Columcille
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Exhaling by Marilee Lasch
I read once in the Thesaurus of Trivia, also known as Reader’s Digest magazine, a story about a Big Rig truck trying to go through an under pass that was three inches too low for the height of the trailer and got stuck. The police were called, and they couldn’t do anything, so they called…
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In Context by Mindy Tarquini
The other day I told the story of Ada Gobetti, the woman who is credited with starting the Italian Resistance. Before I could tell Ada’s story, I had to set the scene, that of a woman passing out pamphlets on a street corner on a major thoroughfare in the city of Turin in September of…
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Will We Learn? by Rhonda Brewer
What will our world will look like on the other side of this social experiment we have all been living through for the last six weeks? Will we be able to sustain any of the positive changes we have made? Will families spend Friday nights cuddled on popcorn-strewn couches laughing and teasing or will…
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Validation Through Listening by Ken Shaw
A few years ago, I took a Santa job at a retail store. Their purpose was to allow the families to spend time with Santa and get some great pictures. There were many memorable people and children that came through this venue. One family came in with a girl around age six and her little…
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Scaling Down by Kaden Sheffield
Just a few short weeks ago my life, like yours, was normal—full of trips around town to stores, movies, theaters, museums, restaurants, classes, parks, full of meetups with friends, full of plans for future outings. My extroverted, never-a-dull-moment, Red Bull American Dream seemed thoroughly on-track. Then came The Virus, followed by The Shutdown, and suddenly…
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Patience Pays by Mario Avent
Once there was a king who held a contest for someone to be his personal assistant. Several villagers came to fill the position. The King gave them all the same task: they had to take a pot and empty the lake with it. “There is one catch,” said the King, “The pot has a hole…
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Make Me Care! by Kathy Eastman
Interpretation is one of those words in which the meaning is derived from the context in which you use it. Interpretation generally refers to a form of communication, especially with an audience in pleasure seeking mode. Examples of venues where interpretation is used include parks, recreation sites, museums, art galleries and even wineries and breweries. In interpretation the…
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The Healing Power of Story by Anna Blocher-Rubin
The healing power of storytelling has been demonstrated many times in the classes and events I have attended over the last couple of years. It’s a way for us to connect to one another in a given amount of time without necessarily knowing one another’s name or past. The field can become fair for all…
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“The ripening of maturity, beauty to behold!” by Diane Saunders
This semester I have had the opportunity to discover two valuable sources that have helped me immensely in navigating these unparalleled times in modern history with the advent of the Covid 19 pandemic. I have worked over the past years with a Catholic parish community in East Mesa called St. Bridget of Kildare Catholic Community. …
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Best Practices for Video-recording Stories by Liz Warren
We're all going to be communicating more on video, and as storytellers we will be asked to video-record stories for use in a range of contexts. I've been researching and experimenting and here are some tips and best practices I've learned for recording your stories: Lighting: Try to use natural light that illuminates your face…
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Guests At Our Table by Diana Dinshaw
In 1972 when the Nationalization of Pakistan hit my father’s small business, clearing and forwarding of shipments, overnight he lost his largest client. We went from living comfortably in abundance to not having much at all. To me as a seven year old that meant that on my birthday that year and many years to…
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Interesting Times by Mindy Tarquini
Think about this: My second novel is set during an interesting time. It is set against the backdrop of a pandemic. A pandemic which was overshadowed by a world war. In 1918 Philadelphia. My novel got a feature in the Historical Novel Society’s print edition, won a couple of awards, was a Today Show Winter…