See a photo of Diane, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Q&A with Diane Wyzga, Question 6:

Q: What future aspirations do you personally have for your own story work? What would you like to do in the story world that you haven’t yet done?

A: I am approaching what I call “Middle Earth Age.” My siblings’ children have children. I am now a great aunt. My values have shifted as I’ve gained in years. I’ve arrived at a place in life where I can say I have experiences, stories, wisdom, and failings to share. I see this as well in my women friends and associates, too. We are becoming the elders. We have vital roles to play in all aspects of human discourse.

I have in mind creating a space along the model of The Center for Whole Communities at Knoll Farms, whose work I’ve taken part in. I would like to focus on women collectively. Women are natural storytellers and listeners. I’m sure you’ve witnessed this: women teach as they learn. As women teach and learn they move closer to becoming who they are individually and collectively: leaders, change agents, visionaries, organizers, healers, educators, peace-makers, farmers, beekeepers, story-sharers, and the like.

I recall telling stories in domestic-abuse shelters and watching the years and anxiety fall away from their faces. We need delight as well as motivation, humor as well as transformation, inspiration as well as education. I believe the fertile ground of my farm will offer this and more. I am returning to my storyteller and sustainable-living roots. In the words of Elizabeth Ellis, “Be a gift to them — take them on a journey and bring them safely home.”

See a photo of Diane, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Diane Wyzga, Question 5:

Q: What people or entities have been most influential to you in your story work and why?

A: To name one runs the risk of forgetting others. As a way of honoring all who matter to me, I’d like to remember a few.

Doug Lipman and his coaching work taught me to listen with appreciation, always lifting up the best in the teller.Later I would learn he was reframing St. Benedict’s words, “Listen with the ear of the heart.”At a time when I was shaky on my storyteller feet he told me that I have an innate ability to translate universal concepts into sound bytes that resonate with the listener.This I have taken to heart in my work.

Jay O’Callahan appreciates language so much he told me to use less of it, not more. Jay hounded me to “choose — choose — choose” the right word. I hear him in my ear like the ocean: “If you have five words, make it three. If you have three words, make it one.” I am in awe of the grandeur of the epic-scale stories he creates like “The Auk” and “Pouring the Sun” that derive from his own humanity. This gifted world-renowned teller has himself sailed rough seas finding the beating heart of his story or telling to noisy or unappreciative audiences.

Elizabeth Ellis (whose voice, Jay O’Callahan says, sounds like chocolate) made certain I did my homework before stepping in front of a crowd of 5 or 500. She often admonished me to “be a gift to them;” do not expect your listeners to reach out and catch you because you are not prepared. Even with the most difficult personal stories you tell, be in control of the story so your emotions do not run all over the place. Remember the role of a virtual journey is to take the listener with us and return them safely to where we began.

Loren Niemi didn’t let me get away with anything when crafting stories or stage presence. Loren’s topics are edgy, his presentation style sly. Ellis says his material is out there where the tall grass grows in empty lots with broken beer bottles glittering in the sun. The Niemi/Ellis book, Inviting the Wolf In, taught me that there is no human trait too dark that you can’t tell something about it that will relate to the listener’s experience. I learned that all of human experience qualifies for story subject matter; the knife-blade decision is knowing what your listener needs to hear and what you are prepared to tell.[Editor’s note: Loren Niemi has been part of this Q&A series].

Ed Stivender mimicked all the ways we grew up as Catholic kids. His stories are side-splitting hilarious and strangely respectful, much like Sister’s Catechism theater. I have to believe one day she heard Ed Stivender & then had an “AhHa!” moment. He gave me permission to poke fun at authority.

As the new millennium approached I served with Gail Rosen, Allison Cox, and others as a member of the board of the Healing Story Alliance (a special interest group of the National Storytelling Network). Together we created Diving in the Moon journal. Gail and Allison were visionaries who believed that story facilitated healing. Our paths diverged and have met up again. We are older, but the power of story to heal continues more strongly than ever.

StoryWerx: My local tribe of performing tellers who bring to life the music of the spoken word. I began teaching storytelling to them; in time they taught me more about myself than I could ever learn in school — or therapy.

Garrison Keillor and stories from Lake Woebegone on NPR: who else can keep you locked in your car glued to the radio in a state of extraordinary listening while the grocery story parking lot fills and then empties out on a Saturday night?

Finally, Holly Near opened another listening door for me with her music, in particular: The Souls Are Coming Back!

See a photo of Diane, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, and Part 3.

Q&A with Diane Wyzga, Question 4:

Q: In your interview with Stephanie West Allen, you tell an absolutely fascinating story of how you discovered storytelling, of being “in a book and coffee shop in Pacific Grove, CA, [when] a book fell off a shelf. I picked it up. The year was 1994. The book was a 20th anniversary edition of best-loved stories told at the Jonesborough, TN, story festival. I read a story. I said: I can do this.” One little piece seems to be missing from this story, though — what do you think drew you into that story and that book? What was powerful enough in that book or story to motivate you to want to “do this?”

A: We are going back a long time — time out of mind on this one. Even so I can recall the entire episode as if it was yesterday. The story was “The Wish-Ring” as retold by Martha Holloway, a retired bacteriologist at Scripps Institute who began a second career at age 62.

I remember thinking one is never too old to give voice to the values that reflect who you are and your vison for being of use in the world. I still have notes on the flyleaf of the book with names and telephone numbers of local storytellers and guilds I contacts as soon as I returned home. One of them, Linda King Pruitt [pictured], remains a close friend and storyteller.

What called me? A knowing. That’s the best I can say. Remember when you had the experience of knowing that someone or something was right for you? It’s like that. A friend calls it the “Wilson Factor” She found her dog in a shelter, knew when she saw him he was “the One” and called him Wilson. It’s like that.

My experience is also aligned with a belief system of paying attention to the whisperings or beckonings of truth. I blogged on this recently. There are many things in life that will catch our eye, but only a few will catch our heart — those are the ones we are destined to follow if we are paying attention.

Looking back I believe that what I found was a way of being I could relate to, that came naturally: thinking like a storyteller. I was looking for a tribe of people who were having fun while making a life built on life-affirming work that helps others.

It took a book falling on my head to launch me into a world where grown-ups shared stories for a living. Some of those tellers have passed on; other young ones are now the grey-haired elders. The message is the same one I heard then: We are “homo narrans” — storytelling people.

See a photo of Diane, her bio, and Part 1 of this Q&A, and Part 2.

Q&A with Diane Wyzga, Question 3:

Q: In what ways is legal storytelling different from other forms of applied storytelling? For example, on your web site, you mention analytical thinking. To what extent do you think legal storytelling takes a more analytical approach than other forms of applied storytelling?

A: Generally speaking, here’s the paradox: lawyers need to be able to prove the case and tell the client’s story but lawyers generally are given the least training to do the story part well. So often what I hear is: fire + marshmallow + water + soup, now give me a conclusion.

In law school students are required to brief cases with a formula called “IRAC” for Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. A briefed case may sound like this. Issue: whether a man hit by the contents of a chamber pot being emptied out a window is entitled to damages. Rule: do not empty your chamber pot out the window. Application (of the rule to the issue): In an effort to clean up its image, the town of X passed a law stating that residents must not empty chamber pots out the window but dispose of the contents in the new “sewer system.” Jack did not want to walk 9 flights down to the sewer system so he chose to do what he always did: empty his chamber pot out the window where the contents fell on Tom who was walking under the window. Conclusion: Jack should be hung out and dried for breaking the new law. Tom should be compensated.

Compound law school’s IRAC training with the type person that typically goes into the practice of law: logical, sequential, analytical, data driven, and practical. These are all good and wonderful left-brain traits. Storytelling relies more on right-brain traits: imagination, creativity, intuition, non-linear visualization, and big picture concepts.

I’ve heard that “People who invent stories intimidate people who do not.” Lawyers are suspicious of stories that do not come packaged in structures. Can you see where the battle lines are drawn?

In no other area do I find this conundrum: on the one hand, law requires analytical, logical, left-brained, content-based thinking to strategize and prove a case. On the other hand, jurors and others are required to render decisions and verdicts. The collective conscience of the community does not make reasoned, fact-based decisions. Science has shown and continues to show that we make moral decisions on an unconscious basis that we support with facts we gather to fit the decision. We believe what we understand. We understand what comes to us in a story that mimics our life experiences.

The justice system is designed to address only the legal elements. But everybody knows that the legal elements came about because of the personal situation of the client. A story focuses attention and judgment on certain key ideas or behaviors, and on understanding the significance of the behavior.

What do you do to develop a forensic fact pattern into a real life drama? Begin with your right-brain traits to prepare the outline of the story you need to tell. Most likely it will be your client’s story. Then creatively visualize what that story could sound like no matter how disorganized it may first appear to you. Get that story down. Then bring in the left-brain traits to shape the story with the data and evidence necessary to prove the story.