Engage Your Community Through Storytelling

David Hicks, PhD, Wilkes University

Libraries host readings, book clubs, and writing workshop groups to connect with their communities. But many patrons see such events as intended for literary types and thus don’t consider attending. An alternative strategy is to ask a local author to offer a workshop in which attendees are instructed in the basics of how to tell a story, with the assumption that everyone has the innate ability to tell a story.

Author and professor David Hicks has done just this at over a dozen libraries, using a familiar and accessible formula: “Once upon a time . . . .Then, one day . . .” Patrons learn how to identify a story (an event that changed them) in their own lives; the central elements of a story, and how to structure their own story based on that event. They will finish the workshop with the first few paragraphs (character, setting, and plot) of a new story, and the confidence that comes with telling their own story and knowing it matters, both to themselves and the larger community. In this conference session David will describe this activity, demonstrate it with your participation, and explain how such an event can be hosted at your own library.