Follow Friday – The Moth

Posted by Rich - 19th June 2015

The Moth Radio Hour cover artThis week, our Follow Friday goes out to The Moth, a not-for-profit organisation devoted to ‘the art and craft of storytelling‘.

They have been running for 23 years, and since then have become one of the best organisations for public events where real-world stories get told by real people.

The Moth run two types of events: Mainstage, an invite-only event where five storytellers get to tell their tales; and StorySLAM: regular open-mic night events where people get up and tell their stories – the best story wins.

Both types of events run throughout the year across the world, and full details of upcoming events are available on their website.

There are a few simple rules for telling a story at a Moth event: the story has to be real, it has to relate to you, it has to be within the theme of the evening, and you aren’t allowed cue-cards. These simple rules give every story a feeling of passion, wonder, empathy and more as each story plays out in the 10-or-so minutes they are allowed to recount their tale.

The best stories go on to form the content of public radio show The Moth Radio Hour as well as featuring on their YouTube channel, on their excellent podcast and on their website’s story archive.

A classic story that epitomises The Moth is Ophira Eisenberg’s tale of the aftermath of a car accident when she was young:

However, this isn’t the only story to have moved, as week after week stories come along that tell of both the high-notes and the low of life, from a person recounting their feelings after being stabbed by a gang initiate to the story of Michael Massimino breaking the Hubble Space Telescope whilst trying to repair it.

The Moth isn’t just about public events, though. They also run numerous community and education programs bringing storytelling and public-speaking workshops to kids and adults alike across the US.

You can find out more about The Moth on their website, themoth.org, as well as checking out the show archive on PRX and their podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud.

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