5 Columbia storytellers who will make you laugh, think and cry

Want to hear a story?

Two story slams are scheduled this month in downtown Columbia, giving folks an opportunity to listen to tales about a sailboat, scientist and golden retriever; grief; and women and stereotypes, among others.

These are stories that will make you laugh, cry, think.

The first Story Slam is at Columbia Museum of Art tonight – Thursday, June 15. This event is described as “a forum for sharing and discovery with a format based on The Moth podcast.” The theme is “Retooled,” tying in with one of the museum’s exhibits. Local storytellers will share brief, unscripted autobiographical stories on the theme of retooling, re-envisioning and reframing, showcasing how the mundane or utilitarian can become artful.

The “What She Said Project” is a story slam competition Saturday, June 24 at Tapp’s Arts Center. It’s billed as an event that “empowers women to articulate the dialectical tension in our lives between silence and sound, presence and absence, and the lost and the found.”

To get your ready, we asked questions of some of the storytellers from both events.

Debbie Billings

Q: How did you become a storyteller?

A: I wouldn’t define myself as a storyteller per se; more as a researcher and activist. I’ve never been called a storyteller but have been told that I have a lot of stories to tell. Don’t we all, as human beings, especially as we move deeper and deeper into life over time? As different threads of life become increasingly interwoven, knotted at times; making beautiful patterns at others, I think it’s inevitable that, with reflection, we all begin to create the stories that are most meaningful to us and we hope that those resonate with others, people with whom we want to connect.

Q: What is the difference between a storyteller and someone who reads books to someone? Someone who writes stories?

A: A storyteller reflects on one’s own life and the connections that life has with other people, places, and moments and then creates a narrative that flows (or doesn’t). But it comes from within and draws on personal life experiences. Someone who reads books to others is deeply in love with the written word and wants to share an author’s creation with other people, as way even of making music. While those books might resonate deeply with the reader’s life, the stories don’t come from within that person. Someone who writes stories —there can be many similarities to the storyteller, depending on the author’s source(s) of inspiration and how that author wants to connect with an audience.

Q: Why do you do this?

A: Honestly, I’m doing this for the very first time, thanks to the inspiration and push from Shannon Ivey. I’ve wanted to get beyond my usual way of writing – research text, calls to action, short letters to friends – and push myself into something new, but my own nudges haven’t been enough. I’m thankful to Shannon for that stronger rush forward.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

A: Thinking through my own life and the connections I’ve had with other people, whether those connections were affirming or destructive or totally ambiguous. Without the dimension of connection, there’s no inspiration for me in this endeavor.

Q: Are you ever nervous about getting up in front of an audience? If so, how do you deal with the nerves?

A: The funny thing is that I often do presentations for work or through activism and I don’t get nervous. Recently, I presented a lecture on reproductive rights and justice to a group of over 600 people at a university in Indiana. That didn’t shake my nerves. ... But to get in front of an audience and get intimate, now that’s nerve-wracking. How will I deal with it? I honestly don’t know. I’ll know the night of the event; I’ll know at those moments before getting on stage and while I’m up there. Deep breaths and imagining everyone as receptive to the messages will help.

Q: What’s your favorite book?

A: I have the same answer that my 11-year old son always gives when asked about his “favorite” anything- I don’t have one. I find having a favorite anything practically impossible, given the richness of this world. One of my favorites – Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed;” another, Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy,” to name just two.

Q: What qualities does a storyteller need to have?

A: Confidence that even if people say your story sucks that the comments roll right off of you so you can continue; confidence that actually people are much better than that and they’ll find something of meaning in what you have to say.

Q: What has been a favorite experience storytelling?

A: I will know after the event!

Q: What is a perfect audience?

A: One that listens, is attentive, puts away all technology for the few moments you’re with them, and really focuses on what and how one is trying to express themselves.

Q: Can you give us a hint about your story for the slam?

A: Women that others assume are passive and incapable of organizing breaking apart everyone’s stereotypes.

Q: What do you hope audiences will take away from this story?

A: That people everywhere, regardless of their life situations, have dignity, senses of humor, and fierce fires that burn within them.

Nancy Tolson

Q: How did you become a storyteller?

A: I started writing children’s stories. And the best way to get the stories out there was to tell them at festivals and schools. My stories never became books but I continued to tell my stories less and much older stories (folktales) more.

Q: What is the difference between a storyteller and someone who reads books to someone? Someone who writes stories?

A: A storyteller does not tell tales by reading a book to the audience. A storyteller uses their voice and body to illustrate the tale.

Q: Why do you do this?

A: I love sharing stories that I love. I love filling a person’s head with words that turn into the listeners’ own visions. I tap into their imagination with words and sounds and movement but they still have to envision the specifics from their own audiovisual room within their mentality to fill the tale with color.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

A: Books, articles, and I still use a few of my own.

Q: Are you ever nervous about getting up in front of an audience? If so, how do you deal with the nerves?

A: I am always nervous when I get up to tell a story but suddenly the story begins and I am no longer there. The story takes over. I am soaring above as a listener. Sometimes I wonder who told that story because it was so good (smile).

Q:What’s your favorite book?

A: The one that I am reading.

Q: What qualities do a storyteller need to have?

A: Love for a story and the courage to tell it to others with love.

Q: What has been a favorite experience storytelling?

A: Telling stories to my mother even when it was over the phone.

Q: What is a perfect audience?

A: The one that listens with their eyes especially, laughs from the gut, and even participates.

Q: Can you give us a hint about your story for the slam?

A: It will not begin with “once upon a time” . . .

Q: What do you hope audiences will take away from this story?

A: A smile.

Adriane McGillis

Q: How did you become a storyteller?

A: My dad is a great storyteller. I think I picked it up from him.

Q: What is the difference between a storyteller and someone who reads books to someone? Someone who writes stories?

A: I think someone who writes, is a storyteller. They’re using the written language the same way that someone who gets on stage uses the spoken word, gesture and facial expression to tell a story. And often those who tell stories on a stage also write. I know that I sometimes write out my stories in order to edit them down to only what needs to be said to further the story.

Q: Why do you do this?

A: I joined Toastmasters to get more comfortable with public speaking at work, and I fell down a rabbit hole. There’s a rush to getting in front of a crowd and telling a story when the audience clicks in to that story. While a Toastmaster, I put on my bucket list to participate in a storytelling competition after discovering The Moth on itunes. Then I discovered “The Moth” was in Asheville (North Carolina). I went twice, and the second time, I got on stage and told one of my dad’s stories but with my own take. And I won. It was one of the best and weirdest experiences of my life.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

A: From my life.

Q: Are you ever nervous about getting up in front of an audience? If so, how do you deal with the nerves?

A: Oh yeah. I get sweaty palms, lack of breath and weak knees. I just take a few breaths and try to think only about one person in the audience at a time.

Q: What’s your favorite book?

A: I don’t know that I have a favorite but the one I’ve re-read the most is “The Count of Monte Cristo.” I like the adventure, the personal journey of the characters, their growth and the ultimate moral of learning to let things go and to forgive. Every time I’ve read the story, I gain something new.

Q: What qualities does a storyteller need to have?

A: Stick to the point, don’t let yourself go on unnecessary tangents. Have a goal with your story – a reason to tell it. And give details that people can grab onto, so that they are brought into it with you. They want to come.

Q: What has been a favorite experience storytelling?

A: Winning the Moth. I don’t think anything will ever surpass that.

Q: What is a perfect audience?

A: One that engages with you.

Q: Can you give us a hint about your story for the slam?

A: It’s the story of a sailboat, a scientist and a golden retriever and going to great lengths for someone you love.

Q: What do you hope audiences will take away from this story?

A: I hope they laugh.

Willie L. Kinard III

Q: How did you become a storyteller?

A: I think that I’ve always been. As an avid reader, I wrote a 32-page book on dragons and magic at 10 and started reading my poetry aloud to audiences around 13. I think storytelling as a performance came as a natural progression.

Q: What is the difference between a storyteller and someone who reads books to someone? Someone who writes stories?

A: A storyteller crafts tales and messages out of their experiences, leaning into this space for performance. One who reads stories simply reads them; a writer of stories crafts can craft worlds, but a storyteller brings the themes, lessons and magic within those tales come alive.

Q: Why do you do this?

A: It’s a bit of a calling, I think. I enjoy sharing in this way. It’s second nature. I don’t think I could escape it if I tried.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

A: Relationships, my mom and grandma, mistakes – life really.

Q: Are you ever nervous about getting up in front of an audience? If so, how do you deal with the nerves?

A: Usually not on stage, but before I go up? Absolutely. Singing to myself usually helps me calm down, and if all else fails, maybe a sip of wine.

Q: What’s your favorite book?

A: Currently, Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” It’s lush and captivating.

Q: What qualities do a storyteller need to have?

A: Self-confidence, a bit of extroversion, patience for growth and study, a good sense of humor, and some moxie.

Q: What has been a favorite experience storytelling?

A: Last year’s Soda City Story Slam was definitely a favorite. The space was energetic and assuring to retell a piece on my travels abroad in high school.

Q: What is a perfect audience?

A: A perfect audience is kind, receptive, responsive, encouraging, spontaneous and, above all, honest.

Q: Can you give us a hint about your story for the slam?

A: My story this year explores grief, which I’ve spent a lot of time with this past year. I hope that the audience takes away a few of the lessons I learned while in the depths of that fire and that darkness doesn’t exist without light.

Worthy Branson Evans

Q: How did you become a storyteller?

A: I never thought of myself as a storyteller until maybe some time last year, after the last Story Slam. For most of my life I have been an introverted observer, although my world was surrounded by storytellers, all with different styles: my two grandmothers, my aunts and uncles, my mother and father and sister, and just about every sportswriter I’ve ever come into contact with. I suppose I learned dramatization and timing.

Q: What is the difference between a storyteller and someone who reads books to someone? Someone who writes stories?

A: I think we’re all storytellers, in some way. A good book narrator can emphasize moments and actions from within the book and illustrate the story, but I guess one has to be loyal to the text within the story. I wonder if a good storyteller can tell one tale several times and perhaps discover things within the telling of the story that he or she hadn’t realized that moved the story along on a different course. In that way the storyteller is more conversing with the story while he or she is telling it. An interpreter.

Q: Why do you do this?

A: I’ve been internalized for a very long time, and realized maybe seven or eight years ago that, while I enjoy being alone and working alone, I also take in a lot of energy from crowds, or from other people. For the longest time I thought I was an introvert until I realized that I mimic other people’s emotions and also try to put those emotions on like a suit and act them out. At least I do in an office setting, or in small rooms. I’m still rather introverted.

Q: Where do you get inspiration for your stories?

A: I would love to know. I don’t have a super active energetic climb-Mt.-Fuji kind of lifestyle. I’m in a cube, I read and write things when I’m not working with Medicare communications. Maybe things get emphasized out of boredom.

Q: Are you ever nervous about getting up in front of an audience? If so, how do you deal with the nerves?

A: I want to throw up. See answer (above). But, I think if I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up, then I’m phoning it in. I feel the same throw-up feeling when I have to go on the field and talk to coaches, or just to be a newspaper presence at a ballgame.

Q: What’s your favorite book?

A: “Memoir of the Hawk” by James Tate. It’s a book of poems released after his two well-edited, well-composed books, Worshipful Company of Fletchers and Shroud of the Gnome, came out and earned a lot of praise. In Memoir of the Hawk, these dandy little pieces offer local color in a town full of lopsided characters and their backstories. I’ve read it a million times and need to get another copy. That book, and a million other poem books, and any set of encyclopedias and scholarly histories are helpful.

Q: What qualities does a storyteller need to have?

A: To balance the narrative and stay on course, taking an aside here and there, but sticking to the point of the narrative. To take the time and think about what the story might look like. To not worry about what other people may think; I guess to try to pull the story out of one’s head and render it faithfully in a way that people may see it in your eyes.

Q: What has been a favorite experience storytelling?

A: I’m really new to it, although I’ve been reading poetry in front of any and all crowds for a long time now, and my poetry can take a narrative bent. One thing I’ve taken advantage of is when my work can start off light and give the audience a giggle at first, I turn the poem (or story) inward and deepward and feel the audience feeling the weight. I have at least one poem, talking about the clumsiness of shoes, the awkwardness of being at a new job, and ending with horrific beatings within a nazilike regime, and getting used to the feel of the shoes, and using better fitting socks. That poem itself did the same to me when I had written and rewritten. I’m a clumsy person anyway, and so I started writing a silly thing about clumsiness, and then the writing took me to the idea that maybe a society has its difficulties working through the kinks of moving from a people-oriented republic to an icon-centered authoritarianism. I’m probably going on too much about this. Anyway, the general sense of storytelling hits me like this: I may go up and tell a story about something, and find out mid-story that maybe I’m telling another story altogether. Feeling that twist, or realization, is kind of cool.

Q: What is a perfect audience?

A: One that shows up. Gosh darn it I love people who can sit and listen. Talk back, even. I’ve read poems to two people in attendance at a reading. I’ll read poems to a wall, but I prefer to have a nice collection of people listen to me go on and on about something.

Q: Can you give us a hint about your story for the slam?

A: I had retooled my young life to enlist in the army, and then I got kicked out and had to retool again.

Q: What do you hope audiences will take away from this story?

A: There is no failure if you keep getting up.

This story was originally published June 13, 2017 at 9:24 PM with the headline "5 Columbia storytellers who will make you laugh, think and cry."