Linking Lives StoryThon
Date: Saturday, May 23, 12 pm New Zealand Standard Time to Sunday, May 24, 12 pm New Zealand Standard Time
Organizer: Stephen Gaddis
Location: Online via Zoom

Last-Minute Updates:

We are excited and humbled by the swell of interest in this event and have a couple of updates:

• To view the schedule of story-telling teams for each hour, click here.
• If you have difficulty logging into the StoryThon, please double-check your email Inbox or Spam folder and look for an email from The Narrative Therapy Initiative. We sent an email 12 hours before the event with updated log-in instructions. We apologize for any confusion. 

The coronavirus reminds us that humanity is intimately linked, personally and environmentally. As fans of the Narrative Worldview, we thought it might be nice to respond to Covid through an event that we hope links lives around stories. We got excited by the idea of one continuous story-telling day that anyone can listen in on and enjoy. The enthusiastic response from friends around the world has inspired us to give this a go.

Rising from east to west, we are thrilled to announce a 24-hour international story-telling wave. We imagine this event like a gentle ocean swell meandering slowly across the world, lifting up diverse local knowledges along the way. Our hope is these small stories can offer people moments of resonance, connection, and inspiration, and a chance to get to know one another and grow community.

Hosts from around the world have graciously volunteered to facilitate one-hour small-group conversations. These hosts have invited guests who they value and we might not otherwise have a chance to meet. The guests will be sharing stories from their lives and/or work. Each hour, a new set of hosts and guests will start a new conversation. We have been very clear to let the story-tellers know that we do not support discourses of comparison, judgment, criticism, or performance. Any story they wish to tell, big or small, personal, professional, and/or political, is very welcome. It is up to everyone present to listen to the story-tellers in ways that honor what is meaningful to them about their tellings.

Our StoryThon will begin with stories from New Zealand before moving onto Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, India, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Russia, England, Africa, the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Many reasons have us wanting to start in New Zealand, but one is that “the perfect wave” was discovered there in the 1966 surf movie “The Endless Summer.”

We have invited hosts and storytellers from each region to use whatever language they prefer for their hour. We don’t support privileging the English language given its violent history.

This event will take place live online via Zoom starting on Saturday, May 23, at 12 pm in Auckland, New Zealand. That is 8 pm Friday, May 22, in Boston. It is free for you to surf this wave. Register below if you are interested in joining us. You will receive an email confirmation and the Zoom link for the event.

If this first swell is a nice surfing experience, we can imagine more following after this one. Please hop on and off the wave as often as your day allows.

With humilty and gratitude,

Steve and the NTI community

Register Now!