For my personal project for storytelling class, I decided to collect videos of my friends and family telling stories of their own choosing and in their own fashion. It was fascinating to see what they chose to perform and how creative they could be when they were let loose with free reign. The project began to grow from that seed, and this site is the end result.

I had a wide variety of submissions. My brother Matt, who is a musician with training in audio engineering, decided to record “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut as performed by Christopher Walken. My mother told a story about my great-great grandfather Frank Osborn, who was quite the character. Others described dreams, told stories to their children, told jokes, everything from A to B. I was pleasantly surprised at how many of my friends and family were willing to contribute and how great their contributions were.

I collected many links and videos to various storytelling related websites from around the internet, and posted my own videos of the stories I have told this quarter. I spent many hours combing over these sites and trying to remap broken links where possible. I am actually considering maintaining this site after class is over, as I noticed that many of the sites I was visiting seemed to suffer from neglect.

I also used my own photos from my trip to the south of France and Barcelona to illustrate this site, as I felt many of them had a sort of fairytale feel to them. It was a magical trip for me, and I enjoyed sharing them.

The performances I personally collected can be found under “Performances“. I am very proud of my friends and family for rising to the challenge I gave them, and I am very grateful to all their help and great work.