Become a Contributor

When I was in graduate school*, I was ambitious about my career. I saw other graduate students who were working with some fantastic scholars, and I wanted to figure out how I could get in on the action. But the strategy that I latched onto was to try to become a small part of more significant scholarly endeavors. I looked for opportunities to do grunt work no one else wanted to do because it seemed largely anonymous. And from there, I could take advantage of that opportunity to demonstrate that I was capable, reliable, and hopefully smart. That was ten years ago, and looking back even now, I think that turned out to be a solid strategy. Not the only one. Maybe not the best one for everyone. But still a solid strategy. This is some of my thinking behind creating Stories21.

Yes, I want to help people make their own stories. I want to continue to improve at making my own. And I want to be part of a community of people making stories. So I created this shell of Stories21. Partly for the reasons I just stated, but also to create a larger project of which you could become a part. And that’s what I’m inviting you to do now. Get involved with Stories21. Most simply, I’m hoping you find the site useful to your own storytelling. Ideally, you will find valuable resources, inspiring ideas, and possibly a community. And maybe even share your own story here.

Beyond that perhaps you will find yourself motivated to contribute a post of your own with some insight, inspiration, or resources to make Stories21 even more useful to other storytellers. And beyond contributing a post, you might also want to participate behind the scenes as an editor, as a regular storyteller, as a member of a small storytelling workshop groups, or as a supporter of other storytellers.

Like a lot of things about these early stages of the site, I have a ton of ideas about how this might evolve, but I’m more interested in the ways you want to contribute. And I’m open to all sorts of those ideas at the moment. Once the site gets a bit more momentum and sure footing, I think I’ll be able to offer more structured suggestions for participation. For now, if you’re interested in contributing, please send me a message with your questions or ideas, and I’ll do whatever I can for us to work together. I look forward to hearing from you!

(image: “Calculator and Money” by Images Money.)