NSN Blog

By Mike Speller In the afterglow of the wonderful buffet published in Storytelling Magazine’s “Coming Home Laughter” edition, I am proud to say NSN chose the Professor to share his Humor Kourse at the upcoming summer conference/workshop.   So now I have plenty of material to copy, paraphrase, and claim as my own. I am joshing, […]

by Carolyn Stearns In the back of the closet, an old box in the attic, a jewelry box long forgotten, these are the places some of your family stories lurk. I have focused a portion of my work on unearthing these remnants of stories and fleshing them out. There are jewels of stories waiting to

by Lillian Rodrigues-Pang Twenty years ago I sat in the concrete surrounds of the mental health ward next to my brother with nothing to say. I couldn’t talk to him about the beautiful sunny day outside, about awesome surf conditions, or my nephew’s first soccer game that was coming up. All of these were unobtainable

by Doug Lipman If you’ve hung around storytelling (or acting or writing) long enough, you’ve probably heard the familiar instruction: “Show, don’t tell.” This maxim points toward a helpful idea: in order to make a scene or sentence maximally vivid for your listeners, you need to “show” what happened, rather than “tell” ABOUT what happened.

by Kate Dudding Some people say there is a lot of evil in the world these days. Mr. Rogers said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” I witnessed one

Katie Knutson The Minnesota State Arts Board and regional arts councils review their grant applications publicly. Anyone may sit and listen to the grants being reviewed, but may not speak. Every time I submit a grant application, I try to listen to it being reviewed (if possible). I have learned so much about the process

by Chris Sutton The sesquicentennial (a word I love to say but cannot spell) has been an incredible, unmatched experience for me. The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War started in 2011 and ends this year, 2015. Hundreds and hundreds of reenactments, ceremonies and assemblies have taken place over the last four years to

by Robin Bady Once upon a time, my love affair with the canons of world fairy and folk tales was easy. I simply told the stories -of faraway princesses, kings and magical creatures, of transformations, possibilities, journeys, struggles, hope, and courage – and found the magic and justice within. But as the world around us

by Kevin Cordi, Ph.D. As a storyteller and story crafter, how often have you been working on a story and been blocked in your thinking? When you were stuck, were you alone? This is often the standard practice of the storyteller. We reside in empty rooms, cradled at a desk, writing our ideas to create

by Jane Stenson How often we tell ourselves that the stories we live by and tell, define who we are…I believe that! I also believe that the tools we use or avoid, embrace or discard define who we are as much as those stories. If I tell a folktale, the accumulated wisdom of the culture