Potluck News
Julie Gammack’s Potluck column is complimentary and will remain so.
There will be a premium feature for paid subscribers if you want to support scholarships for the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. Gammack will hold a Zoom Monday Lunch date with notable influencers and participants who are paid subscribers.
Upcoming guests include a potluck of folks: columnist Rekha Basu; former World Food Prize director, Ambassador Kenneth Quinn; Mayor Frank Cownie; romance writer Leigh Micheals; Jerry Crawford, a Des Moines attorney who owns Kentucky Derby contender Mo Donegal; Bleeding Heartland blogger Laura Belin; new Des Moines Register columnist Rachelle Chase, former US Senator Tom, and Ruth Harkin, namesakes for the Harkin Institute for Public Policy; Memoir writing coach Debra Engle; Chief Justice Iowa Supreme Court, Susan Christensen and more to come. There will be one or two Zoom Monday Lunch sessions a month. *
Click here for three levels of paid subscription ($7/monthly, $65/annual, or a $495/year donation to cover one scholarship); all levels of paid subscription are eligible for the Monday Lunch Zoom meetings:
Storytellers
On the stage of Hoyt Sherman Place Tuesday night, five folks took turns telling the almost-full house a vignette from their childhood.
One told of being dumped by his girlfriend just before prom. Originally from Harlan, Iowa, this now-grown man took many of us back to those awkward years of first loves and dating. In his monologue, he spat out the town name ‘Urbandale’ about his girlfriend dumping him for a boy from the Des Moines suburb. In the audience, he even had a bunch of his old high school gang cheering him on.
Another storyteller was both poignant and funny in her story of being the first girl to wrestle on her school's all-male team. Her story included times as a young girl when she felt ostracized but was cheered for her trailblazing persistence.
A man of Japanese descent took us on his journey of being bullied as a child and how he eventually let go of resentment.
A young, gay man from Spencer had the audience laughing over his grandmother's chiseled legacy on her gravestone. It involved drinking Jose Cuervo.
The last storyteller told of calls he ‘received’ from a notorious bad actor on the world stage since his 10th birthday. Every year he gets a call from the evil-doer, wishing him a happy day. As he wove the story with comedic twists, we learned the real story was about family.
They all must get excellent coaching from The Register’s professional storytellers. The speakers use detail, humor, pathos, and dramatic pauses that reel us in. And if they stumble, someone in the audience might shout out, “We’ve got you!”
The Storyteller Project’s coaches select themes from which participants glean an example from their own lives that tells a story. Their story. Their interpretation of the theme, and in the case of Tuesday night’s session, the theme was ‘growing up.’
I'm late to The Des Moines Register Storytellers Project events, which began locally in 2016, but I won't miss future events if we're in town.
Hoyt Sherman itself has countless stories of Iowans growing up if the building could talk. As a nervous 10-year-old dressed in a hula skirt, I struggled through a tortuous dance routine on that stage. The memory had me silently cheering each storyteller as they walked to the microphone.
The Storytellers Project is like a Second City comedy night combined with a Hoyt Sherman piano recital.
Richard asked which story I thought was best on the drive home, but the question belies the project's intent. There is a story in everyone.
The event generates some revenue for the Gannett newspaper, although the details are proprietary. If tickets are around $11, and the venue has a seating capacity of 1,252; rental costs are approximately $4,000 (just a guess), it can be more than a break-even proposition with a good crowd.
The Storytellers Project is one of the creative ideas implemented to expand the core concept of a journalism organization into new ways of delivering content. In this case, the Storytellers project is a part of the ‘experience economy.’
Thanks to all involved in this community engagement offering. It was good to see journalists Andrea Sahouri and Kim Norvell moderate the panel. I’ve long admired their bylines, and I’ll now have this connection when I read their stories.
The folks who were brave enough to tell their stories of growing up last week were: Jeff Clothier, Aymi Paradise-Flores, Blake Carlson, Tony Dahlman, and Jim Rahm.
Read Kim Norell’s story about future Storyteller Project events:
INA AWARDS
Speaking of journalism, Richard and I attended the Iowa Newspaper Association Awards banquet Thursday evening. I’m making it a point to follow all of the award-winning journalists on Twitter, so I catch their stories. For a complete list of honorees:
https://inanews.com/convention/contestresults/
Here’s a shot of Courtney Crowder, one of our Okoboji Writers’ Retreat speakers, who received the Ken Fuson Writing Award.
Monday Lunch*
Years ago, I invited up to ten readers of my Des Moines Register column to join me in a side room of Younkers Tea Room for lunch with notable influencers. Participants asked most of the questions, and the conversations sometimes made news and were usually fodder for a follow-up column.
One event stands out. Dan Rather’s CBS News producer was fired from his job the day a column ran when he was quoted as saying, “Rather really blew it,” in answer to a Monday Lunch question about how the broadcaster handled an interview with the first President Bush.
Dan Rather happened to be in Des Moines to broadcast the Iowa Caucus and read my column. I felt bad for the producer. Rather really had blown that one. Funny how some folks who report the news don’t like being the subject.
Substack offers writers this platform at no charge, and it’s a genuine service. It provides helpful formatting tools and lets us know our metrics for a given story. At some point, Substack wants us to charge our readers because they take a percentage to sustain the service. I’ve been reluctant to do so, fearing you’d all go away. I suspect, like me, you are all oversubscribed to content.
So, I decided to revive the Monday Lunch concept as a premium service for paid subscribers. Only, we’ll do the sessions by Zoom.
Funds will help Substack continue providing the service, and I’ll use any proceeds for scholarships to the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat. Win. Win. Win.
If none of you want to become a paid subscriber, that’s ok. I won’t take it personally (much). The thing about new ideas is we never know what will stick. I’m ok with failure (I’ve had to be); It’s part of the journey.
You do not have to pay to subscribe otherwise. This column will be free as long as Substack lets me keep going and I’m still having fun. But if you want to join our Monday Lunch bunch and support the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat, welcome aboard!