Liz Warren | Storyteller

You know Jack, right? Yeah, that guy with the beanstalk, magic harp, and golden egg-laying goose. But did you know there’s so much more to him? Jack has been keeping me company for the last few months of the COVID-19 pandemic. And I found out that his adventures are not limited to the beanstalk, but…

At Passover, the Jewish festival of liberation, we EAT a story. It is the great narrative of our people: we were enslaved; now we are free. Families gather from all parts. Some clean and cook for days. Tables are set with finery (and often an extra chair or three) and Haggadot – the guidebooks that describe the…

Stories have always been magical to me. I remember my dad reading stories to me every night before bed. My dad specialized in telling long story-jokes to anyone who would listen. He held the listeners’ attention with fun details and voices, always ending with some corny punchline. And now, like him, I’ve spent my whole…

I come from a long line of Irish storytellers. We love nothing more than to while away an afternoon over coffee, tea (or beer) talking… about anything.  We talk about politics, we talk about what made us mad that week, we talk about the family, we tease each other (relentlessly) over our idiosyncrasies, but our…

In a recent blog post, Liz Warren described telling a story as providing stepping-stones across a river.  Jack Maguire notes in The Power of Personal Storytelling, “An essential part… is having a clear sense of where you’re going when you tell a story – which ‘stones’ you need to reach, in what order, to go…

In our Creating and Telling Personal Stories class last Thursday night, Shelly Siegel asked an important question: What’s the difference between a story and a speech? That stayed with me, and this is my attempt to concisely describe some of the differences between these two narrative forms. Oversimplified? Probably, but not untrue. Function: A story…

“I’ll be here all week busting up stories”, said my colleague at a week-long event where she would lead a group of 10 professionals on a self-discovery journey. And she did.  Anytime she heard someone talking about things they wanted to change but couldn’t, she’d interrupt with “busted!” and help them to see if there…

Storytelling can bring about the "aha moment". Not just for the listener, but for the teller as well. Oprah Winfrey defines an "aha moment" as, "A moment of sudden inspiration, insight, recognition or comprehension." I'm wagering that most who have heard someone tell a compelling personal story, have had some type of emotional response. Or…

I almost missed it.  The power of personal stories to transform a person’s worldview as presented by Donald Davis in his TedTalk, “How the Story Transforms the Teller.”  It’s in his closing remarks and I think the first time I listened to it my mind was still visiting one of the images he had created…

“Everyone is a storyteller.” I’ve read or heard that sentence, stated as an emphatic and definitive truism, more times than I could ever count.  It is not true. Everyone has stories, and sometimes they tell them, but not everyone is a storyteller.  Here’s a parallel: Most people can cook, and some people can cook very…

Lizzo says in her song, “Juice", "that I’m out here making news." The fact of the matter here is that all of us are.  It was hard for me to believe that my little every day existence is going to be a part of history until I took Creating and Telling Fact-based and Historical Stories…

        To get into the Phoenix Zoo you must cross a bridge over a long lake. Pigeons walk along the bridge, strutting out of your way as you cross, while turtles bask on half-submerged logs many feet below.          Whenever I used to visit the zoo, I would notice the pigeons and turtles, but only…