Guest Bloggers

3 Things I’ve Learned About Storytelling (and Life) from Performing Narrative Nonfiction

Guest Blogger Anastasia Zadeik writes: The bar is hushed. I stand at the podium, bright lights partially obscuring the crowd. I see a blur of faces and blank spaces, hear ice clinking in a glass somewhere to my right and murmurs from the back of the room where drinks are being ordered and served. I am about to start speaking when I remember a tip I was given by my first performance coach, Jon. “Before you begin,” he said, “take a deep breath and remind yourself to . . . slow . . . down.” This, I have found, is good advice and, as Oscar Wilde famously said, “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on” so… 1. Before you start a story (or anything new)—take a deep breath and remind yourself to slow down. I begin to read the narrative nonfiction piece printed on the…

Guest Bloggers

Details Add Zing

Guest Blogger Lisa Alpine shares tips to spice up your writing. I encourage you to infuse your writing with detailed imagery, passionate feeling, poetic depth and evocative sensual description. Here are some writing suggestions I use when teaching Spice Up Your Writing at workshops globally. These writing tips will show you how to weave poetic description into your prose; cultivate the five senses in describing a place or experience; and develop emotional imagery. 1: Pick a scene from an event in your life that you know has a heart or seed of a story only you can write. Now blurt and spew! Messy is okay. You can clean it up later. Sometimes graceful, sometimes awkward, sometimes downright ugly. Tell the story. Understand what is really going on by exploring and uncovering the deeper currents of the river of life. 2: Set the scene. Describe the weather, doors & windows, environment, horizon. God…