Speak Up co-founder, bestselling novelist, and 50-time Moth StorySLAM winner and 6-time GrandSLAM champion Matthew Dicks will be teaching a day-long workshop on the art and craft of storytelling. This is a workshop designed for a wide range of people, including those with little or no previous storytelling experience.

This is a low stakes, information packed workshop is designed for anyone who wants to learn about the art and craft of storytelling for personal and professional development, to meet new people, to improve communication skills, to improve their dating prospects, to develop their writing ability, to challenge themselves, to finally get the attention of grandchildren, colleagues, or that special someone, or to simply try something new.

Included in this workshop will be:

• Methods for finding stories in your own life, including exercises and systems by which these stories can continue to be found and collected long after the workshop is finished
• Crafting stories, including finding compelling arcs and the appropriate use of stakes, description, suspense, dialogue, and more
• The cinema of storytelling
• The strategic use of humor
• Performance techniques

This is a no-risk introduction to storytelling that does not require students to tell stories or even speak if that’s what they prefer. If you’d like to dip a toe into storytelling and learn some of the most effective, easiest applied strategies to the finding and crafting of stories but you’re not yet ready to stand before an audience and speak, this workshop is a safe place for you to learn.

Due to the amount of information presented, there is very limited opportunity for participants to present stories of their own.