Category Archives: Storytelling and Community

A Live Reading, the Lit Blitz, and our Master Class Application

Posted on May 9, 2013 by James Goldberg

Confession: I have mixed feelings about writing as a technology. On the one hand, I’m amazed by how abstract marks on a page or screen can evoke the voice of a person thousands of miles–or years–away. Writing does a wonderful … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, Storytelling and Community | 6 Comments

I Can’t Do That…

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Scott Parkin

It becomes very easy to see your own gaps of talent, to identify the admirable in others and despair at its relative lack in your own work. We seek to be Miltons and Shakespeares, and in so doing sometimes fail to recognize how successfully we cover much of the same ground by somewhat different means. Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Personal Narratives, Storytelling and Community, The Writer's Desk | 3 Comments

E Pluribus Plures: From Many, (also) Many

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Scott Parkin

Most of us count ourselves members of many communities, and feel both affinity with the totality of the community and distinction from many of its individual members. It’s the nature of the beast; we are complex beings with complex interests, so we pursue multiple memberships in communities of interest.

Except when we don’t. Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Storytelling and Community | 9 Comments

Four Thoughts on Love and Desire

Posted on February 14, 2013 by James Goldberg

The headline I saw on Google News read, “Kate Upton says body shut down after Antarctic bikini shoot.” Beside it were various thumbnail photos of an almost-naked young woman in various poses against the tundra. I’d imagine her body was … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal Narratives, Storytelling and Community | 9 Comments

Children’s Lit Corner

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Kathryn Poulter

Two weeks ago my oldest son was feeding the dogs. They are big dogs, HUGE dogs (Newfies), and they love Ben so much they can’t help but want to climb all over him. Unfortunately, it was an icy day, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Lit corner, Storytelling and Community, YA corner | 5 Comments

One Writer’s View: Confessions of a Reluctant Novelist

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Scott Parkin

I was once considered a promising writer. I had written more than 150 short stories. Then it happened. The horrible realization that sapped my strength and crushed my heart and left me dazed and disoriented and despondent. I was a fake. A fraud. A pretender. I was not the spinner of brief tales I had always seen myself as.

I was not a short story writer at all. It seemed I was a natural novelist—an entirely different animal. Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Personal Narratives, Storytelling and Community, The Writer's Desk | 17 Comments

Children’s Lit Corner

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Kathryn Poulter

I don’t write nearly as many checks as I used to before they came out with debit cards, so I find that it always takes me quite awhile to train myself to write the next year when I jot down … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Lit corner, Storytelling and Community, YA corner | 5 Comments

Reader’s Corner: That One Story…

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Scott Parkin

I want to ask you to tell me about that one story—whether novel, TV show, song lyric, short story, poem, oral tradition, folk tale, or true-life experience—that has stuck with you far beyond its telling, that fired your imagination and made you either want to read or write more.

It’s often not the best told or generally approved story you’ve read or heard, but it is the one that simply won’t leave your head. The powerful ur-story that changed the way you thought most profoundly. It may be inspirational or banal, famous or obscure, true or fantastic, uplifting or condemning. Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Storytelling and Community | Tagged | 13 Comments

Discussion: Your take on the Four Centuries contest stories

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Scott Parkin

James Goldberg’s Four Centuries of Mormon Stories contest was a fantastic opportunity to get a look at twelve excellent visions on Mormon short-short stories told from a wide variety of viewpoints and structures. Each story was posted online, and open … Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Storytelling and Community | Tagged , | 20 Comments

Violence and Veterans Day

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Jessie Christensen

With Veteran’s Day less than a week away I have been thinking about books about war. War and violence have been a part of human life from the moment that Cain slew Abel, and depictions of war are as old … Continue reading →

Posted in Storytelling and Community, The Writer's Desk | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments