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Listen to smart people plus me

I appeared on two podcasts recently that I really enjoyed. Both are hosted by people who I could talk to forever.  You can find both podcasts wherever you get your podcasts, or you can click the links below to listen online.  Slate’s The Gist with Mike Pesca  Mike and I speak about storytelling, film, Bruce…

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I performed in the dark. Without amplification. The results were surprising.

The worst experience I ever had while telling a story was on election night 2016 at a live show of Slate’s The Gist. I was telling the story about my run for the Presidency of my college when things started to turn in the election returns and eyes quickly shifted from me to phones.  Trump…

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If you enjoy a glass floor, don’t forget to look down and thank your lucky stars

“But for a couple of bad breaks, especially visited upon vulnerable people, the outcome of life would be so different.”  This is a sentence that Slate’s Mike Pesca spoke a couple months ago on his podcast The Gist in the midst of an interview. I wrote the sentence down immediately, and I’ve been thinking about…

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Mike Pesca’s favorite sentences of 2015 (and mine)

Back in January, Mike Pesca of Slate’s The Gist discussed some of his favorite sentences of 2015. When Pesca attributed the sentence to someone., I included the attribution.  Bill Raftery on how he enjoys learning something and immediately sharing it: “That’s why I went into broadcasting rather than espionage.”  “It’s easier to condemn than to…

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A lesson on the importance of stakes in storytelling – Plus the story of the day I posed as a charity worker for nefarious reasons

In my most recent appearance on Slate’s The Gist, I discuss the importance of stakes in storytelling and some of the tricks that I use to build and maintain them throughout the story. Plus, I tell the story of a time when I posed as a charity worker for less-than-charitable reasons and got a lot…

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Sleeping with goats on The Gist

I had the pleasure of appearing on The Gist this week. Host Mike Pesca interrogated me about my life story, and we talked about how you can take a life event and craft an interesting story from it. I talked about sleeping with goats, shotguns to my head, and being arrested and tried for a…

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Storytelling on The Gist

If you’re not already listening to Slate’s The Gist, the daily podcast hosted by Mike Pesca, here’s another reason to do so: I’ll be appearing on The Gist as a part of a new project that seeks to teach the art of storytelling to listeners. Whether you are telling stories at a dinner party or…

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