesthetic

Let’s start with Narrative Form. Harley suggests every performer ask themselves the following about narrative form:
Is the structure of the piece strong – does it show an understanding of narrative structure, even if only to make it possible to experiment with that structure? Is the structure flabby – are there parts that do not belong? Is there an awareness of narrative tension? Does the piece show an understanding of character’s place in the narrative? Is there resonance in the piece, with elements introduced early bearing fruit later on? Is there an understanding of an underlying subtext in the story? Is it clear that the storyteller knows what the story is about? Has s/he made choices about what material to present to best serve the heart of the story? Is there a dramatic build that reaches some form of climax when a truth is revealed? Is this revelation presented in a way that delights or enlightens or moves the audience? ©2009 Bill Harley

Massmouth slam judges are asked to rank three criteria, the first being narrative form. Does the story have a beginning, middle and an end? Does the story make sense? It makes sense that this is a point of judgment because in any narrative artform we long for coherence. We want motion and closure. Checkov said, "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." The same applies to storytelling. Every element needs to be there for a reason. If you’ve practiced your piece you have a chance to cut out the narrative fat, the unnecessary elements, no matter how beloved they may be.

Storytellers have an additional burden that most narrative artists don’t have. They work in real-time with a live audience. If you don’t know what the story’s about or you lose your train of thought because you are so busy trying to tie up loose ends, the audience knows. You don’t get to rewrite, try a scene again or rewind the DVD. You must know your story, why you’re telling it and why each part is there.

Slam storytelling provides different challenges than longer form. You have very little time to create a coherent narrative, so your story must be direct. You need to know what you’re saying and why. This may be part of why slams are so effective for newer tellers – they aren’t tied up in trying to get all the little nuances in, they just want to tell the story. The short time limit means you don’t have time to worry about narrative fat.

Long form storytelling offers both more and less freedom than slam stories. While you have more time to spin out your narrative, more opportunity to weave interesting characters and explore the interstices of the story, you also have more opportunities for loose ends, more opportunity to get lost in your own love of a particular detail. You do have more time to build tension and have a satisfying ending but more room for failure. It takes work to build a successful long story. These stories in particular can fool the artist into thinking they know their own meaning. How often have you worked on a piece (anything – story, writing, art, etc) then come back to it years later to find meaning hidden that you never realized was there? This is a particular risk with long, told stories. If you find unexpected meaning in the middle of a performance, you risk violating the audience’s relationship with the story if your performance falters as you have your revelation.

And that’s what it comes down to. Know your story. Know what matters in your story and what doesn’t matter. Tell what matters. Discard the rest. Leave your audience the white space to do the heavy lifting and trust them.

Next time I’ll look at Language and Voice and Physical Instrument. In the mean time, practice your stories and plan to come to the Big Mouthoff to hear storytelling in action!

Haitian Benefit Concert Boston bon zanmi nou you.mov

Sharing The Fire ,Tom Brillat

WHAT"S NEWS??

Lanes Welcomes its New Director Yvonne Zinicola.
check her out on the LANES front page.

www.mynestorytellingconfsharingthefire.blogspot.com

Terrific Conference. STF Conference

Arts education: "It's not a waste of time"

By

Patti Hartigan

For a number of reasons, I've spent the last year immersed in education reporting, so it's nice to be back here thinking and talking about the arts. These two worlds intersect in critical ways, as today's kids are tomorrow's artists. I don't know about you, but my best school daze memories have nothing to do with the rote drills or the bubble tests. Chemistry? Feh. I only remember the teacher screaming at me when I picked up a pile of lye pellets because I thought they were pretty. But I do remember field trips to Lincoln Center, where we worked backstage with a director I would later interview. Physics is fuzzy, but I fondly recall finger painting in kindergarten and writing angst-ridden poetry in a class led by a teacher who didn't make fun of my adolescent musings.

I was reminded of this the other night during the Oscars when Michael Ciacchino won for his original score for "Up." He skipped the usual shout-outs to agents and higher powers and, instead, went right back to the beginning.

I was nine and I asked my dad, "Can I have your movie camera? That old, wind-up 8 millimeter camera that was in your drawer?" And he goes, "Sure, take it." And I took it and I started making movies with it and I started being as creative as I could, and never once in my life did my parents ever say, "What you're doing is a waste of time." Never. And I grew up, I had teachers, I had colleagues, I had people that I worked with all through my life who always told me what you're doing is not a waste of time. So that was normal to me that it was OK to do that. I know there are kids out there that don't have that support system so if you're out there and you're listening, listen to me: If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It's not a waste of time. Do it. OK?

Imagine that. He had teachers who told him what he was doing wasn't a waste of time. All aspiring young artists should have teachers like that. I'm not saying that teachers who foster creativity aren't out there, but they're either fleeing the profession or drowning in a mad "reform" race that threatens to drive the arts out of public schools. And frankly, I'm worried.

Ever since the No Child Left Behind act, the national discussion about failing schools has been all about "accountability" and "standards." Now, nobody in his or her right mind is against standards and accountability: We all want our kids to learn and to develop and to grow. But the "standards" movement is imposing a corporate, one-size-fits-all model on schools, focusing on high-stakes standardized tests that measure rote facts rather than the ability to think independently. Just yesterday, the National Governors Association released national core common standards that have been embraced by 48 states. The standards focus on language arts, science, and math, and they outline specific benchmarks each child has to meet in each grade. Not a word about the arts or about the value of multiple intelligences.

States that adopt the standards will have a better chance of winning funding in President Obama's Race to the Top Initiative, a $5 billion program that treats education like a reality show. Whatever state can get through all the hurdles wins the cash. But what happens when you ask people to do the impossible -- that is, improve failing schools overnight and get all students to pass the same test? They resort to desperate measures.

They cheat. They teach to the test, aka drill and kill. And they narrow the curriculum. If it ain't on the test, it's a waste of time. Out goes music. Out goes visual art. Out goes drama. This is happening all over the place, despite the fact that studies show that graduation rates are higher when students have access to arts education.

Imagine the young composer in this environment, where his teachers actually did tell him that his obsession with his father's wind-up 8 millimeter camera was a waste of time. Imagine the would-be architect, who is told in kindergarten that building with blocks is a waste of time. Imagine the future actress, who is told there's no time to play in the dress-up area because she has to learn all her letters and memorize 25 sight words at the age of five. Imagine the up-and-coming Picasso who is chastised for turning in a picture of a blue cat eating a potato when the assignment had been to draw a self-portrait. Not realistic enough! Follow directions!

A waste of time.

Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with standards if they are developmentally appropriate and flexible. But I fear we are raising a bunch of automatons who are being instructed to memorize facts and fill out bubble tests rather than teaching children to think creatively and outside of the so-called box.

The sad thing is, this reform is all being done in the name of educating young people to develop "21st century skills." But what precisely are these skills? Here's what Daniel Pink had to say in "A Whole New Mind." "Typically these are things we associate with
the right side of the brain, with artistic and empathetic and playful sorts of abilities."

Instead, schools are racing to focus on something called STEM -- science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In a recent article in Education Week, Joseph Piro suggested the term be changed to STEAM -- with the A standing for arts. Makes perfect sense to me and you, but unfortunately, we're not in charge.

And sadly, this isn't just happening here. And it's not just happening in K-12. It's infecting universities, too. Last month, an A-list of arts and education luminaries in England penned a passionate letter to the Observer protesting cuts to arts programs in higher education.

Article by Laura Packer

Article from( http://www.storyteller.net/articles/26)


[http://massmouth.ning.com/events/outrageous-or-blarney-story]

Everyone has a couple of stories that no one ever believes, those tales that don't need to grow in the telling because the real events were so outrageous, so incredible, so beyond that pale that to exaggerate would only add excess to an already perfect creation.

My Aunt Betty only lost her false teeth once. She found them when they bit her on the butt, but she didn't find them at home, oh no....


We also all have those stories that have matured over the years. The ones that start out as a mild anecdote but end up being, longer, louder and more extraordinary than anyone can be expected to believe, but we don't care, because it's all such good craic or fine talk and story.

Yeah, we had a good day fishing, but you should have seen the one that broke my line...


When my Uncle Pete was a young man, he liked to fight. He didn't care if his opponent was man or beast, he would just go at it....

These wild stories are fun to listen to, bond audiences together in a shared laugh, cut across cultural boundaries and are a blast to tell. You can roll out your best bit of blarney at the Outrageous Storyslam at Kennedy's Midtown, March 15 from 6:30-9:30. See you there!

I was on my way to Kennedy's for the slam and this enormous man got on the T. I'm not talking just tall or wide, but huge. In order to get through the doors he had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl, then lie down in the aisle since he wouldn't fit in any of the seats. He immediately exclaimed that the MBTA had best upgrade their cars or he would just use one for his coffin since it was such a tight fit and then he fell asleep and began to snore...

Storytelling as connective tissue

A slightly different version of this post was originally published in October, 2009, at my other blog. I've rewritten it for massmouth. by Laura Packer( from massmouth blog)

Whenever I can, I sit in the back at storytelling events. This isn't from modesty or claustrophobia, but because I love watching the crowd as the teller's words touch each and every listener. They form a net that includes everyone in the room, linking them by common experience and images.

While each listener imagines different things and ultimately may remember a story differently, the shared experience of listening to a story makes the entire audience into one being. The story is the ligament that binds us. From my seat in the back I can see everyone move together, leaning forward as the teller pulls them into the tale or jumping at a scary moment. The audience moves like one animal. Regardless of the length of the story, the setting in which it's told, the experience of the teller or the teller's background, when we tell authentically tell a story it binds audience members to each other and to the teller.

Stories are connective tissue in culture and families as well. They are how we identify ourselves, how we know that I am of this group, so this is my story. If you are Jewish then you likely have some common elements of story around survival and loss and redemption. If you are African-American then you likely have common elements of story around race and freedom. Family stories act as connective tissue through generations (for example,this is how we got here or this is our land) binding young to old and helping youth retain family identity through the trauma of adolescence because they know who they are by the stories they were told and in turn retell. On a broader level, stories connect human-to-human, because ultimately we have similar experiences regardless of our color or ethnicity.

When we tell and listen to stories we are reminded of our common bonds, of how we are not so different from one another. We are connected by our very human natures; in narrative we have the opportunity to see the similarities and release the differences.

Once upon a time there was a family. The parents loved the children and let them go into the world to seek their fortune. Some succeeded, some failed. They told their stories so they would be remembered. And so the stories remained long after the original tellers were gone.

Stories reach across time, space and distance to give us the same narrative connection. We are human. We tell stories. Listen to me and I will listen to you: We will recognize ourselves in each others words.

A Red Pen to Improve Your Storytelling
By: K. Sean Buvala

Being able to craft a story is an essential skill for both beginning and experienced tellers. That crafting, much like sculpting, involves knowing what to trim away and what to keep. For storytellers, our sculpting tools should include the red “cross it out” pen.

There is an old comedy album, heard once in my youth, where the comedian says, “When you are trying to tell a story, try having a point. It makes it so much more interesting for an audience.”

I’ve attended a number of storytelling events of late that bring that old comedy routine to mind. I’ve wanted to hand the tellers a giant red pen, hoping they’d cut out, cross out and eliminate the bloated-ness of their tales.

Although it’s not always possible to have a clear cut point in telling folktales or world myths, it is important for storytellers to know “why” they are telling any particular story. If not, stories end up as rambling and meandering exercises in hearing ourselves talk. When that happens, the stories lose their interest and our audiences just lose interest.

It is easier to do the red pen routine with personal tales, so let’s begin there. First, understand that storytelling is an audience-centered art form. It’s not a form of therapy for the storyteller.

Grab yourself a piece of paper and do this exercise with me. First, choose a personal tale from your repertoire. Then imagine the type of audience you’ll be telling to and with. With those thoughts in mind, ask yourself this: Why am I telling the story? What is my point?

Identify this first thought, this singular crystal-clear point and write it across the top of the piece of paper. Use large, bold letters.

Underneath those big bold letters, write an outline your story. What’s first, second third.....sixth, etc? Try to include all the elements of your typical telling of that story, including those tangential side trips you might be normally inclined to make.

Now comes the step so many tellers are unwilling to make. Grab your red pen. Re-read your main point. Go down your outline and ask yourself for each numbered item, “Does this item illustrate or lead to my main point?” If it does not, cross it out.

This is the point where some storytellers start to reach for the oxygen mask. “But, but, what you want me to cut out is (funny, cute, touching, meaningful, pretty, insightful, witty, makes my grandma laugh, tells people I love dogs, will save the world, etc). I couldn’t cut out that part.” Yes, you could. Yes you should. If it does not move your story towards your main point for the audience that you are addressing, then draw a line through it and drop it from you story. Most likely, the parts you’ve redlined are or could become stories in their own way.

The process I have just described is a good exercise to do with your storytelling coach. Ask that person to help you identify and redline the excessive parts of your story, those parts that drag down your work. One of the challenges with storytelling as an art from is our excessive focus on internal (“How does your storytelling make you feel?”) coaching, so it may be hard to find a mentor that will be honest with you. You may need to assure your coach that it’s okay to have an opinion.

This ability to redline one’s work, to focus on the needs of the audience, is essential for good storytelling. Tellers who are unwilling to red line their stories just leave me wishing for the door. A storyteller who tells a story that has been redlined and crafted leave me wishing for more of their craft. Isn’t that the goal- building a love for stories and storytelling in our audiences?

Can you believe what my mom did?

by Laura Packer reprinted from

http://massmouth.blogspot.com/2010/01/can-you-believe-what-my-mom-did.htm/

Or, we have families so we can tell stories about them.

Last week I listed ten things you can tell stories about including food, love, embarrassing moments and more. One of the richest places for stories is family. Biological or chosen, parents or children, siblings or cousins, your family or another's, families have it all. Love, hate, humor, drama, passion, apathy, the whole range of human experience is in every single family. Kevin Brooks, a talented local storyteller who often tells about his family, has said, "God gave me a dysfunctional family so I can tell stories about them."

Think about. I bet you can come up with stories for every one of these prompts or, if you can't, ask someone you're related to and they will tell you a story:

• I had it and they wanted it
• A kitchen disaster
• How my parents met
• Why we live here
• The time when we all went on vacation. Or tried to
• What happened at the funeral/wedding/christening/bat mitzvah
  

I dare you not to come up with a family story or two. Family stories told in the context of family help cement relationships and heal old wounds. But you can tell them as performance pieces too. These are stories everyone can relate to, because we all have family stories of our own. You're guaranteed to connect with your audience when you tell a family story.

I know, you might be worried about offending a relative by telling a story about them. There are a couple of things you can do about it.

• File off the serial numbers and change their identity just a little. Make a sister a cousin.
• Tell the story someplace where they will never hear it.
• Throw caution to the wind and sacrifice your family on the alter of art. Chances are your stories are no worse than those David Sedaris tells the nation about his family.
• Tell them the story first. They might think it's the best thing they've ever heard and even give you details you never knew. This is my favorite option and one that might just bring you closer to those you love. Or never knew you loved.

Once you have that family story come to the It's Relative story slam on January 31st and strut your stuff. Invite your mom and dad - who knows, they might have stories you want to hear too!

What Does a Great Story Look Like?

March 26, 2009 | DH | Comments 6
by David E. Henderson
click on link to full page story and to David E. Henderson's colum

This week I have been writing about the power and value of organizational storytelling for the purpose of achieving sustained image and reputation leadership. But, what does a great story look like?

As someone who began my career in network television news, and then moved to a second career in public relations, storytelling comes second-nature … something I take for granted and wish I were better at doing. So I must stop, and dig down to explain the essential pillars of organizational storytelling.

Storytelling is about life. It is about sharing the human experience, something that is a common thread that tends to touch and connect with something inside each of us … that makes us laugh, or perhaps cry, or maybe just contemplate. We listen to a great story, and we often will retell it to a family member, friend or colleague.

As I find often during consulting, storytelling can easily be used to communicate vision, concepts, ideas and build consensus for an organization or company.

If you are the storyteller, you must love your story. You must believe in what you are sharing, passionately. You must bring it to life so that the story is right there, living between you and the audience.

A curious image, like a photo, can help … so long as it is closely tied to the story. Here’s a great example of corporate storytelling, using a photo. It was shot by my good friend, Ed Lallo, an Austin-based professional photographer who started his career in the newspaper business … so he knows how to tell a story with his camera.

There are as many different kinds of stories as colors in the rainbow. Just visit the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. If you are interested in learning the spectrum of storytelling that might be applied to your organization, that’s the place to hear amazing storytellers and techniques. Yet, each story is about people. Not about concrete roads, buildings, companies, software, products, manufacturing plants or stuff … but about people, most often an individual who has experienced something in life. The story could be about the storyteller.

My old friend and colleague, Michael Deaver, was a masterful storyteller. He said that good storytelling must contain emotional, logical and analytical elements, working together, to capture attention. I agree. The emotional piece touches our hearts; the logical piece just makes sense; and, the analytical part is supported by facts and figures. We can tell a great story that might lack either the logical or analytical pieces but … it’s got to connect with the audience emotionally in order to really work.

Storytelling must also be timely and relevant to what’s happening in the world around us. Otherwise, while it could be a good story, it lacks perspective and context.

• Storytelling has a beginning: “Let me tell you a story …”
• A middle that contains an event or experience, and …
• An ending that wraps up the story with, perhaps, a lesson learned or a surprise twist.

While many people in public relations agree about the value of organizational storytelling, few practice it. There’s got to be a significant paradigm shift, from being overly obsessed with marketing, sales and promotion, and embracing a new style that is more sharing, more conversational, more open, more credible and transparent.

Let’s get something off the table – most press releases (at least 99.9997 percent of them) are not stories. They are sales promotion pieces, and that’s one reason why news releases are so ineffective in today’s world, whether to get the media’s interest or to capture the attention of anyone else. If, on the other hand, news releases were, God forbid, written as legitimate stories, I predict they could be wildly successful. But, they are not.

Techniques for organizational storytelling, and many more elements of contemporary communications leadership are detailed in my new book, Making News in the Digital Era (www.thedigitalera.net).

Read more: http://www.davidhenderson.com/2009/03/26/what-does-a-great-story-look-like/#ixzz0dFrcONBV
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Ten things you can tell a story about

by Laura Packer

I regularly get one of two responses when I tell people I'm a storyteller. They either say, "You're a what? So you read to kids?" Or, "Cool! I could never do that."

To the first response I take a deep breath, smile and explain that, while reading to kids is great and important, I tell stories, mostly to grown-ups. The conversation can go in many different directions from there and, if I'm lucky, it leads to a really good discussion. It often does.

It's the second response that I love, because it gives me a chance to do a magic trick. Everyone is a storyteller; you already know that. Storytelling a crucial part of how people understand their lives and connect with others. The magic trick is helping someone see that the everyday communication they already engage in is really storytelling and how, if they wanted, they could expand on it and tell a more polished story. massmouth sees this happen routinely at mouthoffs and slams.

When I perform the magic trick, all I do is this:

• I talk about storytelling as part of every day life
• Then I let the conversation move onto something else
• Within a few minutes I ask them a leading question and I listen to their response. I let them tell me a story. I listen with interest and maybe ask another question or two
• And then I thank them for telling me their story, mentioning something I enjoyed about the story.

At which point they realize it's a trick. Some people get embarrassed, but just about everyone is pleased. They did it. They told a story. They didn't die. Maybe next time it will be easier. If they're happy they told a story I move the conversation around to storytelling opportunities. You can do this too. We're all storytelling ambassadors.
So what can someone tell a story about, even if they don't think of themselves as a storyteller? Here are some suggestions for stories; these are all topics that can take a moment or an hour, none are the be-all and end-all of storytelling, nor is this list comprehensive. Many of these are topics massmouth has used at slams or will be using at upcoming events.

• favorite meals or foods
• embarrassing moments
• family (massmouth slam, January 31)
• eros and love (massmouth slams February 14 and February 22)
• work
• mistakes
• holidays
• travel
• your kids - or someone else's
• dastardly deeds or heroism
  

I'd love to know what other topics you find useful, both as a teller and listener

New Year’s Resolutions for Storytellers
By: K. Sean Buvala

How about some beginning of the New Year goal setting? Since no one really does quit smoking, lose weight or begin a jogging program when they resolve to do so, let’s try something a little more divergent

Resolve to tell more often. For beginner or advanced, storytelling is an art. You only get better with practice and experience. Sitting here at your computer, wishing “I wish I could tell stories!” will not make it so. Go find for yourself an audience at your local school, crisis shelter, or library. Somewhere there is an audience for you. And they will be so genuinely happy that you came to be with them that you will glow with your excitement- and humbled about how powerful the words you speak become when shared from person to person.

Resolve to hear tellers more often. Listening to others tell is a joy. You’ll learn of more styles and methods, voices and pacing, gestures and responses. Join a guild, or perhaps go to a concert, but hear others tell, live, as often as you can. Better yet, be sure to attend one of the many conferences and festivals held throughout the U.S. and the world. Don’t forget- when you do get to a festival and there are “story swaps” which are open to all . . . see my first resolution.

Resolve to spend time in the public libraries. Research is an important part of being a teller. There are dozens of ancient tales, from the Grimm stories to Aesop’s tales, that are waiting to have your energy and your breath behind them. Maybe even spend some time at some large used book sale . . . the smell of paper and binding might just allow your mind to relax enough to uncover true “gems” among the neat, precise stacks of the library or in the dusty, topsy-turvy piles of used books.

Resolve to build your personal library. Buy a cassette tape, a CD or book once per month. Help support your fellow tellers and their efforts to promote this fine art. Having just the right story or reviewing a technique is one of the true joys in building your personal library.

Resolve to help someone else learn the art of telling. There are many people you will encounter who will also say “I wish I could tell stories . . . ” Encourage them, share with them you knowledge of resources, both online and offline. Lend them a book or tape from your library. Go together to a concert. Video tape each other’s telling and share a critique session over coffee. Share a library and lunch trip.

DON"T FORGET TO CHECK OUT THE MUSELETTER NOW UP ON LANES WEBSITE!

Great articles for us all!

Brother Blue passes

Br.Blue has joined The Ancestors -Laura Packer

We ain’t nothin’ but music wrapped in a body made of snow.”

On Tuesday night, storytelling night, November 3, 2009, our beloved

mentor, teacher and self-proclaimed holy fool Brother Blue, left this

world to go home to be with the ancestors. We who remain are left so

very blessed by his presence in this world and in our lives. He

taught us how to live stories, not just tell them. He told us that

storytelling is God talking to God and modeled that every single day.

And when Blue listened, he listened powerfully with all his heart, all

his soul and all his strength. Anyone who has ever been near him

knows this. He didn’t just change the world, he changed worlds – every

single person he met. In the street, at festivals, in prisons, at

storyteller gatherings, in the offices of academics and wherever there

was music.

If Blue were here to talk about himself now he would say, “Don’t

remember Blue. Remember Ruth. Ruth is truth.” Ruth, Blue’s amazing

wife who has kept him from floating off into the clouds for decades,

is doing about as well as can be expected. She has asked that everyone

give her some time. She knows you are thinking of her and needs a

little space right now.

Brother Blue passed peacefully – he was ready. He got to tell one

last story to his beloved Ruth and then let go. As far as we can tell

he was not in pain.

Plans for services are underway. Any news and information can be

found at http://www.laurapacker.com/brotherblue You can also leave

your memories of Blue and messages for Ruth. Please pass this

information on to anyone who you think would be interested.

Blue once said, “When you tell a story, you tell it to all creation.

It's cosmic. It never goes away.” Blue is story. He will always be

with us. Go and tell your stories.

Tis the Season for Ghosts and Goblins article by our own Lorna Cazanotta

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Storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota
Lorna gave us permission to repost this:

Storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota wrote at 20:19 on 12 October 2009
Scary stories are about more than just scaring the listener, and should never be about scarring the listener. When a good storyteller takes the audience on a journey through story, it is always with the audience’s best interest in mind, serving story second and the teller last. Telling scary stories is not about the storyteller’s ego boost. A good storyteller also respects religious beliefs when telling a scary story.

There are many kinds of “scary” story. The simplest type, usually preferred by young listeners, is the jump tale.
In this type of scary story, the storyteller brings the listener into his or her confidence, slowly unwrapping the tale until the end of the story when the teller produces the jump. This is done in several ways, sometimes simultaneously. The teller might change from a soft voice to a SHOUT! Proximity changes from having space between teller and listener to almost being on top of the audience. Body movement might actually have the effect of throwing the story at the listener. These jump tales often have elements of fooling the listener into believing the story is really scary or creepy, but with a comical twist at the end. Both the comical twist and the jump produce laughter breaking the stress of the tale.
Purpose: Jump tales show us that our fears are unfounded and allow us to laugh at our foolishness.

There are the saga or myth scary tales that have elements of the macabre or strange, sometimes involving monsters. These stories usually have fictitious, larger than life characters that experience the fright on our behalf and overcome it, Beowulf is one example.
Purpose: This story happens to someone else from a safe distance. The hero must win to show the listener that evil can be overcome.

Urban Legends are highly believable stories because they are told as if they happened to the storyteller or someone the teller knows. Best when told as a local event, we want to trust the teller to tell us the truth, while at the same time we are skeptical. We may or may not be told whether the tale is true, we must decide for ourselves.
Purpose: fun and thrilling while creating a need for logical thinking.

Ghost story: These stories must have ghosts in them. Most ghosts have a reason for haunting, seldom are they actually able to or wanting to harm an individual. Ghosts are present to solve a problem, finish an incomplete task, warn or help the character. Now and then, the fear the character has for the ghost is their demise but seldom is it the ghost that harms. Occasionally there may be a haunting without a ghost, such as an enchanted object.
Purpose: gives a glimpse at the beyond, lends hope, teaches a lesson, make us think.

There are trickster scary stories too. Sometimes there are no ghosts or creatures in these stories but peers who play tricks by creating rumors of hauntings.
Purpose: teaches a lesson

Some scary stories will be decidedly more frightening than others and an experienced storyteller will be able to gauge how far to push the envelope with a particular audience. Three things that make these tales work are believability, environment which includes venue, teller’s presence and voice, and safety in numbers. When we listen to a scary story we are not alone, there is always at least one other person there with us, the storyteller. A good storyteller always keeps us safe. They may dare us to walk the edge and face the fear, but they always bring us safely home.

Finally, there are key elements that make listening to scary stories different from watching a horror movie. They are imagination and experience. A listener can only be as scared as they can imagine and will only understand the fear that they have experienced in reality. I am one storyteller that usually scares myself more than my listeners when I tell scary stories, I have a wild imagination.

So this Halloween, I hope you will cuddle up with a trusted friend and listen to a scary story, tales that make us think, give us chills, and almost always allow us to laugh at ourselves.
Storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota

Storytelling and Stand-up written by Maria Ciampa

“Most events in life can be categorized in one of two ways - a good time or a good story. So, even when bad things happen, I think, ‘Oh well, it’ll be a good story,’” says Margot Leitman, co-creator of Stripped Stories, a sex storytelling show out of New York.

“I’ve done lots of storytelling shows: Speakeasy Stories, The Liar Show, Lower East Side Stories, Storytelling at the Creek, New York Shitty, Nights of our Lives,” recites Leitman. She also teaches storytelling classes through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where classes sell out within 5 hours of being posted online – which raises the question: why the sudden increase in comedic storytelling shows? And how are these shows any different from regular stand up comedy shows?

“People want to get real in their comedy,” says Leitman. “The audience wants to hear a heartfelt story. Also, we have a primal need to hear and tell stories around the campfire.” This sentiment is echoed by Sherry Weaver, producer of Speakeasy Stories, a twice monthly show in New York. “The Moth started it all. It goes back to sitting around the campfire, talking.”

The Moth, to which Weaver refers, is a not-for-profit storytelling organization that produces shows nationally. Founded in New York in 1997 by poet, novelist, and Georgia native George Dawes Green, The Moth started with an invitation of a few friends to his New York apartment to share stories. From there, The Moth moved to bigger venues in New York. Today, The Moth has six programs and has presented over 3,000 live stories to over 100,000 audience members.

Storytelling is a genre all its own, a separate form from stand-up comedy. All the stories told on these shows are true, unlike all the jokes in a stand-up set. Storytellers come from various artistic backgrounds, and names at the The Moth include Moby, Lili Taylor, Terri Garr, and Candace Bushnell. Conversely, there are Moth storytellers with less of a presence in the arts like Jim Bouton, Former Major League pitcher with the Yankees, and Joe Lockhart, Former White House Press Secretary. However, many storytellers on The Moth are well versed in comedy, including Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo, Colin Quinn, and Rosie O’Donnell.

Kate Teller, Associate Producer at The Moth, is flattered that so many comedic storytelling producers credit The Moth as their inspiration, saying, “It’s a testament that a personal narrative is progressively becoming more important.” But have people taken storytelling in a different direction from what The Moth intended? Not really, says Teller, “We love humorous people. At The Moth, we see comedy as one way in which to tell your story.”

Other storytelling shows popping up in New York and Boston, while they may be inspired by The Moth, tend to gravitate even more toward the funny. Weaver explains, “We might have a serious story or two each night. All shows have some humor. Some stories have you rolling in the aisle, others have a laugh that jumps out in the middle of a sad story.” Jake Goldman, co-producer of the storytelling show “True Tales from College” says, “For the most part, our show and other storytelling shows are lighter [than The Moth].” Goldman, who cited the Moth CD as an example says, “Out of the 60 stories on that CD, maybe 10 are really sad. The Moth crowd likes a sad story now and then. If stories at our show don’t end on a lighter note, it can be awkward.”

If there’s someone onstage with a mic telling a funny story, how is storytelling different from stand-up comedy? “Storytelling has a different rhythm from stand-up,” Sara Benincasa, producer and host of ‘The Family Hour with Auntie Sara’ at Ochi’s Lounge, explains. “It isn’t beat-beat-punch. It can be less scripted than stand-up. Stand-up is faster, packed with more laughs.” So the main difference between storytelling and stand up comedy is that with storytelling, you don’t have the pressure to get a laugh every other line. Jessica Sutich, Producer and Host of Boston’s “A Night of Oral Tradition” agrees with Benincasa. “In a five minute stand-up set, you must make things very concise. You don’t have room let humor come naturally, like in a story.”

Are all great stand up comedians great storytellers? Not necessarily. “At Stripped Stories,” Rozzi says, “We’ve had stand ups that could not just tell the story, they had to keep doing stand-up bits.” Goldman described stand-up comedians who try out storytelling as “a bit punchier because they know how to get laughs and where they will get laughs.” Benincasa thinks the two forms complement each other, saying, “I think great stand-up comics have always blended humor and pathos, and storytelling gives you plenty of room to do that.”

Adam Wade, ten-time StorySlam Champion at The Moth, and the 2006 GrandSLAM Champion, says that coming from a background in stand-up comedy, it took a while to get comfortable with silence. “At a storytelling show, the silence is good because they’re listening. It took me a year to figure that out.” Wade says his goal as a performer is not to be the person that can “tell 50 jokes off the bat” and have people not remember any of it. “I want people to remember my whole act. I want them to say, ‘He didn’t knock it out of the park, but he was sincere, and endearing.’ I want to leave people with a universal story through my personal experience.”

Goldman says, “The mark of a great storyteller is when they reveal things about themselves and inject humor into a sad situation.” The theme of revealing more in a storytelling shows as compared to stand up comedy shows is common. Sutich explains, “In stand up, there is a barrier - you are keeping the audience at a distance. But when you’re storytelling, you’re revealing something about who you are. You can’t avoid it.” Leitman recalls a few stand ups who have panicked before going onstage at Stripped Stories. “I think they panic because you tend to be incredibly revealing with storytelling, and with stand up, you are guarded. I am always impressed when they panic - they really reveal themselves.”

Although the storytelling movement is large and growing, storytelling shows (excluding The Moth) tend to be held in smaller venues. Weaver says, “When someone tells you a story, it’s so personal. You need a dark room, not too many people, alcohol.” The sense of intimacy created by show content makes smaller venues more attractive. “The audience is very much a part of the story. I like a smaller space. You can see their faces, you can engage with them.” Sutich adds.

Comedians also swear that storytelling audiences are different than stand-up audiences. The main differences, says Rozzi, is, “It’s unlikely there will be heckling from a storytelling audience. They tend to be more attentive. They’re not going to be like, ‘Yeah! Tell me about that time your mother died!’” Goldman describes them as more “bookish.” All comedic storytellers agree the audience is there to hear other people’s true stories. Says Benincasa, “They expect to laugh, but there might be stretches of time where they’re just listening. There might even be stretches of time where they’re moved by what they hear.”

For all storytellers interviewed, their love of storytelling is palpable. Their commitment to the art is highlighted by acknowledging that while there may be less pay, the sense of satisfaction at sharing your true story is immeasurable. Leitman explains, “I know that you can affect people’s lives through stand up, but people have emailed me days after hearing my story, saying, ‘I went through that too and hearing you was amazing.’ I love that in ten minutes I can get people to judge me, gasp, cry, pray for me to get over it, and then laugh.”

But it’s not just for the love of it. Storytelling is growing in popularity, with some gaining fame for just that: telling stories. Speakeasy Stories is being considered for Montreal Comedy Festival. Stripped Stories is going on national tour in April 2009. True Tales from College and Family Hour with Auntie Sara continues to build a following. Wade says, “The Moth put me on their podcast with Jonathan Ames and it’s been the biggest break. It’s not Comedy Central Premium Blend, but the Moth gets 150,000 downloads a week from people interested in stories. That’s my target audience! For a guy who’s done shows for anywhere from four to one hundred people, well, that’s huge.”

Maria Ciampa is a writer and comedian in Boston.
Visit mariaciampa.com.

Hype, Anxiety, and Hope (HAH!): How To Do Social Media Wrong (and How To Do It Right)

A Free Event for Massachusetts Artists Working in all Disciplines

For the third time, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will invite Massachusetts artists working in all disciplines (visual arts, literary, performing, crafts, new media, etc.) to the State House on Thursday, November 19th to thank them for all they contribute to our state's economy and quality of life. Over 120 artists attended the 2008 event!

The 2009 event will be brought to you by the Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development, the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, Treasurer Tim Cahill, the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, the Joint Committee of Community Development and Small Business, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition.

Note: Artists are welcome to attend, even if they can only attend some of the scheduled events (ie they could only attend the brown bag lunch, etc.)

Questions? email us: contact@artistsunderthedome.org

Related Links: Seminar: Building a Blog Network: Scaling Up Your Organizational Reach through the Voices of Your Community (June 24, 2009) Publication: Communication Centered Technology Planning, 2nd Edition If you found this article interesting or helpful, please consider making a donation to Nonprofit Online News. It will probably feel good!

By Michael C. Gilbert, June 22, 2009

I'm teaching about Blog Networks and other social media this week and I've realized a blunt truth:

There is a wrong way and a right way to approach social media. The wrong way results in anxiety, blind risk, expense, low-value list building, and empty lessons. The right way results in clarity, methodical growth, managed risk, network effects, husbanding of resources, high-value organizing of influencers, and ongoing learning.

The Wrong Way: HAH!

Almost every organization is pursuing social media the wrong way. It's easy to understand why this is the case. We have been playing catch up for years with new communication technology. New words and brands come flying at us every time we turn around. Vendors and others who are themselves anxious about the wagons to which they have hitched themselves keep telling us that we'll "fall behind". (That destructive pattern has been going on for almost twenty years!) We are insecure about our ability to make decisions in a field that seems dominated by the language of "experts".

What that means is that our "strategic" approach for social media is basically a combination of Hype, Anxiety, and Hope. You can remember this by its abbreviation: HAH! (You're right. I don't think much of this approach. There is just too much at stake.) The symptoms of this approach are widespread. I'll describe three.

The first key symptom of HAH! is found in the language used to focus our social media projects. Very often, projects are defined like this: Develop a Facebook Strategy. Invest in Twitter. Start a Blog. The questions involved are similarly phrased: In which social network (defined as a branded, commercial, walled garden of online communities) should we develop a presence? (Should we put time into MySpace or LinkedIn?) There is a theme in all this language. Do you see what it is? The framing language is on the medium or the tool, not on the people, relationships, or outcomes.

A second important symptom of HAH! is what might be described as fashion consciousness. Before you skip over this paragraph because you think it can't possibly apply to your organization, ask yourself these questions: How often do you wonder what your peer organizations are doing and how your practices do or don't fit in? Do you find yourself concerned with whether Twitter is a flash in the pan or a long term trend? Are you tickled in any way by the "coolness" of a particular tool or site? When you ask about "best practices", do you really mean what the organizations you respect are doing? Do you worry about "falling behind"? Any of these can be justifiable questions, in a narrow context. But when taken as a whole they show how much you are being guided by the crowd. And the crowd in this case is not your stakeholders, who are the ones that should in fact guide you, but rather the organizations that you consider your peers. However professional the veneer, that is still a herd mentality.

The last major symptom I'll mention here is about who we are really trying to please and influence. Often, even though we can't really talk about it this way, our real stakeholders are internal. This has been going on for years and shouldn't come as any surprise. You're not building a website for your stakeholders; you're building a website for your board. You're not building an email newsletter to empower the people who receive it; you're building a great portfolio piece. There's nothing inherently disingenuous about this; it's that we're not all that candid about it most of the time. Thus, when we discuss our communication projects, we muddy up the waters when it comes to clear criteria for success.

The Right Way: Relationships

Although they are seemingly intangible, as individuals and as organizations, relationships are what matter to us most. Relationships among our stakeholders is the defining characteristic of social media. Relationships are the building blocks of all our social assets. And when it comes to raising money, mobilizing activists, recruiting volunteers, building community, serving people, bringing in visitors, and so on, social assets generate all the rest of our assets.

Focusing on relationships is easier said than done. In fact, we talk about it all the time, but we usually don't operationalize it. Although I've built a lifetime of professional work around trying to develop the practices for doing just that, I still feel like I am just scratching the surface. That said, in pursuing social media, there are a few key practices I want to mention here to help pull us away from HAH! and back toward a focus on relationship building.

First, follow your stakeholders. Social media is about everyone being both an ear and a voice, both a consumer and a producer of information. Thus it is the ears of our current stakeholders who will help direct our own listening and it is the voices of our current stakeholders that we should first empower. This means working from the inside out, building on your assets, rather than just going where you think there are new people, which is grasping from a place of weakness.

Second, you must know who speaks and who listens to whom. To begin with this means a thorough, well-designed inventory of every voice in your networks - the bloggers, the bookmarkers, the forwarders, the speakers, the commenters, the social networkers, and so on. It's an inventory of every blog, bulletin board, social network, mailing list, profile, website, that have voices aligned with your communities of practice, starting with the voices of your stakeholders and working your way out.

But that inventory must evolve into a sustainable practice as well. I call this "systems for scaling up listening", but you can call it aggregation, ongoing network monitoring, or paying attention to your communities of practice. What you do with these systems is much more than just passive observation. You use this knowledge in your own outbound communication, using your influence to strengthen the bonds of your communities and to grow their size through the influence of your stakeholders.

Third, you have to keep working to make relationships as tangible as publications. One of the best ways to do this is through new metrics and you can get a lot of those from your inventory and listening systems. Measurements of how many people in your networks are speaking up, how robust the conversations are about your common causes, how much reach your stakeholders have, and how richly interconnected they are with each other are all useful places to start.

But you can also build tangibility in other ways. Use network diagrams to explain things to each other. Have the paths of engagement of your stakeholders defined visually and make a poster out of it. Honor stakeholders, even if it's just internally, with weekly or monthly memos about who stands out as most building connections. Name your projects after relationship goals and people strategies, rather than after commercial tools or technologies.

Finally, set forth on a course to think about social media as social media. Study social network analysis and communication centered technology planning. Develop a culture that thinks of your stakeholders as producers.

Changing Course: Five Simple Actions

However simple they may be, there are some big ideas here. If you're not prepared to do an inventory, to take listening systems seriously, to develop new metrics, to make relationship building tangible, or to commit to network and communication centric thinking, then what you need to do is keep the door open to change in some fashion. I have five suggestions.

(1) Go through all the projects and strategies that touch on social media. Rename them in terms of relationship goals. Rewrite their objectives in a similar manner. Try to expunge every mention of tools and websites until you are absolutely sure that they're not what's guiding you.

(2) Get together with your colleagues and craft a principle of network and relationship building based on these ideas and the best of your own personal experience. Steal something of mine if you like or come up with something better. Put that principle on the wall in the office.

(3) Assign a person to keep you honest. With the full knowledge of other colleagues and the support of their superiors, give someone the job of bringing up when they notice a process drifting away from (or never even starting with) relationship building.

(4) Find peers who are doing it right. Not the peers who have the "best" Facebook page or the ones with a robust Twitter feed, although those things are the most visible and tangible. Rather, seek out those peers who are finding ways to measure the things that matter - the empowered voices of their stakeholders, the richness of their network, and so on - and ways to manage from those measurements.

(5) Finally, reduce your listening to the experts who are sending the wrong messages and seek out those who are sending the right ones. I'm as addicted to news about new tools as anyone, but it's a thousand times easier for experts to expound on the tangible aspects of one tool or another than it is for them to help us get grounded in the relationship and community fundamentals that are what social media are all about.

Do it right.

MARCH 20-22,CROWN PLAZA HOTEL,WARICK RI
Enjoy some pictures from last years conference. Don't forget to register early and get the discount.