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The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
And some ideas to inspire your writing
If you are like me, you love a good story. And as a writer, hearing from fellow storytellers is inspiring.
Books are wonderful. I am an avid reader and hoarder of novels. I lug my books around with me in a growing number of boxes each time I move (no Kindle or Nook for me, thanks), and I have a long — and also growing — list of books on my to-read list.
But I do enjoy other forms of storytelling.
One of the most fascinating parts of the internet for me is how many different ways stories are being told and shared — through photographs, short posts, letters, interviews, audio recordings, presentations, and other mediums. Stories are everywhere, and many storytellers are doing important work.
As a teacher, I used these varied forms of storytelling to engage my students. As a writer, I look to these forms of storytelling for inspiration.
In the spirit of storytelling, writing, and opening ourselves to different lived experiences, here are some of my favorite storytelling sources and some ideas to inspire a new story.
Ashley Gilbertson — Stories Told Through Photographs
I discovered Ashley Gilbertson’s photography when I stumbled on The NY Times Magazine feature piece “The Shrine Down the Hall” in 2010. The multimedia piece displays Gilbertson’s photographs, along with an article, essay, and interactive page.
When I found Gilbertson’s photography, I had just started teaching. I wanted to show my students how powerful images can be — how a single photograph can tell a full story. Gilbertson tells a story through each of his photographs, and he tells each story beautifully.
To honor fallen soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, he visited the homes of the soldiers to talk with their family members and photograph their bedrooms. Through the pictures, posters, awards, mementos, and decor in the room, each photograph gives us a glimpse of who the soldier was. The photographs pay tribute to their lives.
When I showed Gilbertson’s work to my students, I asked each of them to select one of his photographs and write what they learned about the soldier just by looking at the picture of the bedroom. These photographs revealed a great deal about the people who had lived in these rooms before serving in combat, and my students had plenty to write.
Since 2010, Gilbertson wrote and published a book about these photographs called Bedrooms of the Fallen. He also developed several projects, including Uncertain Journeys — photographs of refugees arriving in Lesvos, Greece — and 100% Wall Street — photographs of the financial crash in 2008 and the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011.
Gilbertson’s photographs tell a range of stories and reveal the wide variation of human experiences.
Start Writing— Find a photograph (any photograph) and write a story about what you see.
Dear Photograph — Stories Told Through Photographs and Letters
Where we are from and where we have lived since childhood — the settings of our lives — are central to our life stories. The places we occupy influence the people we meet, the experiences we have, and the memories that we make.
The website Dear Photograph demonstrates the importance of setting and features photographs posted with corresponding letters. The top of the homepage encourages visitors to “[t]ake a picture of a picture from the past in the present.” (If that sounds confusing, just visit the site — you’ll see. But make sure you have extra time on your hands to browse. You’ve been warned.)
The letters are written to the photographs themselves. Each writer reflects on the photograph within a photograph and the significance of that moment. While some of the writers reflect on photos of events etched in our national memory— for example, this photograph taken on 9/11 — others reflect on photos of moments in their daily lives — like this photograph taken on the day the woman in the photo moved from Georgia to St. Louis.
The combination of past and present existing together in one image creates an opportunity for insightful reflection. Then and now — how are the two related? It’s a question worth considering.
Start Writing— Submit to Dear Photograph. Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present, and write a letter to your photograph.
StoryCorps — Stories Told Through Recorded Conversations
Sit two people down to have a conversation, and you just might get a great story. StoryCorps is an oral history project that began in 2003 in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. They had one story booth they used to conduct interviews and encourage meaningful conversations between people. Those conversations were recorded and are now preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washingston, D.C.
Today, there are StoryCorps sites in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Francisco, along with a mobile tour. They also have a StoryCorps app that guides you through the interview process and allows you to record and upload your conversation. The organization’s mission is “to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.”
Through their website and archives, StoryCorps successfully shares “humanity’s stories.” In addition to their regular interviews and recorded conversations, the organization developed several projects to highlight specific experiences. These projects include The Justice Project, which features stories of people who have been affected by mass incarceration, and StoryCorps Legacy, which features stories of people with serious illnesses and their family members.
Start Writing—Download the StoryCorps app and find somebody who you would love to have a conversation with. Upload your conversation and write about the interview experience or turn your conversation into a story.
If you are feeling really motivated, submit a request to bring the StoryCorps Mobile Tour to your city. Then write about your experience.
Project VOICE — Stories Told Through Poetry and Performance
If you have ever taught poetry, you know that getting students to appreciate poems can sometimes be a challenge. Enter Sarah Kay, an accomplished poet, performer, and educator, as well as the founder and co-director of Project VOICE. When I watched Kay’s TEDx talk “How Many Lives Can You Live?” I knew I had found my angle in presenting poetry to my students — poems as captured moments of our human experience.
In this talk, Kay performs one of her poems, which tells the story of her father — who is a photographer — and his experience of documenting moments in the world with his camera. At the end of the poem, Kay compares her experience as a poet to her father’s experience as a photographer and says, “We have both learned the art of capture.”
Father and daughter are capturing aspects of the human experience — one through a camera lens and one through the written word. I encouraged my students to use this analogy to help them “get” poetry — and it worked.
From Kay’s TEDx talk, I was led to Project VOICE. This organization has six poets on its team — including Kay — who perform their poetry and conduct educational workshops for students and educators around the world. Their workshops give participants the skills they need to perform poetry. The goal of each workshop is to “encourage people to engage with the world around them and use spoken word poetry as an instrument through which they can explore and better understand their community, their society, and ultimately themselves.”
Project VOICE’s use of poetry and performance to tell and share stories is powerful and an effort worthy of note.
Start Writing — Watch the Project VOICE poets perform their poetry. Then write a poem that captures an aspect of the human experience.
This American Life — Stories Told Through Radio
This American Life is a weekly radio broadcast. Each episode has a theme and tells different stories related to that theme. The first episode of This American Life I ever listened to was Episode 360: “Switched at Birth.” This episode tells the stories of Sue and Marti, two women who were switched at birth, and their mothers, Kay and Mary. I was teaching at the time and looking for a new resource to teach listening skills to my students. What I found were some incredible stories.
On the “About Us” page of This American Life’s website, the description does not communicate what the radio show is, but instead communicates what it isn’t:
“We’re not a news show or a talk show or a call-in show. We’re not really formatted like other radio shows at all. Instead, we do these stories that are like movies for radio. There are people in dramatic situations. Things happen to them. There are funny moments and emotional moments and — hopefully — moments where the people in the story say interesting, surprising things about it all. It has to be surprising. It has to be fun.”
The radio show covers a broad range of topics. The episode that aired this week — “Grand Gesture” — tells the stories of people who have gone to extreme measures to demonstrate their feelings. The episode that aired last week — “When the Beasts Come Marching In” — tells the stories of what happens when the animal world and the human world mix.
Living in a world inundated with images and screens, having the chance to sit and just listen to a story is refreshing and freeing.
Start Writing — Pick an episode of This American Life and write a story related to that episode’s theme.
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