by Shannon Turner | Oct 5, 2021 | change, manifesting stories, transformative storytelling, workshops
In my curriculum where I teach people how to cultivate and tell their own stories, an approach I affectionately call, ‘The Story Sandwich,’ I always refer to the importance of finding the change in our storytelling. I call it the meat (or spicy tofu) of the sandwich. In workshops, I break out these two figures side-by-side and talk about that moment in English class when they would talk us about the “beginning-middle-end” of a story (blah-blah-blah), and especially “exposition-climax-denoument” (again: blah-blah-blah).
by Shannon Turner | Oct 1, 2021 | change, happy stories, life maps, manifesting stories, personal is political, personal narrative, transformative storytelling, workshops
Pittsburg: Past, Present, Future is an innovative, new storytelling project under the guidance of the Pittsburgh Community Market, which will culminate with a live, pop-up theatre at Pittsburgh Yards on Saturday, October 30 at 7:00p as a part of the ELEVATE Atlanta Arts Festival.
by Shannon Turner | Jul 15, 2021 | advocacy, change, empathy, GCDD Storytelling Project, life maps, transformative storytelling
The problem with the word abracadabra today is that people think it just means magic, which is something we tend not to believe in these days. I’m rather of the belief that speaking our truths into the world, and truly hearing the stories of others, rather takes some work, and then the magic happens…
by Shannon Turner | Oct 28, 2020 | Blog, change, nostalgia, Patreon, personal narrative, walks with grief
As the election season has dragged on this autumn, I’ve found myself falling back in time to that time four years ago when the wheels of change were starting into motion for me. The actual week of the election I was still trying to juggle my full-time job as the managing director of a dance company while also conducting a storytelling residency at Virginia Tech.
by Shannon Turner | Oct 7, 2020 | Blog, change, grief, memory, nostalgia, walks with grief
On their first date, my grandfather nearly made a drastic mistake, telling an off-color joke about squirrels to my grandmother. Even though she was quite the prude, she chose to look past his Navy boy ways and focus on the handsome blue eyes. Thank goodness, and probably thanks in no small part to my grandfather, she loosened up over time.
by Shannon Turner | Jun 19, 2019 | authenticity, Blog, change, happy stories, transformative storytelling, vulnerability, walks with grief
Around this time two years ago, I set off to tell some happy stories. I had just gone through a cycle of work involving grief, helping people tell some of their hardest stories, including the Virginia Tech residency and Trigger Warning. Coming out of that cycle, I was...
