Twenty years ago, a group of friends telling stories on a porch gave birth to The Moth, now a hit podcast and public radio show. The Moth’s artistic director talks with us about its origins and why people still respond to great storytelling. We also look at President Trump’s recent executive order aimed at relaxing an IRS rule that limits political activity for churches and other religious organizations.
Featured in this Show
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Celebrating The 20th Anniversary Of The Moth
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the storytelling phenomenon, The Moth. What started as a small gathering of friends, telling stories on a porch, has now turned into a hit podcast and public radio show, featuring stories from stages around the world. The Moth’s artistic director talks about the past two decades of storytelling, why the concept has really resonated with people, and what the future might have in store for Moth storytelling.
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The Moth Celebrates 20 Years Of Live Storytelling
In 1997, The Moth began putting on live shows where storytellers, on a stage with a hot mic and spotlight, share their true stories about foster care, break ups, family tragedies, and more.
This year, The Moth is celebrating 20 years of providing a creative outlet by putting out a book to celebrate: “The Moth Presents: All These Wonders. True Stories About Facing the Unknown.”
“When you’re reading a story, you’re literally holding the stories in your hands, and there was a new intimacy to that. We wanted to share that with our community,” said Catherine Burns, artistic director of The Moth and editor of “All These Wonders.”
The Moth — which edits the themed live shows for The Moth Podcast, and radio broadcast, The Moth Radio Hour — has always had the goal of cultivating intimacy, Burns said.
“The Moth, and really the whole modern storytelling movement that we’ve seen over the last 20 years — because there are thousands of wonderful storytelling shows, not just The Moth, that’ve grown around the world — it rose hand to hand with the rise of the internet,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s such a surprise, that even as we had all these modern conveniences, there was this deep desire to walk into a room and hear the story directly from that person.”
The Moth Radio Hour debuted in 2009 and is aired on more than 400 stations across the United States, according to The Moth website. The Moth Podcast re-airs new episodes of The Moth Radio Hour and select stories from The Moth archive.
At first, Burns and others at The Moth were skeptical about putting live stories in written form. But they realized that rather than totally reworking the stories into essays, they could rely on transcriptions of the live performances with light editing. They wanted to ensure the stories came alive on the page the same way the did in real life, Burns said.
For the book, they choose the theme of the unknown.
When reading through hundreds of potential stories for the book, they noticed the idea of uncertainty kept showing up.
“One of the things that we just kept noticing … was stories where something happens to somebody that maybe they weren’t expecting, or they take a big risk and it pays off, or they’re forced to do something they maybe thought they didn’t want to do because of the circumstances of their life … And that’s inherently interesting,” Burns said.
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President Trump Signs Executive Order To Make Church Political Activity Easier
President Trump signed an executive order today that would allow churches and other religious organizations to become more politically active by easing an IRS rule that limits political activity for churches and religious organizations.
Episode Credits
- Rob Ferrett Host
- Veronica Rueckert Host
- Chris Malina Producer
- Haleema Shah Producer
- Catherine Burns Guest
- Howard Schweber Guest
- Rob Ferrett Interviewer
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