Regular readers must tire of my constantly expressing my astonishment at making new storytelling discoveries. After searching for story material on the Web for four years — partly for this blog and partly for my PhD program — I would have thought I would have found it all. Yes, of course new resources pop up all the time, but many of the treasures I find have been around for at least as long as I’ve been treasure hunting.

Here are two I discovered in the past week or so, both of which I have peripheral connections with:

Turns out I have a cousin who’s a digital storyteller. He’s Alex Lucas, the son of my first cousin Bethe, so I believe that makes him my first cousin once removed. His Milwaukee-based company is Mythtaken:

Mythtaken Productions is one-stop resource for those looking to tell their stories or to hear others. Through video production, editing, animation, writing, and web services, we communicate these stories to those who truly want to hear.

Secondly, I have decided that Yvette Hyater-Adams is who I want to be when I grow up. She sent me a lovely e-mail yesterday and shared some terrific stuff. Yvette is doing the kind of work I aspire to — counseling and workshops that help people change their lives by changing their stories. (My connection here is that Yvette seems to be based in South Jersey, where I grew up).

I am absolutely fascinated by Yvette’s assessment instrument, Transformative Narrative Portrait, which Yvette says “takes a collection of stories along a lifeline to look at the pattern of experience and make decisions on ways to ‘re-story’ unhelpful habits into new and thriving stories that move toward a desired vision.” Yvette calls the Transformative Narrative Portrait “a collection of past, present, and future stories along with action stories that help facilitate personal change.” She plans to offer a certification for people who want to use this method for coaching. Count me in. I am dying to learn more about this assessment.

She also offers writing workshops through her site Renaissance Muse.