Welcome to another week of life on the road. I’m Genie Leslie, a freelance writer working remotely and traveling the country with my husband.
This week, we’re in Mercersburg, PA, enjoying quiet mornings and quieter nights where we can actually see the stars in the sky.
“You have to tell your story…It’s about the telling.”
If you haven’t heard of The Moth, it’s an organization that promotes storytelling through live storytelling* events, a podcast, and workshops.
The Moth has been in my cultural awareness for a long time. I’d heard people talk about attending the events or listening to the podcast, and I’d seen an event portrayed on TV at least once (didn’t Hannah on Girls tell a story at one?). And more recently, a friend from back home has been sharing videos of her (winning!) stories from Portland’s Moth StorySLAMs. But I’d never actually listened to the podcast or attended an event.
The first week I was in Philly, I met up with a friend of a friend for coffee. This is not the kind of thing I usually do. I’m so introverted, I’m uncomfortable meeting new people, and I just never know what to expect when someone says “You should meet up with this person that I know!” Feels like a recipe for disaster or, more likely, extreme awkwardness. But this person was recommended by my friend Jane. If Jane likes someone, you already know that they’re going to be smart, no-nonsense, and funny with at least a little bit of snark. If Jane tells you to meet someone, you know the personality background check has been completed and approved. So I wasn’t surprised at all that I had a great chat with this woman and really got along with her.
And then, a couple of weeks later, she invited me and Aaron to go to a Moth StorySLAM, a monthly event where amateur storytellers get their chance on the stage. We immediately said yes.
We arrived early. We sat at the end of a big table, a little self-conscious about being the only people in masks. But soon, the woman and her husband arrived (also in masks, a relief) and swept us off to another table full of their friends. I do not remember everyone’s names, it was a bit of a whirlwind, but after a year of being on the road just the two of us (actually, exactly a year on that day), it felt really amazing to be welcomed into a group of new people. We felt a bit out of our depth, socially, but discovered that our traveling lifestyle is a great icebreaker when you don’t know what else to talk about.
After a period of ordering drinks and food, the MC took to the stage and laid out the order of operations for the night: 10 people would each have the chance to tell a 5-minute, true story based on the night’s theme, Back to School. Everyone who prepared a story had put their name in a bag, and names would be drawn at random throughout the night. The 5-minute time limit is enforced, but kindly, with a warning bell at 5 minutes and again at 6 minutes. Three groups of judges were scattered throughout the audience, and they would each present their scores after every story, so each storyteller would receive 3 scores to be averaged together—it was giving Olympic figure skating vibes; they even held up their scores with numbers printed on huge laminated pages. (The scoring, my friend assured me, was friendly.) And with that, the first storyteller was brought onstage and began.
There’s a story in my family about how my mom should’ve realized that her children would love theatre. She took my older sister and me to see a production of Into the Woods when Kate was about 8 and I was maybe 5. It’s a long musical, with a fun-filled first act of fairy tale characters running into each other on their various quests, and a second act that gets increasingly darker and sadder. (A lot of middle schools and even high schools that perform this show will only perform the first act.)
My mom figured we’d enjoy the fairy tale characters and then we’d leave at intermission, too young to stick it out through the whole show. But as soon as the show started, we were hooked, vying for the best position to see the stage, completely entranced. We stayed for the whole show, never falling asleep or whining to leave. It was our first true taste of the magic of live performance.
That’s how I felt as soon as the first storyteller opened his mouth at the Philadelphia StorySLAM. Completely enthralled. How have I been missing out on this?
The first story was great, a man describing his first year teaching and all the experiences with students that no one prepares teachers for. His score was good, but not as high as I would’ve liked (especially as other storytellers followed him with similar or higher scores). My friend explained that when a good storyteller goes first, they’re almost guaranteed to get a lower score in relation to the whole group than they should, because the judges haven’t heard anyone else and are still calibrating. They don’t want to use a super high score too soon. She also mentioned that it’s very common for the winner to be chosen from the second half of storytellers, for this same reason.
At the intermission, after five stories with five still to go, Aaron and I looked at each other.
“I love this! I want to do it,” I said.
“I thought you would,” he said.
“Don’t you?” He shook his head.
I couldn’t believe that anyone could see this unfold and not immediately want to get up there. Don’t we all leave live performances like this thinking not only That was fun but also, Now it’s my turn? (Apparently not.)
After all ten stories, while final scores are tallied, the remaining storytellers who didn’t get called that night are invited onstage. They each come up to the microphone to say just the first line of their story. Only three people went up onstage (maybe there were only three names left, or maybe a couple of people opted out of this part, I don’t know). I was surprised that there weren’t more; I’d assumed there must’ve been 20-30 names in that bag, because again I assumed we all wanted to be up on that stage.
They announced the winner: the woman who went last and had us all laughing about her antics as a child “disciplinary problem.” She was great; maybe not my top choice from the entire group but definitely up there.
My table discussed the evening’s stories, and whether or not we agreed with the judges (they had given one storyteller in particular a much higher score than made sense to any of us, and we—okay, maybe just me and my friend— were annoyed by it). And then it was time to head home, back to our South Philadelphia Airbnb.
The Moth publishes the theme of their next few events online, so you can prepare your stories well in advance. On the drive home, I peeked at these, and Aaron and I talked about stories we had that would fit them. But slowly, the conversation drifted onto other topics, and I could tell Aaron was ready to move on from The Moth.
But I wasn’t. All night, all I could think about were stories. My brain was running on hyperdrive. Not just which stories I would tell, but how.
Okay, if I tell the story about sneaking onto Rowan Oak’s property late at night, I’ll start it with the fact that it was Christmas Eve, and it was the only time I ever did anything on Christmas Eve with friends instead of family. But if I were doing this for the “Home” theme, maybe I would need to make it more about my hometown, and about how so many teens at one point or another would sneak up to William Faulkner’s house by going through the woods...
The hyperdrive slowed over the next few days. I wrote up a couple of story options for the next few themes, and I checked the calendar to see which cities we’re visiting for the rest of the year host StorySLAMs. I’ll find the right time to get up on that stage.
But even more than that, I felt like my mind was opened to a new creative avenue. Live storytelling brings together elements of things I’ve done or loved in the past—writing true stories about my life, theatrical performance, spending all of my time in eighth grade watching Comedy Central stand-up specials and then retelling them word for word to my sister—into a new form that I haven’t tried before.
And of course, because these things tend to happen when they’re supposed to happen, my framing of my experience at The Moth StorySLAM was shifted again as I was writing this piece.
I’ve been watching a lot of Hollywood Reporter roundtables on YouTube—interviews with several actors or actresses in the most talked about films of a given year. And I watched so many of these before even realizing that they also spoke had writer roundtables.
So I “finished” this piece, closed my computer, and watched the roundtable with Bo Burnham and John Krasinski from the year Eighth Grade and A Quiet Place came out. Among the other writers at the table was Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), and when asked what advice they would give to new screenwriters, Paul said:
“Don’t confuse screenwriting with writing. Screenwriting is part of the oral tradition, not the literary tradition. You have to tell your story. It’s not about the words, it’s about the telling.”
OH.
I’m not excited about a new creative medium; I’m finding a new way in to the same creative medium.
I knew instinctively, when thinking about which stories might work for the stage, that how I told them was the most important. What’s the opening line? How does the closing line tie back to the opening? How do I want the audience to feel throughout the story, and which pieces do I emphasize in order to guide them along the way?
That’s all screenwriting. Choosing your opening scene and closing scene. Emphasizing moments so that your audience feels something. Cutting out everything that doesn’t directly enhance your overall point or theme.
I’ve been in a bit of a resting period when it comes to screenwriting. I’ve talked about this in recent posts, but the Substack is the main writing I do right now, while screenwriting has pretty much taken a backseat except for the occasional burst of inspiration. And depending on the day, and what else is going on, I may feel anywhere from guilty to sad to totally fine about this.
Our stay in Philadelphia was a hard one for me, with the combined forces of a heat wave, fatigue, frustrations between me and Aaron, and maybe some depression. Opening my computer to type up a scene about best friends embarking on shenanigans while I sat by myself, tired and grumpy and frustrated, felt so hard.
At the Moth, I was welcomed into a safe, friendly space for people trying something scary. Something so hard. The storytellers ranged from fairly seasoned regulars to complete newbies who were visibly nervous—and they were all welcomed and encouraged to try their hand on that stage.
Writing is a lonely endeavor, and when you go too long without connecting with your friends or other writers, you can get trapped in your head and cycles of self-doubt. But here was a room full of people trying to tell stories, just like I was. Even if most of these people never put pen to paper, or never specifically write scripts, they were doing what I was doing. And they were doing it together, with excitement and compassion for one another.
And now I know that no matter where in the country we are, and no matter how trapped in my own head I might be, I have a new place to look for my people. To find the storytellers.
What else is going on?
I traveled to New Orleans last weekend for my little sister’s surprise bachelorette party. Another reason (that I couldn’t talk about yet) that I’m so glad to have this particular location as my place to rest and do nothing. We had such a good time, and I’m really excited about spending a whole month in New Orleans near her this fall.
I read and loved Camryn Garrett’s Off the Record, a YA novel about a teen reporter that feels like a wonderful cross between Almost Famous and Harriet the Spy.
I knew that The Hollywood Reporter hosted roundtables every year with actors from the year’s most talked about movies and TV shows, and I’ve watched a lot of them recently, but I didn’t even KNOW that they also had writer roundtables. So now I’m diving into those.
The Woobles obsession is going strong. I’ve made three little animals, plus a tiny coffee cup that didn’t turn out that well (the coffee is overflowing and the handle is wonky). I’m gonna start mailing these to people as gifts so I don’t have to figure out where to pack them when we move again.
Aaaand...what was the first thing I did when I finished reading your newsletter? I googled StorySLAM to see if there were any live events in Seattle and there are!! I've never heard of StorySLAM before and I am so intrigued from a listening standpoint. I'm definitely going to hit up one of the live shows. Maybe at some point, I'll muster up the courage to tell a story. Thanks for sharing. I really enjoy your emails. :)