Hey, Storytellers!
How’s your repertoire?
Wouldn’t you like to learn some new stories?
Wouldn’t you like to see and hear your fellow tellers on a regular basis?
Of course you would! So here’s the plan:
This year the East Valley Tellers of Tales is sponsoring a year-long, blog-based exploration of genre. The intent of Tell Me Something Good is to encourage you to build and diversify your repertoire, and to support the community of tellers by participating in the dialogue on the blog and by regular attendance at EVTOT meetings, where tellers can share stories from the genre featured the previous month. We will celebrate our success in December at a mini-festival featuring Willy Claflin.
We will explore different genres of oral storytelling for the following ten months. Liz Warren is hosting the blog and will get us going with a weekly blog post. Then, it’s up to you to join in and enhance the dialogue in the comments section of the blog. Each week we will look at the genres from different points of view:
Week 1: What distinguishes this genre?
Week 2: Where can I find and how do I craft this genre?
Week 3: What local and national tellers are known for telling this genre?
Week 4: Invoking the muse – uniting teller, story, and listener.
The cost is $30. That covers your membership to EVTOT, participation in TMSG, and a ticket to the gala mini-festival in early December. To join, send your $30, made out to EVTOT, to Gigi Connolly at 2233 E. Garfield, Phoenix, 85006. Send an email to Liz at lizannwarren@yahoo.com so that she can clear you to participate on the blog. If you are a member of TOT in Tucson and would like to participate, you can join for $15. If you don’t live in Arizona at all and would like to participate, you can join for $15, too. See below for the calendar and monthly themes.
Calendar and Monthly Themes:
January 17, 24, 31, and February 7:
A good folktale – unexpected elements brought together.
A good fairytale – magic and transformation.
February 14, 21, 28 and March 7:
A good hero story – rites of passage in story form
A good love story – pain and promise
March 14, 21, 28 and April 4:
A good participation story – Cric? Crac!
A good trickster story – manipulating power and the powerful
April 11, 18, 25, and May 2:
A good legend – the allure of belief, the possibility of truth
May 9, 16, 23, 30 and June 6:
A good family story – threads of relatedness that unite us
A good historical story – deeper truths through new perspectives
A good biographical story – the drama of facts
June 13, 20, 27 and July 4:
A good ballad – a story sung
July 11, 18, 25, and August 1:
A good personal story – reveling in our common humanity
August 8, 15, 22, 29, and September 5:
A good myth – echoes of ancient meaning for modern lives.
A good epic – pathos and mythos
September 12, 19, 26, October 3:
A good original story – new cloth on old looms
A good scary story – dark, dark nights and beyond
October 10, 17, 30, and November 7:
A good riddle tale – Ask me a story
November 14, 21, and 28:
Reviewing our experience and preparing for the gala mini-festival
Willy Claflin will be the featured teller at our gala mini-festival in early December. Friday night, Willy will give a concert. Saturday morning, he will conduct a workshop. Saturday afternoon, he will join us in a concert highlighting the various genres we have been exploring. The real stars of this concert will be the participants, who will share five-minute tales.
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