Fireside Storytelling

In 2009, after a couple of separate and serendipitous conversations with friends about our mutual love of storytelling, we decided to get together and start a monthly storytelling series.

Coincidentally, another friend had recently decided to disband his small, sporadic storytelling event, so we took it over, revamped it, and renamed it Fireside Storytelling.

Fireside Storytelling was carefully and consciously designed to create a very specific experience: human connection through storytelling. We kept the lights up, so the tellers could see and react to their audience. We kept the stage at about one foot high, so people are looking the storyteller in the eye. We never used microphones, as they stand between the teller and the audience. We used venues that had great acoustics with no aural distractions. Our storytellers didn’t compete with each other, because storytelling isn’t a sport. We had an intermission in the middle of our six storytellers so the audience could connect with each other over what they’d just heard.

We also structured the management of the operation such that any of the (now) six organizers can take a month or two off, should life demand it. That’s how we’re able to keep it running when it was a third job for all of us.

We ran Fireside for over eight years, and we consistently heard that we were the best storytelling series in the Bay Area, due to the quality of the audience, the quality of the storytellers, and the quality of the experience. Probably true, given we didn’t advertise and yet consistently fill the house.

We didn’t do Fireside for the money — we made enough to buy ourselves a nice dinner once a year — we did it (and happily would again) because we believe in the power of personal connection through storytelling, and we believe that’s an endangered species worth protecting.