There are plenty of people who can tell a good story. But nobody can tell one exactly like you can.
In this four-week workshop with Story Collider cofounder and experienced story producer Erin Barker, we'll explore what it means to develop your own voice as a storyteller—and how to tell stories that feel authentic to your personality, experiences, sense of humor, and way of seeing the world.
Through exercises, discussion, examples, and supportive group feedback, we'll experiment with the choices that shape a storyteller's voice: what you notice, what you reveal, how you use humor and vulnerability, how you sound onstage, and even the kinds of stories you're drawn to telling in the first place.
Rather than spending four weeks perfecting a single story, we'll use shorter exercises and pieces of stories to experiment with different approaches and discover what feels most natural—and most compelling—to you.
This workshop is for storytellers who know the basics and are ready to go deeper. Ideally, all participants have already written 2-3 stories and are in the process of taking the next step of refining their voice.
What to expect:
Over four 90-minute sessions, we'll explore questions like:
What do we actually mean when we talk about a storyteller's “voice”?
What makes your perspective different from someone else's?
How can you use humor, vulnerability, specificity, language, and performance in ways that feel natural to you?
How do you distinguish between the feedback and storytelling “rules” that are genuinely useful and the conventions you don't necessarily need to follow?
How can feedback help you strengthen your voice without sanding away the things that make it distinctive?
What kinds of stories are your stories to tell?
You'll write, tell, experiment, listen, and receive feedback in a small, supportive group. The goal isn't to leave with one perfectly polished story. It's to leave with a clearer understanding of who you are as a storyteller—and a stronger sense of how to make the stories you tell unmistakably yours.
Class size is limited to 10 participants to give everyone plenty of opportunity to participate and receive individual feedback.
Schedule
Wednesdays, September 30–October 21
6–7:30 p.m. ET
Four 90-minute sessions, held over Zoom.
Instructor
Erin Barker is the cofounder and former executive and artistic director of The Story Collider. She has produced and edited hundreds of true, personal stories and produced Story Collider's award-winning podcast for fifteen years. As a storyteller, Erin was the first woman to win The Moth's GrandSLAM storytelling competition twice. Her stories have been featured on The Moth Radio Hour and podcasts including The Moth, RISK!, and Family Ghosts, and one of her stories appears in the New York Times-bestselling book The Moth: 50 True Stories. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast program at the University of Southern Maine.
How much does it cost?
Our standard rate is $300 for a multi-session workshop, including an invitation to join our Story Collider workshop alumni community, as well as a free ticket to a future live show. We highly encourage attendees to secure professional development funds from their employers or universities to cover the cost of workshop registration.
Discounts are available to those who will be paying for their workshop out-of-pocket or make less than the living wage for their area. A limited number of pro-bono seats will also be available in each workshop via a lottery system.
Click through the workshop registration form below for more details.