Rushdie on democratizing the story field

“Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, the power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it . . . and change it as times change, truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts.”
– Salman Rushdie

Thanks to David Isaacs for this.

Wiki co-imagineering book

I’m saddened to learn that my meme-loving friend Paxus Calta will likely not be with us. But he writes: “My new love is an old story. Contagious Tales is currently a wiki-book of interwoven memetic altruism stories. Open Secret Societies and Quasi-utopian communes…” An evolving book of interwoven imagineering tales, created by collaborating authors. Very storyfield!

What do we mean by "storyteller" here?

I pulled together several of my emails exploring who might come to this conference and edited it into an article called Who is a ‘Storyteller’ — and why such a Conference for them?. I hope it clarifies the wild variety of people we’re inviting, and perhaps opens up an inquiry about a new interdisciplinary “field of study and practice” or a new view of whole-system activism based on story….

Sheri Herndon sent some of us a riff along these lines recently, describing a conversation with friends: “[We asked] ourselves what are the ways in which we are all storytellers, storycatchers, and story keepers. and perhaps what are the roles each of us plays in creating, maintaining, enriching, evolving and enlarging the story field. i see these different ways of accessing and participating in the story field as important. these are story field capacities…what capacities are needed for telling a new story?”

Storytellers, storycatchers, storykeepers, storyspreaders, storyinviters, storyexpanders, storychannelers, storybelievers….

And then there are the destoryers…. (and the destoruction?)