I have huge problems in finding podcasts that are aimed toward freelancers or storytellers. While there are tons of agency-focused stuff out there, I’ve always wanted to be able to listen and talk to people who are struggling, usually on their own, to create the content they need.

The first part of that was to start StorytellersAZ, a place for anyone who tells stories in their job.

Second step is to record a podcast, which we start tomorrow night.

We have room for three people in the podcast studio and we’ll be recording for 30 minutes. After that 30, our regular meeting will proceed as normal.

Show up. You’ll like what you see.

Thanks to all who came out for the last StorytellersAZ meetup and contributed to the discussions. I apologize that our presentations didn’t turn out quite as we had planned, but there were some interesting points of view shared on blogging, creativity, and copyright laws nonetheless!

Tyler Hurst returns for the next meeting on Tuesday, April 12^th with a presentation on how journalistic style can protect you from having to worry about getting cease and desist letters. Join us at Gangplank from 7-9PM for some support and inspiration with your storytelling endeavors.

The very first regular Storytellers AZ meeting kicked off last Tuesday, March 15^th at Gangplank with a strong showing of 14 attendees even though quite a few of the original organizing members were off enjoying SXSW.

Rather than having speakers on a particular subject this time, we broke into smaller groups to discuss individual concerns like overcoming grammar issues, maintaining a regular creation schedule, how to get inspired, and more. Group leaders shared their advice from personal experience with these challenges.

Following that exercise, we took more time to discuss some of things we’d like to address in future Storytellers AZ meetings in a full group chat led by co-founder Tyler Hurst.

The greatest strength of this group may be our diversity. So far we have a motley crew including poets, novelists, a rap artist, technical writers, and bloggers on a wide array of subject matter! We also have mix of ability levels of all types from a wide range of backgrounds, so we certainly have much to learn from and share with one another.

The next Storytellers AZ meeting will be held at Gangplank on Tuesday March 29^th from 7PM to 9PM, and subsequent meetings are currently slated to be held every two weeks thereafter. All are welcome to attend!

(Also posted at wendyconeybeer.com)

This is a list of everyone’s names with links to their blogs, in alphabetical order by first name. I’ll be updating it as we get more members.

Elizabeth Newlin

Jeff Moriarty

Joy Thompson

June Cline

Matthew Jalayer

Tyler Hurst

Wendy Coneybeer

We’re a group of storytellers that want to learn from and teach each other.

Inspired by the Domino Project, we’ve decided to meet every other Tuesday from 7-9pm at Gangplank in downtown Chandler. 

Each week we’ll have 1-3 ten-minute presentations on a specific subject, followed by a workshop time when people can ask for specific help on projects, seek out new ideas for the group or use the other storytellers for support.

While a lot of what we do is write, we’re all storytellers first. If you’re salesperson, work in HR, communicate with co-workers, host a podcast or in any way tell stories for fun or for a living, we’d like to meet you.

Our next meeting is March 15.