Healing Articles

One of the most striking statistics to emerge from the COVID crisis was recently published in a study led by Susan Hillis, an epidemiologist at the Center for Disease Control in the journal Pediatrics. It estimates that “For every four COVID-19 deaths, one child was left behind without a mother, father and/or a grandparent who […]

By Danni Altman-Newell, Director of Operations Juneteenth recognizes the effective end of slavery in the United States. As the President signs the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act today, NSN is proud to show its respect for and honor the resilience of the Black community by including Juneteenth as an official company holiday to provide a […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education.   STORY NOW! Interview Series Story Now! Now from the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts for change in every aspect of our […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education.   STORY NOW! Interview Series Story Now! Now from the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts for change in every aspect of our […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education.   STORY NOW! Interview Series Story Now! Now from the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts for change in every aspect of our […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education.   STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts […]

At the National Storytelling Network, our mission is to advance all forms of storytelling within the community through promotion, advocacy, and education. STORY NOW! Interview Series The theme of our 2019 annual conference was Story Now! Now! From the boardroom to the classroom, and the page to the stage, personal stories and folktales are catalysts […]

CBC.CA   March 29, 2020 Stories let us share information in a way that creates an emotional connection. They help us to understand that information and each other, and it makes the information memorable. Because stories create an emotional connection, we can gain a deeper understanding of other people’s experiences. That not only helps us to […]

BBC.com   May 3, 2018 Today, the average adult is still thought to spend at least 6% of the waking day engrossed in fictional stories on our various screens. From an evolutionary point of view, that would be an awful lot of time and energy to expend on pure escapism, but psychologists and literary theorists have […]

By Kevin Cordi Challenges to Those Who Respond with Story – A Call Out to Storytellers One must continually reflect when they chose to take on the ‘mantle of storyteller’ or decide to use stories in their work and daily life. For over 25 years, I work to honor this mantle. This includes not only […]

CBS 21  December 14, 2019 Lancaster City was named the 6th “Welcoming City” in the U.S. this past September. As part of the Pennsylvania Refugee Resettlement program, 401 asylum seekers now call Lancaster home. And while Lancaster has many Amish families who have lived there for many generations, there’s not a lot of mixing between […]

Harvard Business Review | October 16, 2018 by Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH I recently stood in front of a group of emergency room residents at my hospital and asked an unusual question. “Has any of you ever judged your attending physician for not trying hard enough to save a patient’s life?” Then I looked around […]

The Atlantic   December 2019 by Lin-Manuel Miranda “ll art is political. In tense, fractious times—like our current moment—all art is political. But even during those times when politics and the future of our country itself are not the source of constant worry and anxiety, art is still political. Art lives in the world, and we […]

Addiction Professional   September 9, 2019 Matt Conway and T.J. Murphy started RecoverYdia (a hybrid of “recovery” and “media”) as “our response to a suffering world.” They want to counteract the loneliness that has enveloped a technology-connected world by using that world to share moments of personal triumph. Murphy says he and Conway have set out to […]

Portland Press Herald, Maine    September 8, 2019 As an immigrant from Brazil and a US citizen for 18 years, storyteller and mime Antonia Rocha hopes to show people there’s nothing to fear. Rocha treats his stories as bridges of understanding, and tells school kids he works with, “When you encounter something different – an […]

Forbes   September 8, 2019 First, acknowledge your audience’s point of view. People aren’t ready to hear anything disagreeable until they feel heard by having their ideas repeated back to them. Second, ask your audience to take you through the process of how they came to their point of view. This will probably reveal things they […]

White Bear Press, White Bear, MN  Sept. 4, 2019 For the third year, the Many Faces – Many Stories collaboration returns to build community through storytelling. After exploring the history of the many groups of people who have called the White Bear Lake area home during the previous academic year, this year’s events will invite people […]

Forbes   August 25, 2019 Humans are hardwired for narrative. We think in story, talk in story and connect with others through the power of story. Storytelling is at the heart of a novel program that’s expanding across VA medical facilities across the country. The “My Life, My Story” program uses patient narratives to build a stronger connection […]

The Chronicle   August 9, 2019   Recently the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers event at the National Black Theatre Festival delighted their audience, from the  young children to the older adults. The North Carolina Association of Black Storytellers, Inc., (NCABS) a part of the National Black Storytellers Association, has the goal of keeping alive the […]

Hemophilia New Today   June 21, 2019 A group of teens from a local bleeding disorders organization, HACA, (Hemophilia Association of the Capital Area, greater Washington, D.C.) , have stories to share as advocates for themselves or their siblings who have hemophilia. They worked with the StoryCorps app to bring their stories to life. StoryCorps gave them a […]

Vox  June 20, 2015 Diana Orbelo, a speech-language pathologist at the Mayo Clinic who helps people with voice problems, offers much advice for those with problem voices and for those who are over-using their voices. Other experts offer videos which demonstrate exercises all storytellers can benefit from — exercises which “rebalance and recoordinate the vocal mechanism” […]

Uplift  March 21st, 2019 This article sites many ways in which storytelling can improve your mental health: Storytelling and our sense of self Telling happy stories improves your well being Creating stories and then acting them out helps children understand themselves storytelling is at the heart of health care examples of the healing power or […]

Times Union, Albany, NY   May 24, 2019 Since 2006, Children at the Well (C@W  http://www.childrenatthewell.org ) has brought teens from the Capital Region of New York State together to share their stories. Now the group has published a book so other educators and organizations can incorporate storytelling into their worlds using the C@W method. “Our […]

The New York Times   May 15, 2019 by N. Scott Momaday “In my tenure as a professor of English and American literature, it has been my good fortune to teach courses in Native American oral tradition. There is a formula in that tradition that goes: “In the beginning was the word, and it was spoken​. […]

The Sydney Morning Herald    April 10, 2019 When Danielle Stewart attended the funerals of her grandparents she learnt many facts about their lives that were previously unknown to her. It got her thinking about the importance of storytelling, especially for the families of the elderly. In 2016 she started a company, My Word, whose […]

The Christian Century  April 9, 2019 Rebecca Anderson, a Disciples of Christ pastor, got an idea after attending a packing Moth event: ‘Do we not have a true story to tell in community?’” The former stand-up comic did her booming preacher impression when describing that epiphany. The insight eventually led to Anderson joining with her […]

Smithsonian Magazine    November 2018 A Polish young woman, Renia Spiegel started her diary on Jan. 31, 1939 when she was 18 years old: “… Today, my dear diary, is the beginning of our deep friendship.” Left to right: Renia in Przemysl, 1930; Renia in 1936; Renia with her best friend, Nora, in Przemysl in […]

March 28, 2019  The Westminster Window, Englewood, Colorado Northglenn High School’s STEM program is looking for 14 volunteers from the community who have a knack for storytelling and the time to listen to a group of 10th graders’ tales. STEM Coordinator Leslie Foster said the volunteers will come into the school to help judge podcasts […]

Westword | March 25, 2019 | by Kyle Harris What’s the story behind the Office of Storytelling? On March 21, Mayor Michael Hancock launched Denver’s Office of Storytelling, headed by the city’s new Chief Storyteller, who just happens to be a former Hancock aide. The move comes in the middle of election season, when a […]

MINNPost  February 21, 2019 In Southeast Asian Americans’ schools, the stories they heard from their parents and grandparents growing up were almost never noted in their history textbooks. The experiences of Southeast Asian communities are often forgotten,  particularly the history of the Vietnam War. “It seemed like, growing up, all of these stories that I heard […]

Texas Public Radio  February 25, 2019 TPR is joining with StoryCorps to bring together folks on opposite sides of the political aisle to have a conversation to learn more about each other, and our hopes for the future. StoryCorps founder Dave Isay says, “Our dream, which is lofty, is to try and convince the country that […]

The Guardian, New York, NY   May 19, 2017 By Tim Lott   Writing stories is a craft that is crucial for life. And if the government insists, you can test it, measure it and use it in commerce, too A report in the Times has quoted a secondary school teacher who complained that their year […]

By Patricia Coffie What does membership provide? Payback on what you invest. When members cease to invest time and talent as well as money, organizations die. I am currently a member of a family group, two historical societies, a storytellers’ guild, a regional storytelling organization (five states and the others too), a national storytelling organization, […]

The Michigan Daily, Ann Arbor, MI    November 11, 2018   The Washtenaw Housing Alliance and Shelter Association of Washtenaw County hosted the second-ever Voices of Homelessness event Friday evening in Ypsilanti, inviting community members to share their experiences with homelessness through art and storytelling. The speak-out was intended to spread awareness about homelessness and connect displaced people to […]

Stamford Advocate, Stamford, CT    November 13, 2018   Podcaster Dayna Lindo wants to change the narrative of her community, Bridgeport, CT. “The podcast is dedicated to telling the untold stories of Bridgeport and humanizing our collective experience,” Lindo said. “My goal is to increase Bridgeport citizens’ pride in themselves and our city by changing […]

WUNC 91.5      December 28, 2018   The Ft. Bragg Stories series is a collaboration between the Fayetteville Observer and WUNC’s American Homefront Project to commemorate a century of history at Fort Bragg through personal narratives. You can hear all stories (around 30) in the series here. This article highlights the story of Jay Huwieler, a […]

Deccan Chronicle,  Secunderabad, India     December 25, 2018 Stories Worth Sharing is an initiative which strives to revive the art of storytelling. Himanshu Poswal and Mohit Munjal, two engineering graduates from Delhi, are the founders. When travelling, they witnessed a group of people who put the phones away and were sharing stories. They realized they should […]

Side Effect: Public Health Personal Stories    January 9, 2019 Addiction affects millions of Americans. At a live storytelling event held Aug. 14, 2018, Indiana community members who struggle with addiction shared their stories of life in recovery. Stories shared included: a “moment of clarity” that lead to their sobriety a non-typical story of someone […]

euroNEWS Reuters (Nairobi, Kenya)     December 17, 2018 “To have that storyteller in front of you with an audience being able to interact is something very precious that we are in danger of losing,” said Maimouna Jallow, who organised the one-day Re-Imagined Storytelling Festival in Kenya’s capital. Although written history has existed for centuries in […]

The Epoch Times   October 26, 2018 By Jim Weiss   “I’d like to introduce you to two friends of mine. Their names are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.” That’s how I feel when I begin to tell a story. I consider these characters friends of mine, and I take great pleasure in introducing them to […]

The Chronicle   November 9, 2018 By Rini Jeffers VERMILION — Since the beginning of mankind, the art of storytelling has been a tradition, a socialization, a teaching tool, entertainment and a means of keeping history alive. But it is an art that seems to be slipping away, says professional storyteller Donna Kuczynski. An Amherst resident […]

Isthmus   October 18, 2018 By Catherine Capellaro Nestor Gomez says he is the last person you’d expect to see sharing personal stories in front of a large crowd. “I used to stutter badly,” says Gomez, one of 10 storytellers who will perform at the annual Moth GrandSLAM Championship on Oct. 19 at the Barrymore Theatre. “My mother […]

Traverse City Record Eagle   October 12, 2018 By Brooke Kansier TRAVERSE CITY — A few minutes idling in the driveway end Matthew Soderquist’s daily commute. They’re the most gripping part of his week. The Vanderbilt resident and avid listener of “The Moth,” a storytelling radio program, can’t get enough of a good tale. It’s what drew […]

WTOP   October 10, 2018 By Rachel Nania WASHINGTON — There is no denying that cutting-edge equipment and pharmaceutical breakthroughs can help save lives — but so can a doctor trained in storytelling. Dr. Rita Charon is a Harvard-trained internist who practices general medicine. She is also a literary scholar who earned her Ph.D. studying the works […]

Saratoga.com Saratoga Springs, NY October 30, 2018 This month’s immigrant storytellers share one thing in common: they’re all women. Coming from different areas of the globe, with widely divergent traditions and expectations, they have all made a new life in the United States. The personal stories they’ll share tonight will reflect on how being a woman shaped […]

New Hampshire Public Radio  September 28, 2018 A live storytelling event called “Suitcase Stories,”organized by the International Institute of New England, which resettles refugees in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, will have seven NH refugees telling their own stories. One of them, Ageth Okeny, who fled Sudan with her kids to a refugee camp in Egypt before coming […]

Chicago, IL  August 3, 2018 Mayra Hernandez (Center-Left) and Gina Ramirez (Center-Right) tell personal stories about the Back of the Yards neighborhood | Manny Ramos/Sun-Times | Manny Ramos/Sun-Times Mayra Hernandez glowed with pleasure when she remembered flying a plastic grocery bag kite from her bedroom window as a little girl. “I would throw it out the […]

Houston, TX  August 2, 2018 The ACLU and Texas Southern University (TSU) are joining together to tackle criminal justice reform by fostering storytellers — a first of its kind storytelling bureau in the U.S.A. The program will train students who have been impacted by the criminal justice system how to tell their stories in public forums such as the state […]

Bhopal, Utter Pradesh, Northern India,     July 9, 2018 Summary Bhopal Pride at Baithak – The Art House created a safe space for people to express themselves re. their sex, gender sexuality and the difference between them. A participant Chandni said, “Defining humans is the worst thing we can do. Let’s not look at anyone with the […]

Moab Sun News,     June 28, 2018 Summary Five local storytellers share diverse performances at Moab Valley Multicultural Center’s (MVMC) brand-new event “Dialogues of Diversity: Multicultural Stories of Strength.” Each will share their stories of ‘being new’ — coming to Moab or the United States from a foreign country. “I hope that their stories offer […]

Gainesville Scene,     June 4, 2018 Summary There are three storytelling organizations in Gainesville which produce monthly personal storytelling events: Self Narrate, the Conch and Guts & Glory While people often assume these groups are in competition with each other, Self Narrate’s director Brandon Telg said: “We all want to see each other succeed, and we all believe in what each […]

Medscape,     June 3, 2018 Summary The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) had a new session at its annual meeting this year: ASCO Voices. The goal of this storytelling event, was to remind the oncologists of their deep human selves, something that the other data driven sessions wouldn’t be doing. Four stories were selected from […]

BBC News      May 21, 2018 Summary For the third year, BBC is asking people with disabilities to submit their personal stories for possible telling at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Those selected will work with a top comedy script producer, then perform their story at the Festival. The topic this year is “Going Out”. […]

Penn Today      May 7, 2018 Summary Seven medical school in Philadelphia are participating in a story slam in an effort to create open dialogue among doctors, nurses, and medical students who often struggle to express their feelings. “In the medical literature these days, there’s a lot about physicians and med students being burned out, […]

On Being      May 14, 2018 Summary   Generational storytelling is survival. It is a preservation of history and a dire act as we witness erasure in textbooks and watch our history recounted by those who tell our stories but have never lived in our skin or embodied the blood of our stories.

WLRN       April 25, 2018 Summary South Florida — The Public Storyteller is a radio show sharing  true stories of life in South Florida as well as featuring  performances by professional storytellers. It airs Sundays, 4 pm EST on www.wirn.org or 91.3 FM and 91.5 FM in South Florida. The hosts are Caren S. […]

KTVA.com The Voice of Alaska    April 9, 2018 Summary ANCHORAGE, AK — Since 2014, more than 1,500 students at high schools in Anchorage and Unalakleet have learned to tell their personal stories as part of Story Works Alaska.     “The students get to work on and share these stories,” Bartlett High School English teacher […]

Al-Fanar Media   April 8, 2018 Summary LONDON — Since 2013, Spanish artist and filmmaker Juan delGado has been collecting and publishing the personal stories of Syrian people, both those still in Syria as well as those who have fled. The goal of the project—whose Arabic name, Qisetna, means “our stories”—is to create a record of the experiences of […]

CBC News   March 30, 2018 Summary   Since 2008, Vancouver Public Library has had an Indigenous storyteller in residence who uses storytelling to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. This year, T’uy’t’tanat-Cease Wyss, an artist and ethno-botanist, who studies plants and their traditional uses, has been selected. Wyss plans to research her own family’s heritage as […]

Worcester Polytechnic Institute   March 23, 2018 Summary Dear World visited Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) this week. At WPI, approximately 180 students, faculty, and staff participated in personal story workshops, first solo writing, then pairing together to distill each story into a few significant words. Those words were then written on the person’s skin. Then a portrait […]

My Statesman   March 17, 2018 Summary Using storytelling to help heal racial discord, the Truth and Reconciliation Oral History Project invites Austin residents of color to share their personal experiences of racial discrimination in a safe place. A goal is to elicit compassion via these stories. State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, shares his experience at […]

Boston Globe Magazine   March 7, 2018 Summary   Cheryl Hamilton, co-director of Massmouth and director of partner engagement at the International Institute of New England, a refugee resettlement agency, launched Suitcase Stories, a traveling live performance series and social media campaign, in March 2017. Her goal is to offer opposing information about immigrants and refugees, […]

Oprah.com   February 2018 Summary Sharing a personal story is similar to a group therapy session. The teller is reducing her psychological burden AND the listeners can have a physically healing experience. According to Nancy Morgan, writing clinician and director emeritus of the arts and humanities program at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C., […]

The State Journal-Register  February 25, 2018 Summary Last year, Erica Smith, executive director at Helping Hands of Springfield homeless shelter and an actress in local community theater, created a storytelling group in Springfield, IL. She stated her initial goals: “I would like to have regular performances with high quality stories and involve as many people […]

TEDxWilmingtonSalon  December 2017 Summary When Israeli-born Noa Baum moved to the U.S. and unexpectedly formed a friendship with a Palestinian woman, she realized the importance of listening to the story of the “other” – even if that other is the enemy. She discovered that storytelling transforms perceptions, and from that epiphany Noa shares how she […]

University of Wisconsin–Madison News  January 19, 2018 Summary: In research supported by the National Cancer Institute, researchers measured the effect of a storytelling interview plus online resources on more than 40 people diagnosed with stage 3 or 4 cancer. The interview covered topics including important accomplishments and difficulties overcome, the effects of their cancer on them […]

The News-Herald  January 18, 2018 Summary Atria Newel Creek, asenior residential community in Mentor, OH, recently hosted Better Together, which was the first in a series of events to celebrate the importance of storytelling. The series is based on Atria StoryWise, a collection of topics and cues created to rekindle memories and help people connect more deeply. “Storytelling is a […]

 Detroit Free Press   August 13, 2017 Summary Appointed earlier in 2017 by Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, former journalist Aaron Foley is Detroit’s first chief storyteller. He has edited a new book,  The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook, a collection of poems, essays and a short story written by past and present Detroiters. Its goal is to introduce readers to many neighborhoods in […]

TheConversation.com  Jan. 15, 2018 Summary: Similar to many Indigenous groups worldwide, the James Bay Cree of northern Québec have a unexpectedly high rate of diabetes. Their method of their solution was taken from their culture: A Talking Circle in print. Cree health representatives choose people with diabetes whose stories they thought important. Then they hired […]

Sports Illustrated  December 1, 2017 Summary: Last spring, the new Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott started a new tradition: ending many team meeting with a player telling a personal story about his upbringing, his motivation, his influences, what’s most important to him. The first player to tell his story, veteran tackle Jordan Mills said, “It’s […]

International Journal of Development and Sustainability, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 521-529.   2012 Summary: Godwin Makaudze, a professor in the Department of African Languages and Literature, Great Zimbabwe University, examines two folktales and concludes that folktales “continue to be a very meaningful and quite serious way of exposing, explaining and shaping reality.” He makes several recommendations, including: making folklore […]

Chicago Tribune,   December 24, 2017 Summary: Story Squad, a storytelling program of the YMCA of Metro Chicago’s Youth Safety and Violence Prevention (YSVP) initiative, empowers youth to channel their experiences through personal stories that are shared within their community and throughout the world. After a public showcase with about 100 friends and family members of program […]

Nature Communications,   December 2, 2017 Summary:   This is an anthropological study of the impact of storytelling on the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population. Their stories contain themes promoting cooperation, sex equality and egalitarianism — common to other foraging societies. When there are good storytellers, cooperation increases.

Bereavement Care Journal, Volume 36, 2017 – Issue 3,   November 2, 2017 Summary: To Absent Friends (TAF) is an annual Scotland-wide participative festival of storytelling and remembrance. Its purpose is to reduce the social isolation of bereaved people, At TAF, people can remember,  tell stories,  celebrate and  reminisce about people they love who have died. TAF may be […]

U.S. News, October 2, 2017   Summary: Steven Schlozman, M.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the associate director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, believes that passing storytelling on to children is critical to their well-being. He […]

The Star.com (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), June 2, 2017 Summary: Dan Yashinsky has been the storyteller-in-residence at Baycrest Health Sciences for three years. He says, “I feel that ‘storycare’ should be an essential part of health care. Storycare means creating times and places in the hospital for people to tell, hear, imagine, and remember stories.” He […]

Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC), December 10, 2013 Summary: Laura Hope-Gill’s fascination with story and healing began when she was diagnosed with late-onset deafness. She felt that the language her doctor used in delivering her diagnosis had nothing to do with her or her story. “The way it was presented to me, my hearing life was […]

Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC), December 10, 2013 Summary: Laura Hope-Gill’s fascination with story and healing began when she was diagnosed with late-onset deafness. She felt that the language her doctor used in delivering her diagnosis had nothing to do with her or her story. “The way it was presented to me, my hearing life was […]

Indian Country Today Media Network.com, September 30, 2013 Summary: Only four out of 100 residents of Montana’s Blackfeet Nation feel safe, according to Wendy Bremner, a victim’s specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Children on this 3,000-square-mile reservation near the United States-Canada border experience adverse events at more than three times the national average, […]

Indian Country Today Media Network.com, September 30, 2013 Summary: Only four out of 100 residents of Montana’s Blackfeet Nation feel safe, according to Wendy Bremner, a victim’s specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Children on this 3,000-square-mile reservation near the United States-Canada border experience adverse events at more than three times the national average, […]

The Hindu (Chennai, India), July 6, 2013 Summary: Indians are big on stories. This is a land of myths and mythologies; of tales with pious men and brave gods; of stories with carefully masked do’s and don’ts; of tickling anecdotes and gruesome monsters. We have always loved a good story, and we’ve always had storytellers. […]

The Hindu (Chennai, India), July 6, 2013 Summary: Indians are big on stories. This is a land of myths and mythologies; of tales with pious men and brave gods; of stories with carefully masked do’s and don’ts; of tickling anecdotes and gruesome monsters. We have always loved a good story, and we’ve always had storytellers. […]

The Hindu (Chennai, India), July 6, 2013 Summary: Indians are big on stories. This is a land of myths and mythologies; of tales with pious men and brave gods; of stories with carefully masked do’s and don’ts; of tickling anecdotes and gruesome monsters. We have always loved a good story, and we’ve always had storytellers. […]

The New York Times (New York, NY), March 15, 2013 Summary: The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative. I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful psychologist at Emory University. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Duke was asked to […]

The New York Times (New York, NY), March 15, 2013 Summary: The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative. I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful psychologist at Emory University. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Duke was asked to […]

Co.Create, Fast Company (New York, NY), December 18, 2012 Summary: With its new Storytellers campaign, The American Red Cross gives a voice–and a camera–to the people who have been helped by the organization. A New Yorker whose home was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, a Michigan teenager whose Red Cross CPR training helped him save a […]

Co.Create, Fast Company (New York, NY), December 18, 2012 Summary: With its new Storytellers campaign, The American Red Cross gives a voice–and a camera–to the people who have been helped by the organization. A New Yorker whose home was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, a Michigan teenager whose Red Cross CPR training helped him save a […]

Press-Citizen (Iowa City, IA), July 11, 2012 By Carol Scott-Conner, a professor of surgery at University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, author of the book of short stories titled A Few Small Moments. Summary: Every year, we teach new medical students how to take a medical history. An adequate medical history succinctly summarizes the […]

Press-Citizen (Iowa City, IA), July 11, 2012 By Carol Scott-Conner, a professor of surgery at University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, author of the book of short stories titled A Few Small Moments.   Summary: Every year, we teach new medical students how to take a medical history. An adequate medical history succinctly summarizes […]

The Spectator (Seattle University, Seattle, WA), February 22, 2012 Summary: Last week was the second annual Domestic Violence Awareness Week at Seattle University. In spreading awareness on survival and healing, several speakers, including the Thrivers Action Group, or TAG, came to share their stories and spread social awareness. According to TAG member Trese Todd, domestic […]

CNN Belief (Atlanta, GA), August 7, 2011 Summary: By Edward Grinnan, Special to CNN One spring day 25 years ago, I found myself perched on the 21st floor windowsill of a Denmark hotel room, holding what I thought would be my last alcoholic drink. I planned to give it up in a big way. For […]

Japanese Times (Tokyo, Japan), May 14, 2011 Summary: A ‘Rakugo’ master is performing classic comedy tales along northeast coast in an effort to bring some cheer to evacuees. The traditional Japanese storyteller kneels in front of a room full of families that have lost everything — their loved ones, their homes, their entire town — […]

Psychology Today (New York, NY) , January 16, 2011 Summary: Stories are authentic human experiences. Stories leap frog the technology and bring us to the core of experience, as any good storyteller (transmedia or otherwise) knows. Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience. No […]

Tucson Citizen (Tucson, AZ), March 2, 2010 Summary: Stories can heal, educate, sell, empower, and/or illuminate. They can be told, performed, journaled, blogged, social media’d, and/or written. Here are some on-line locations where you can learn more about storytelling applications. The National Storytelling Network has five special interest groups dealing with healing, producing storytelling events, […]

ExpressBuzz (Chenai, India), February 10, 2010 Summary: No one who sat in the intellectual audience at IIT Madras on a Sunday afternoon would’ve imagined that a story of two little goats who lived on two separate hills would do wonders to lift their energy levels. Yet, Jeeva Raghunath, a professional storyteller, addressed a gathering on […]

The New York Times (New York, NY), December 29, 2009 Summary: Dr. Rita Charon, professor of clinical medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, is well aware of the power of storytelling. She has a Ph.D. in English — training that changed her medical practice. Through literature, she learned how stories […]

The Wall Street Journal (New York, NY), November 14, 2009 Summary: Tripping down memory lane is a healthy and necessary task of growing older—even if only practiced privately, or in the company of an agreeable friend or spouse. The urge to sum up is “part of normal aging,” wrote Gene D. Cohen, a psychiatrist and […]

Winnipeg Free Press (Winnipeg, Canada) , May 6, 2009 Summary: Yarns, myths, folk tales, legends, fables, historical narratives and just plain stories are being shared today through Saturday at the fourth annual Winnipeg International Storytelling Festival. The free festival is presented by the Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice at St. Paul’s College, […]

Daily Illini (University of Illinois, Champaign, IL), April 7, 2009 Summary: The Champaign-Urbana Storytelling Guild takes storytelling from children’s bedtime fodder to an elaborate art form. The Guild, which was founded in 2001, sponsors local storytelling concerts and events and participates in workshops and benefits. “The whole point of it is to support new tellers […]

Wall Street Journal (New York, NY), March 11, 2009 Summary: As parents cut budgets, many are finding family stories have surprising power to help children through hard times. Storytelling experts say the phenomenon reflects a growing national interest in telling tales, evidenced by a rise in storytelling events and festivals. New research bears out the […]

Newsweek (New York, NY), February 16, 2009 Summary: Ann Banks, editor of First-Person America, an anthology of oral histories collected by the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project, wrote: I was raised on Depression stories; this was only one of many told around our dinner table. Hearing them again and again, I became fascinated by the role […]

Scientific American Mind (New York, NY), September, 2008 Summary: Storytelling is a human universal, and common themes appear in tales throughout history and all over the the world. The best stories—those retold through generations and translated into other languages—do more than simply present a believable picture. These tales captivate their audience, whose emotions can be […]

ABC Online (Australia), April 17, 2008 Summary: Humans are natural storytellers. We’ve been doing it for 30,000 years. But about 2,500 years ago, thanks to Plato, Socrates and other ancient Greeks, we in the West switched to inquiry, dialogue, argument and reason when we had knowledge to impart. We still do today. We still tell […]

DCist.com (Washington, DC), April 15, 2008 Summary: Ira Glass, creator and host of the weekly public radio story anthology This American Life, led an inspiring two-hour discussion of the techniques of storytelling as practiced by the staff of This American Life, and the reasons stories are so indispensable to our humanity. Glass observed that storytelling […]

DCist.com (Washington, DC), April 15, 2008 Summary: Ira Glass, creator and host of the weekly public radio story anthology This American Life, led an inspiring two-hour discussion of the techniques of storytelling as practiced by the staff of This American Life, and the reasons stories are so indispensable to our humanity. Glass observed that storytelling […]

The Shields Gazette (South Shields, UK) , April 15, 2008 Summary: As part of celebrations to mark World Storytelling Day, youngsters from St Bede’s RC Primary School, in Harold Street, Dunn Street Primary, in Staple Road, and Jarrow Cross CofE Primary, in Borough Road, were invited to Jarrow Library. Library assistant Carol Hall, the storyteller […]

(The Oregonian, Portland, OR), April 6, 2008 Summary: Is it possible that the city we imagine — the city that isn’t, that was, that could be — is more real than the one that actually exists? Do we fashion cities through the stories that we tell, as real as anything that’s already around us? At […]

Daily Herald (Provo, UT), March 26, 2008 Summary: “We can give people facts and statistics all day long. Those are valuable, but to really inspire people to make change, you need the human element,” said Lena Dibble, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Health Promotion in Utah’s Department of Health . The bureau is launching the […]

The Times of India (New Delhi, India) , October 1, 2007 Summary: Sarah Kyankya is a writer- publisher at Fountain Publications, Kampala, Uganda’s largest publishing house. She was asked, “There is an ongoing conflict situation in Uganda. Can storytelling make a difference?” Kyankya replied, “The war has meant that the north of the country is […]

CBS News (New York City, NY), December 15, 2006 Summary: Each week we invite someone from outside CBS Public EyE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we turned to Siobhan Darrow, a former CNN correspondent and author of the 2002 book, Flirting with Danger: Confessions […]

The Fiji Times Online (Suva, Fiji), December 3, 2006 Summary: Father Lapsley’s decade-and-a-half-long activism against South African apartheid, both from within and outside that State, could have ended in him living the rest of his life bitter and a victim. In 1990, a letter bomb delivered to him in Harare, Zimbabwe, from the then South […]

City Vision (Western Cape, South Africa), November 9, 2006 Summary: The sixteen ex-combatants and community activists trained by the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory (DACPM) in storytelling to become authentic voices in the tourist industry, graduated in Woodstock on Monday. During the course which took nine weeks, the graduates took a part on […]

Malaysia Star (Malaysia), January 24, 2006 Summary: And they lived poor ever after… What a hilarious way to end a story! It made the audience at the storytelling showcase –a culmination of months of hard work during the “Happiness is a Choice Programme” – laugh, then sigh. They had to wonder what sentiments lay beneath […]

Palisadian-Post (Pacific Palisades, CA), January 13, 2005 Summary: Tellers and talkers will honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s memory at the Tales By The Sea performance on Saturday, January 15, 7 p.m. at Malibu United Methodist Church, 30128 Morning View Drive. The program will begin with classical improv by juveniles from Camp Kilpatrick probation camp […]