Treasure Maps:
The Georgia Storytelling Roadshow

I tend to tell this story a lot in my workshops when we talk about the need for deep listening.

When I was a young girl, I started to notice in the adults in my life this one particular phenomenon. They would be visiting, telling stories about their families, their days, their pain, and then, inevitably, someone would start to respond simply with, “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.” Perhaps that person would sit forward and place hands on knees, or even stand up and rock side to side. “Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.”

I think I must have been about fourteen or so when I finally understood with absolute clarity that the dialogue had ended, all listening had ceased. Nodding and giving mild verbal cues is polite society’s way of pretending when we are not really engaged.

On the other hand, I remember a twenty-four hour period of time when my friend, Emily, and I, on a weekend home from working at camp, stayed up all night talking, sharing stories from our lives. At one point, I told her I needed to go to sleep, and she said, “You could, but…we could also go to Waffle House!” With that, she called me forth into adventure.

Over the last five years, as I have gone all over, helping people tell their stories for personal, professional, organizational, and community development, my work has boiled down to two salient tenets:

1. We need to hear better stories. Netflix and Disney+ and so many other capitalist forces have systematically stolen our stories away from us, selling them back in algorithmic pieces. But we own our stories, and it is incumbent upon us to seek out, find, and hear the stories we don’t always hear when powerful forces with an agenda keep those voices away from our arenas.

I chose personal storytelling as my mission and as the means I wanted to work for us to hear each other and connect. There are many ways to do this. Find yours. Practice it often. Share it with others.

2. We need to hear stories better. Those same forces, along with the greater distraction machine, is making it more difficult for us to sit with and simply listen to each other. In that same way that my family used to swap stories, I want to help us reinvest and rebuild a storytelling culture. 

By that I mean we must wake up, recognize, and dismantle the kind of storytelling that’s happening all around us where fake, fear-driven narratives are being weaponized. Instead, we must catalyze the moments, the places, where our authentic selves meet each other in awe and awkwardness, in grief and growth.

On to the great big next…

Shannon

My overall coaching hours bounced back in a big ol’ way this year as we entered into this new world known as hybrid! I worked with all sorts of interesting different kinds of people, including…

• a visual artist who wanted to develop her story about struggles with mental health for an upcoming performance
• an author whose book is launching next year wanting work on how he’ll tell his own autobiographical story when he’s on media tour
• a folklore storyteller who wanted to get better at wrangling and telling her own stories

Earlier this year, I launched my digital curriculum on Udemy, The Story Sandwich!! In just under half an hour, you can follow along with my best-loved tips for how to build a personal story you’ve always wanted to tell, one delicious, nutritious ingredient at a time. Click here for a limited time 2021 Annual Report 50% discount!

*These are words that some people who follow StoryMuse said they associate with the work.

Treasure Maps:
The Georgia Storytelling Roadshow

Returning to one of my best-loved projects, the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities and StoryMuse went back to work again, helping to tell the stories of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This time, we took our show on the road.

After a statewide call in February for storytellers who had intellectual or developmental disabilities, I hosted a free sample storytelling workshop for any and all interested participants. We had 70 participants on that first call! A little more than 30 folks applied thereafter.

In the end, we selected 10 storytellers. Throughout Spring 2021, I provided several group workshops and individual coaching sessions before we arrived in the storytellers’ cities for filming in early May.

In late June / early July 2021, we hit the road again to host six pop-up shows in Columbus, Savannah, Macon, Athens, Dahlonega, and Atlanta!

Along with the long-term partners, L’arche Atlanta and Resurgens Impact Consulting, we had countless partners along the way, especially Xerophile Studios, who made our gorgeous films. Thanks to indomitable local teams, each show was like its own mini-festival, featuring some combination of food trucks, local bands, and art vendors.

Read more, see more photos, and watch the film on the Treasure Maps page.

Other Events & Workshops in 2021

Walks with Grief

Yep, three years and counting. I’m still working on my book, Walks with Grief. In some ways, this project has continued to languish behind other big work this year. In others, it started to take significant moves forward. Most notably, I received a travel grant from Alternate ROOTS to go to Ireland, where I will study public wakes and culture in general. I’m also now in two different writing courses / communities, which are helping me show up for this project with more structure and rigor than I ever have before. 

My walking practice itself has grown and expanded. I began having private invited Walks With Grief events earlier this year and have more recently begun hosting public events where we walk, write, meditate, and share.

If you would like to take a virtual walk with me, feel free to book time on my calendar.

I periodically post updates and resources to the Walks with Grief page on my website, as well as the dedicated WWG website.

I look forward to posting pics from my Ireland trip in this space this time next year. I can’t predict what other news I’ll have to share about the project itself because the world is just too unpredictable these days…

CELEBRATING FIVE YEARS OF STORYMUSE!!

In early 2022, we will have a proper party and storytelling show. Please stay tuned for details to come.

In the meantime, rather than try and shoehorn in a retrospective on the first five years of StoryMuse at the bottom of an already very full Annual Report, please just jump on over to a very special celebration page here!!!