“We read to know we’re not alone.” – William Nicholson
I have begun bringing people together around stories in three different ways:
- Playing Together play reading groups – We gather online to read aloud a play together. Unlike most Zoom calls where people need to make conversation, a play gives us a script to operate from; at the same time, unlike watching Netflix, every participant needs to be exactly that, a participant, fully engaged in the process of co-creating and discovering the plot. At the end of the reading we discuss what we’ve read. It’s been incredibly fun for participants but also deeply meaningful. Plays are offered periodically throughout the year. Look at our current offerings.
- Book Club – Reading good books and discussing them together is another way of being transformed by stories. As reader Austin Carty writes: “…By reading [stories] together… and by coming together to talk about these characters and their lives—we were together sharing something special, something far bigger than the sum total of the novels’ plotlines. In other words, we realized that something was happening to us on account of it.” This winter I will be co-leading a bookclub.
- World’s Most Low Key Advent Group – This group is open by invitation only at present. It offers a way for people to explore the questions of faith in a season of waiting by reading sacred texts and listening to sacred music and telling our own sacred (and profane) stories together.To learn more about any of these groups, contact me at susan@storywell.ca