Some venues I’ve come across recently that either offer collections of topic-specific stories or serve as collection points for stories — or both: Glamour magazine runs an annual contest to find the best real-life story submission. I’ve read a lot of the past winning stories, and they are quite compelling … Continue reading
Yearly Archives: 2010
Convergence of Thoughts on Storytelling for Internal Communications
Not long ago, Nishwa Ashraf asked readers of The Melcrum Blog if they prefer the communication on the left or the one on the right: The one on the left is obviously a story, while the one on the right is essentially a platitude intended to convey a company value. … Continue reading
U. of Glamorgan Storytelling Center Offers Science-and-Storytelling “Provocations”
I’m not very good at updating the inside pages on this blog, such as my Events page, so I blew it when it came to publicizing a spring symposium on storytelling and science at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan in Cardiff, Wales. But … Continue reading
Coming Up in November: National Life Writing Month and NaNoWriMo
I had heard the term NaNoWriMo before last year, but didn’t really know what it meant. Last year, though, my cousin, Alex Lucas, posted a number of status updates/tweets that he was participating in NaNoWriMo, so I got curious enough to look up the term and learn that it means … Continue reading
Story Collections Strive for Social Change, Part 1
Virtually every day, I see examples of storytelling in service of social change. So many examples, in fact, that it takes two postings to cover just the recent ones. Here are some that have caught me eye in recent months: Brooke Dean and Levi Felix, who document their project at … Continue reading
Story-Related iPad Apps
While poking around my iPad, it occurred to me to search Apple’s App Store for apps related to story and storytelling, so I used those two search terms to see what’s out there. This listing isn’t intended to be comprehensive, and I would certainly love to hear of other great … Continue reading
Highlights from the World of Visual Storytelling, Part 1
Back in the spring, Layton Payne wrote a blog entry declaring that Visual Storytelling [Is] Now Mainstream. The blogger was specifically referring to visual storytelling in the form of graphic novels, which are undergoing significant growth. But if visual storytelling in graphic novels is growing, it is also growing in … Continue reading
Story Prompts Derived from Data
In a blog entry back in the spring, Tony Hirst suggested some interesting story prompts that spring from data. For example, map-based journey: “Given a trail, what can you tell about the journey that was taken and what happened on that journey?” Hirst asks. This notion happened to resonate with … Continue reading
Corporate Reticence to Tell Stories, and How a Story Matrix Can Help
Why have I never encountered David Hutchens until recently? I was captivated by his article, Applications of Narrative and Storytelling as an Organizational Discipline; or Why Organizational Communication in the 21st Century May Find its Salvation in Talking Animals, which he initially created for the 10th Anniversary Edition of Outlearning … Continue reading
Free Guide to Journaling Offered
The site Women’s Memoirs is offering a free 22-page book, Journaling Essentials: Everything You Need to Know to Start by Amber Lea Starfire. Here’s what’s in the guide includes: Seven Wonderful Benefits of Journaling: Each benefit comes with an exercise and space to conduct the exercise. The benefits Starfire discusses are: … Continue reading