My Journey Through Story And Then Fate Stepped In Storytelling remained my private obsession until after college when I took a writing class at a local community college with a group of teachers seeking continued education credits. Our assignment was to read an original story to the class. My classmates told me my story was good, but the way I told it was magical. They invited me to their schools to tell stories to the kids. I had one story prepared for children, written on about thirty-eight index cards lined up on the floor. I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able to see them, but it didn’t matter. I was hooked. That twenty-five-dollar check was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I soon realized that children were not my ideal market. I was also speaking to the teachers—to the adults in the room. They stopped working on their lesson plans and followed me into my town. It was at one of these schools that I met an art teacher who was a professional storyteller. Who knew there was such a thing? She led me to an entire community of professional storytellers. The folks in Prides Hollow were beside themselves with joy. They had finally found a place where they could walk in the open.
“You Have a Gift!” When I met my husband Bill and dragged him into Prides Hollow, he became my biggest fan. He was the first one to say out loud, “You have a gift. You can do something others can’t. You can get paid for this.” Thanks, Bill. Who knew where that road would take us, eh? We had no idea what lay ahead. We began to treat my gift as more than a hobby. We began to treat it like a business. I wrote this book to help you treat storytelling like a business. To help you have more impact and influence in your world. To help you tell your story in a way that connects to your listener.
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