A Quarter for a Tale from Sean Buvala: Recent Episodes
K. Sean Buvala
Sean Buvala is publishing and writing books for The Small-Tooth-Dog Publishing Group LLC in Arizona. He's telling stories with small-business leaders throughout the United States, while mostly focused on the southwest United States. His latest odd hobby is making pizza on his new gas grill. Well, there is a story to that, too.
Hey there, wonderful storytellers!July is my "rethink" time. It's mid-year 2024, and the depth of summer or winter depends on where you are. It's the perfect time to take stock and reflect on your journey as an author and speaker. Let's dive in with the three "what" questions:1. WHAT HAS BEEN my experience this year?Take a moment to think about your 2024 so far. What has worked? What challenges
Author, Speakers, Creative: There are 3 steps to building your heart-centered, integrity-based business (pay your bills, breathe freely, secure your future) with good financial stability and an even deeper impact on the world around you. Stop playing games with the whole "starving artist" mindset. 1. Identify, define, and focus on just who you want to serve and why. Get focused- your "everybody"
Folklore is filled with stories of people who come to a fork in the road, often met by mysterious and maybe dangerous creatures.As you move forward in the world still firmly held in the grip of a pandemic, you've got some choices. Float. "I hope that everything goes back to normal." That is probably not going to be in our future. The wisdom stories of the world tell us that this rarely
Do you have to have the cheesy motivational=speaker vibe in order to be a good speaker? Nah. I work with lots of people for whom Speaking™ is not their career but rather a part of their work. Authors, I'm talking to you. Here are three things that make you a good speaker...
Sean Buvala has a blog. This is a good as any. :-)
Lest anyone think I have faded from the world and this blog, I am still here. We've moved most of our discussions to http://smalltoothdog.com and http://seantells.com, but we're still active.
http://youwakeuponemorning.com
Sean Buvala talks about the latest creativity journal from The Small-Tooth-Dog Publishing Group. 50+ prompts to get the creativity of the young people aged 10-13. Lots of creative pages for journals, drawings, art, graphic novels, dot grid, and more.
You Wake Up One Morning: A Kid's Prompted Journal to Create Great Stories in Words and Art!
You Wake Up One
"The intention of StoryRise is that it's a 90-minute experience of contemporary storytelling for adult audiences. So, that means what you'll hear here is everything from traditional stories to more of the slam poetry style pieces. Our tellers range from people who have been doing this for a long time, I've been at this for 30 years, some people with lots of experience to some people that were
The Selkie and Her Children: A Story by Sean Buvala.
Excerpt:
The man looked out toward the beach and there he saw a bonfire and around it were dancing the silhouettes of a woman and her children and as he looked about he saw that there was a pile next to them and so he figured that these must be selkies and that pile was their pelts. He knew that if he took their pelts away from them, they
"I don't have any stories!" I hear this from newcomers rather often. Where will you find your stories? Let us look at some ideas. 1. World FolktalesSimple tales such as Aesop's Fables are fantastic starting points for gathering stories and you will find these especially good for business and non-profit settings. You'll also find a variety of tales from the Grimm Brothers or Joseph Jacobs that
May I Suggest: Don't always tell people what to think about your stories.
As a Storyteller, you might need to learn to trust that the relationship between you and the audience is something that develops. First, it grows because of your ability to be open and accessible as a teller. Secondly, it grows because your audience is full of competent, life-living human beings. In all actuality, our
I have a little side project posting both freshly and brand-new recorded folktales as well as recordings dusted off from my archives. Gosh. I have archives. I am old? Come listen. Subscribe on all the normal places like Itunes and GooglePlay, too. I'd love to have you listen to something inappropriate.
We're at http://inappropriatefolktales.com should you wish to wander about.
"Do I have enough stories for the work I want to do?" is a common question I hear. The number of stories you need changes based on where and when you will be using your stories. That's the short answer. Generally, you need three times the stories you think you will need. A one-hour concert is best served with three hours of available content.
However…
As a coach, I like to think of the
So, you have been to a storytelling festival. What now?
Storytelling festivals and major conferences come in all shapes and sizes.If you have had the fun of attending one, you might be wondering "what now?" I have some suggestions that I think might help you explore the art of oral storytelling just a bit more. Below the picture are some notes and then a few specific items that might apply to
Hello all! Here's the "official" trailer of our new our first book for kids! "Apples for the Princess" adapted from the Grimm's "The Griffin." We are very happy to finally get this out to you. Also known as, "why I have been so quiet lately." Come get your copy.
Promo: Explore the values of kindness and honesty with your kids. Featuring hand-cut collages from watercolor, acrylic, cloth and
A story that was perfect for you once doesn't have to stay perfect for you forever.
Digging through my refrigerator and pantry the other day, I came upon some expired products. These finds are not a unique experience for most of us; there always seems to be that one thing in the back that we just forget about. While some products do well when they age for a bit, others really do become useless
Like me, a calliope is sometimes full of hot air.
A bit of personal reflection: "Cocktails, Canapes and Calliope" is the new way that I am understanding the ongoing evolution of the Story Slam.
There's been, in my little circles, some discussion by the oral storytelling community (both online and offline) about story slams. I've been reflecting, mostly for myself, on my evolving image of the
Storytellers use too many words...sometimes.
In this next "Hard-Core Storytelling Practitioner" post, I am talking the concept of "Show, Don't Tell" (written as Show or Tell in this article) that is prevalent in the "sacred" texts (giggle) of many who practice oral storytelling.
Background
This is all Show. You would need some Tell to understand this pic, huh?
I've been noticing lately in
Why, hello there, storytelling newbie. I didn't see you standing there. I've been so busy lately over on other shows that I haven't had near enough time to speak to you.
Nonetheless- do you have a moment? Oh, very good.
Welcome to the show. And what a show it is. Storytelling is the mother of all art forms. An idea forms from the substance around us. That form then becomes narrative. That
Heads up: this post is a bit more personal than what I normally post here. I'm writing more about the "artist" than the "art."
You might be tired of the New Year's posts, but I just wanted to share a thought that was new to me. It's not an idea that I thought up as I first heard it in a workshop from Trish Gillam at Gangplank Avondale. I've seen a mention or two since then in other places.
Altered-Art Solstice by Michelle Buvala
Well, Winter is here in my part of the world. Happy Solstice to You. Here's a story I wrote some time back. It first appeared on my "Calling Out a Rising Sun: Stories for Teenage Guys" CD back in 2006. It was originally written for a multi-mode arts project on "addiction and recovery."
While that project never came to be, some of the stories remained.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my USA friends and family.
For those who don't know, Thanksgiving is a traditional US holiday that focuses on gratitude, family and food. It is much like harvest festivals in other countries. Turkey has been the usual centerpiece dish.
So.....here is your Turkey Story of the Day, told by me to you.
Click here now to hear "The Talking Turkeys" in an .mp3 audio.
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On Friday I had a follow-up coaching session with a student from one of our Executive Speaking Training Workshops (EST). In these follow-up sessions, I often work with workshop students directly in creating their presentations. The private session is part of the package of the EST registration.
As part of my recent binge of hard-core storytelling-practitioner blog posts, I thought I might share
I am spending some more time in the hard-core storytelling practitioner mode. My next thought: There are two ways to describe the pacing of your story.
First, pacing refers to how fast your story unfolds. Do you spend more time on some parts of the story and less time on other parts? You may want to spend more time on one episode, piece or interaction in your story than another. Your audience
Isn't this the truth? The first true way to gather community was (and is) storytelling. Social interactions, education, training, passing on values and more come from the "social media" of stories and storytelling. We are just having some fun with a few Tshirt designs. Here's the first in the series. You can pick up this version until September 9, 2013. After that, you can sign up for the update
Continuing my blog posts where I become your hard-core oral-storytelling practitioner, let’s talk about introducing characters in storytelling. I am writing about how to bring a character (person, animal, being) into your oral storytelling.
To consistently illustrate the techniques, I’m using the image of Jack, of “And the Beanstalk” fame, for this article. This process applies to any and every