See Loren’s bio, photo, and Part 1 of this Q&A.
See Part 2 of this Q&A.
See Part 3 of this Q&A.
Q&A with Loren Niemi (Question 4):
Q: You teach storytelling at the college level. Do you find your students receptive, or is it difficult to attain “buy-in” to the value of storytelling?
A: There is always some initial skepticism — for two reasons: because they do not have the language to name what they already have experienced as storytelling and because the storytelling “brand” as they identify it has been so often associated with librarians reading books to children instead of rappers and hip-hop artists rhyming or scriptwriters framing television or movie narratives. The class I teach operates on two levels of learning — one identifying the forms and functions of story in business, education, media, culture and our spiritual lives; and the other in having them tell both personal and folk/ethnic/cultural stories. No one leaves the class without understanding why and how stories shape our world.