I had the honor of telling a story in the regional showcase of the Texas Storytelling Festival on March 8, 2024. The community of Denton, Texas, (just outside of Dallas) hosts this 4-day event with performances, workshops, and other community events. If you are looking to experience a well-organized storytelling event, put it on your calendar for next year.
When I got the invitation, I mulled over the immediate dilemma. What story to tell? I had 10 minutes. No constraints on theme or genre. How do I choose the best story for the moment?
Storytelling performers choose the stories that they tell in different ways. There is some mix of practicality and intuition. My mentor would say to choose your best story so that you get invited back again; it’s not the time to test new material. However, the one-year anniversary of my mother’s death was on my mind, and I wanted a story to honor her. I do have new stories about my mother, but the emotions were too raw and the stories too new to tell on that day. So I settled on a family story to celebrate the joy of life and the sadness of loss, a theme that honors my mother’s memory and the process of grief.
This “Ninth Night” story has been evolving over the past decade. It is a healing story for me, and I share that healing with others….