Frosted Recollection
a summertime adventure to warm a winter night
Wolf Criers Club
Vol 36
Ahhh, the north wind sharpens the grass into frosted teeth.
Happy Wintertime to YOU
When the days grow short and the pants get long, I always feel like it’s the start of something fresh. Yeah yeah, the year winds down and starts again, but my focus on words written, spoken, and read goes up. This time of year is piled high with storytelling in many forms.
Last July, I was invited to Brooklyn, NY, to be part of an evening of true stories told live by the people at The Moth.
The Moth is an international storytelling phenomenon founded in 1997 by novelist George Dawes Green. At its heart is the principle that people telling their stories in person, without notes, is a powerful way to preserve oral tradition and invite empathy and understanding among the speakers and listeners who gather.
These personal stories are available through their podcast, on their website, and broadcast as The Moth Radio Hour.
And they invited four other storytellers and me to join them in Brooklyn one July evening for a knock-out performance in front of a capacity crowd at the Roulette Intermedium.
How they found me
A year before the invitation to tell my story at this showcase event, I attended an online workshop led by The Moth, working with community partner Artreach, Inc. It was a 3-week, 6-part intensive in which we developed 5-minute stories with The Moth structure. It was held on Zoom, and the final performance was recorded.
Prompts seeded the first week of exploration. We were asked to write a story about an important object, or explore a misunderstanding, or complete this sentence: ‘I used to think ______; but now I think _______.
We experimented with possibilities in small breakout rooms. Listeners would share their reactions by asking, “How did that feel to tell?” From there, we would share reactions and ask questions.
In the first two weeks, we were encouraged to try out several stories to see how they felt to tell and how our listener partners reacted. Into the final week, we honed the story we planned to perform. The workshop culminated in a Zoom reading for an invited audience.
The Moth provided each storyteller with a link to their recording. And I figured that was the end of an enjoyable workshop experience.
Until about 16 months later…
One of the producers at The Moth got in touch to explore my story for a live storytelling evening in Brooklyn, New York.
How could I say no?
A few months before the July date, I met with Larry, a producer on the team who would be coaching me.
If you were casting the role of a gentle and wise story producer, you would hire this guy. He wore a soft cap with a long bill, something you’d wear to go fishing with Hemingway, and a camp shirt with a white tee underneath. He wanted to touch base before he left to work with a group of storytellers in Africa. I could tell that I was in good hands.
Figuring out how to crack into a story begins with asking a lot of questions. Larry proved to be a thorough questioner because he is an excellent listener.
He always brought our sessions around to this principle: to get to the story only I could tell.
We began by expanding the story. This gave us material to explore and move with.
What did the world feel like, look like, and how did it change?
Once we had a fuller version, we began pulling things out. We worked on finding the essential moments and working with those.
Each iteration was an expansion followed by contraction. It was like blowing into a balloon to see how far it could go, and then letting air out again.
The shape of it was simple: Establish the stakes and emotions at the top of the story. Create scenes that include sensory touchstones with the look, feel, smell of the world we are in. Who am I, the human in it all, experiencing this story?
With some sweat, a little prodding, and a lot of good cheer, I worked on several drafts to get into and out of the story I sought to tell.
All Aboard!
The day before the event, the producers and storytellers met at the offices of The Moth in Manhattan. As a resident of the tri-state metro area, I boarded a train to Grand Central Station. Once arrived at the offices, the four in-person storytellers, producers, and advisors from The Moth sat around a conference table and met for the first time.
Then each storyteller stood up and told their story. And, oh my goodness, after my first sentence, I went totally blank.
What’s next? Wait, I know this. I know this. I put all of my actor training to good use, because I was more nervous in front of this supportive small group than at any point in my career as a performer or theater director.
How was telling my own true story such a mind-wipe?
I got the story out. Excruciatingly slow … and longer than it’s ever been … oh my gosh…
But it was done. And we talked about it.
And you know what? Everybody’s story was slow and too long and rushed at the wrong moments. How do I know this? Because we talked about it, sure. But also, the next night in front of a packed audience, these stories came alive, were taut, and floated on the air.
But this rehearsal? What a tangled jumble of thoughts and words swirled around the room.
Afterward, The Moth crew took the storytellers to a fun Mexican place to get to know one another while sharing food. It brought us all close together. We were in this as a unit now.
The next morning, we each met with our producer coach one-on-one and went over our stories and aspects of the transitions to strengthen aspects with power and shed the extra pieces that had wound themselves in the night before. After my late morning meeting, I took a nap before hanging out with a friend for an afternoon tea and a snack.
With fresh-pressed clothes and the story whirring in my head, I got to the theater in time for our soundcheck. Frequent check-ins from the team and fun stories added some bounce and diversion as the sounds of people entering the theater filtered into our basement green room.
When the evening got cranking with the storytellers seated in the first row and the MC getting the packed assembly laughing and cheering, my name was called and I was at the mic telling this story about a Star Wars t-shirt. Being with that crowd, all listening and laughing and gasping at some of the surprise … well … there aren’t words for how it felt.
So here’s the link to see me deliver my story that magic summer night: Kevin’s Star Wars. When I hear it, I wish I’d gotten it a minute or two tighter. But what is also there is me, the human being, doing something I was not fully prepared for (because there was no way to prepare except to do it) - and coming through the other side with a whole bunch of other people witnessing and the other storytellers and the folks from The Moth who were holding space for us.
Sometimes we humans are magnificent beings, yeah?
You can also see the original workshop version of the story HERE.
What will your story be this year?
Want to work on this together?
The Wolf Criers Club is putting together a Story Den to explore how to tell the story of our art and our places in the world. How do old stories hold onto us, and what happens when we make them new again? These are some questions we will examine.
Let us know in the comments what aspects of story you’d like to explore with us.
Kato McNickle composed this week’s newsletter.
The traveling Yeti illustration is by Kayleen Sokol.
Wolf Criers Club is a collective of illustrators, writers, innovators, and wolves.
We explore aspects of dynamic storytelling each week through pictures and words, how to improve, and where to take it next. Why not run with us?
If you enjoy this post, please share it with arts-minded friends and subscribe or follow Wolf Criers Club on Substack for weekly updates.
The wolf-wearing-glasses logo and Story Den image are by Wolf Crier Michael Luk.
Thanks Kato for sharing your Moth experience. Great story telling indeed!