October Tell Us Something Newsletter

The larches are turning, the maples are red. Fall is here! I hope you’ve been able to get outside and enjoy the beautiful colors and gorgeous weather!

In last month’s newsletter, I highlighted a little about the live in-person storytelling event in August. I also shared with you some of the information that the survey I submitted revealed about people’s readiness to attend an in-person *INDOOR* event.

This month, I share with you some insights into another piece of the Tell Us Something puzzle: storytellers and your readiness to share your stories.

I asked in the survey:

People have been asking me, “When is the next Tell Us Something event?” There are so many unknown variables right now that I cannot answer that question. And I put that question back to you. When will you be ready for the next Tell Us Something event? When will you be ready to share your stories? Tell Us Something is a participatory event. We need you to be ready to share your stories as well as actively listen when others are sharing.

When I announce the theme of a Tell Us Something event and put out a call for storytellers, I usually hear from around 30 people who pitch their stories. From those 30, 8 are selected to share their story. For the event in Bonner Park on August 10, only 5 people pitched their stories. Why is that? I don’t know. For a Tell Us Something event to occur, the community needs to be ready, not just to attend the event, but to share your stories at the event. Tell Us Something isn’t going anywhere. When you are ready to share your stories, we will be here for you.

At the beginning of every show, I always say, “It is important to actively listen to one another, join together, & to support each other and share stories. This is your community. These are your stories. Thank you for your support of each other and of each other’s stories. Tell Us Something believes that everyone has a story and everyone’s story matters.”

I really believe that and I believe that coming together to share stories is more important than ever. Because there were so few pitches, I did a lot of recruiting of storytellers who I knew had a good story to share. The stories, some of them, were big stories. All of them were vulnerable stories and all of them are important. I hope that they resonated for you and that they sparked conversations amongst your pods. For those of you who were unable to attend the live event, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and to our YouTube channel so that you don’t miss the stories when they are published!

Like I said, I don’t know when the next event will be. I want to share stories as a community as much as you do. I have missed these events so much. I welcome discussion about this and look forward to hearing from the community.

Thank you for your support of Tell Us Something, of each other, and of live storytelling in Missoula.

Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Get vaccinated. Wear your mask when you go out. Have a story-worthy day.

Thanks,
Marc Moss
Executive Director
Tell Us Something

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