Stories Yearning to Be Told

All of us have told stories since we were old enough to talk, and since then we have acquired a wonderful variety of experiences, a rich source of story material.  Some of this we have shared through telling with friends and family, but much of this richness remains untapped.  "Stories Yearning To Be Told" encourages you to delve into this resource, to go beyond the easy, familiar anecdotes in your collection (we all have them) and discover previously untried stories to share with a small, supportive company of fellow tellers.  In the process you will burnish your storytelling skills.

The format:  each participant will tell at each of the first six meetings.  Stories will be drawn from personal experience:  anything from a childhood happening to yesterday's events.  Tellers may concentrate on an era or a sequence of events or choose their subjects randomly.  In the last two meetings, participants will have the opportunity for a longer telling.

Tellers will be paired, and time will be left at the end of each meeting for mutual critiquing.  The pairs will be rearranged at the midpoint of the course.  Each teller will record his or her stories on a cassette, and the only homework, beyond story preparation, will consist of listening to oneself.  While sometimes horrifying, this experience is often more edifying than any external critique.

Class is limited to 12 members.

JIM BREWER,  a Hobart graduate who has an M.A. from Breadloaf and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin, was a teacher at Holderness for much of his career.  Along the way he Headmastered at The Barlow School and taught at Exeter.  A Master storyteller, Jim began telling professionally in 1984 and has worked venues ranging from country inns to educational conferences.  He has taught storytelling in elementary and high schools; this ILEAD offering is his first venture at the post-post-graduate level.