On episode #68 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast, Matthew and Elysha Dicks talk storytelling!
In our follow up segment, we discuss last week’s episode and plans for an upcoming episode. We also discuss a recent review of the podcast and decisions related to the use of profanity in storytelling. Elysha also congratulates listeners for their recent ukulele playing,.
STORYTELLING SHOWS 2019-2020
November 2: Great Hartford Story Slam, Hartford Flavor Company November 9: Sara Kaplan: Champion of the World at Emmanuel Synagogue, West Hartford, CT November 23: Twenty-one Truths About Love book release, CT Historical Society, Hartford, CT December 14: “Crafty” at CT Historical Society, Hartford, CT January 11: “Still Life: Stories of Stopping and Slowing Down” at the Wadsworth Atheneum April 4: Speak Up at the Unitarian Universalist Society, Manchester, CT
STORYTELLING WORKSHOPS 2019
October 25-27: Storytelling workshop (beginners), Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health November 9: Storytelling workshop (Beginner), CT Historical Society November 16: Storytelling workshop (Advanced), CT Historical Society December 6-8: Storytelling workshop (advanced), Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health January 25: Storytelling workshop (Beginner), CT Historical Society February 22: Storytelling workshop (Advanced), CT Historical Society
In our Homework for Life segment, we talk about a strategy to find hidden stories in your life via seemingly microscopic moments, and an especially useful strategy to use if you’re trying to find a story to match a theme
Next we listen to a story by Bobby Klau.
Amongst the many things we discuss include:
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Humor in storytelling through word choice, tonality, and misdirection
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Scene setting and re-establishing
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Singing as a part of storytelling
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The crucial “but” at the beginning of stories
- Rounding out stories and indicating the importance of every word of the story by bringing early elements into later parts of a story
RECOMMEDATIONS
Elysha:
Matt:
- Nicholson Baker
Text from The Anthologist
“And then a man of forty or so, with a French accent, asked, ‘How do you achieve the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem?’ And something cracked open in me, and I finally stopped hoarding and told them my most useful secret. The only secret that has helped me consistently over all the years that I’ve written. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask myself: What was the very best moment of your day?’ The wonder of it was, I told them, that this one question could lift out from my life exactly what I will want to write a poem about. Something I hadn’t known was important will leap out and hover there in front of me, saying I AM—I am the best moment of the day. ‘Often,’ I went on, ‘it’s a moment when you’re waiting for someone, or you’re driving somewhere, or maybe you’re just walking across a parking lot and admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed across the windshield. I thought, Ah, of course—I’d forgotten. You, windshield shadows, you are the best moment of the day.” ~ Nicholson Baker, from The Anthologist
LINKS
Purchase Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling
Purchase Twenty-one Truths About Love
Homework for Life: https://bit.ly/2f9ZPne
Matthew Dicks’s website: https://matthewdicks.com
Matthew Dicks’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/matthewjohndicks
Matthew Dicks’s blog: https://matthewdicks.com/matthewdicksblog
Subscribe to Matthew Dicks’s weekly newsletter: https://matthewdicks.com/matthewdicks-subscribe
Subscribe to the Speak Up newsletter: https://matthewdicks.com/subscribe-speak-up
Subscribe to Matthew Dicks’s blog: https://matthewdicks.com/subscribe-grin-and-bare-it
