2022
Night of Heroes
Thank you for your interest in sharing your story again on Clubhouse! Below you'll find more information and a place for you to indicate when you'll be ready and available to tell your story so we can get you scheduled!
Dates and Times. I host Night of Heroes Storytelling Evenings every other Tuesday evening, each beginning at 6pm CST and running between one and two hours. Check out the schedule here!
Stories Per Evening. Some storytelling evenings focus on a single story and on other night we may hear as many as three.
Story Length. Each participant is given up to 20 minutes to tell their story. If your story in class ran longer, you will need to trim it down. This length honors both you and the audience so everyone has an exceptional experience.
Project Goals. We have numerous goals with this project. The top two are to:
- give you an opportunity to share your story again
- build a listening audience of story lovers
Promotions. The evenings are lightly promoted through our newsletter list and social media, using a version of each storytellers' logline, similar to those on our story heroes page. (I will happily help with your logline if it needs updating or you've misplaced it.) We will encourage you to share the evenings with those you would like to attend to support you, and with those you think would benefit from attending.
Venue / Platform. The events themselves take place on Clubhouse, which is an audio only app you'll need to download to your phone. For anyone new to Clubhouse, I would be happy to set up a ten minute tutorial with you to walk you through using the app when you're ready, or you can visit this page for the Clubhouse Basics.
Audience Size. We currently attract small audiences. For quite a while still, I suspect that our audience for these evenings will mostly be made up of other class participants who want to hear stories from outside their class, as well as some of their friends who get invited and come back over time.
Speaking and Listening. Clubhouse rooms (or clubs) are made of two parts: the stage and the audience. The majority of attendees are in the audience, meaning they do not have microphone access. They are there to listen only. As the club founder, I only let the evening's storytellers and a small handful of trusted individuals on stage with me on any given night. People on stage are the only ones who can speak when not muted and they will only unmute when it is time to offer reflections and impact after a story is told.
Psychological Safety. We've been playing Vulnerability is Sexy on Clubhouse since late 2021 and while the room is public and a small number of people come and go, our regulars have become incredibly comfortable getting vulnerable within the space. It is easy to forget that the space is public, so I encourage any storytellers to be sure they are comfortable with every part of their story being heard by the public. If there is anyone mentioned in your story that you are concerned would feel badly if they somehow happened upon it (or if someone hearing your story could create challenges in your life), I recommend that you either share your story with them before clubhouse so they hear about it directly from you first, or if needed, that you find a way to appropriately remove that section without damaging the overall structure of your story. Please put your safety first, and that includes not inviting unnecessary drama into your life that could prevent you from sharing your story further. I want this to be a great experience that you feel proud of.
Recordings. Because one of our goals is to build an audience over time, it is important for people who discover our club to be able to listen to past storytelling evenings. Clubhouse has a feature called replays that will make our rooms available after the fact, though only to people who come across our club. (See Psychological Safety above.) Here is an example of a replay.
Next Steps. If you have specific questions you still need answered, please send those to me at [email protected] Otherwise, please see the question below and, if you're ready to tell your story, check all the dates when you'd be available to share so I can lay out our calendar over the next couple months!
Thank you again SO VERY MUCH for being a part of this storytelling adventure. If I haven't said it in a while, I'm glad you're here.
All my love,
Corey