My sister helped me come up with the title. It seems the perfect blend of the words biography and bibliography to describe the two merging aspects of this workshop I’m offering next month.

It all started with a spoken word performance that Kaitlin Meadows and I devised for Other Voices Women’s Reading Series. Kaitlin is a fabulous poet so her part was to read some of her poems related to books. Not being a poet or author, I didn’t have anything to read. Instead I made a list of the Most Important Books in my life and shared it with the audience, telling stories about how select books are connected to important events in my life.

What I didn’t expect from this experience is that other people wanted to share their Most Important Books with me and “tada!”, a workshop was born. It seems that hearing stories is one way of getting inspired to share your own tale. You can see this at any social gathering where one story triggers another. Sometimes the urge is to “top” the last teller and the narratives get more and more outrageous.

The other night I was having dinner with some friends and I talked about how the experience of asking for help after I had surgery had given me new insight in how to receive gratefully and gracefully. My sharing stirred stories of similar occurrences in their lives and I was amazed at how quickly the exchange became deeper.  Often personal stories can bring the conversation to a more intimate and (for me) satisfying place. Half of storytelling is listening and my friends are very good listeners.

I found this quote by Ben Okri recently, “Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they’ll only see their narrow range reflected in it.” I think the same thing applies to listening.

Bibliobiography workshop: Record the story of your life using the books you love. October 17 & 24, 2 to 4 p.m. at Antigone Books.  Contact them at 792-3715 to register.

Check your facts and then recheck them again. Didn’t someone say that?  Anyway, it’s my new mantra when it comes to reporting events.

My apologies to anyone who went to the UA bookstore the day before yesterday looking for the Random Obsessions book tour. It had been on my calendar for a few months and I was excited about it so I announced it on this blog. But, when I got there I found out that the author had canceled. I see now that I should have made, and will in the future, a simple phone call to confirm.

What about checking the facts in a personal story? If you’re telling a story about when you were spending the night at your aunt Jenny’s house and was awakened in the middle of the night to the fire alarm and had to climb out the window into the waiting arms of a fire fighter and that was the first time you met your significant other, do you have to accurately report if it was 2 a.m. or 3 a.m.? Or if the room was at the back or side of the house?

Obviously certain facts are essential to the telling and others are insignificant and can be approximated to complete the story. Have you ever heard someone tell a story and hear them engage in a memory fight with themselves in the middle of it – “it was in 1967 – no, it was ’68 – oh no, I remember that I was wearing my blue nightgown and I got that nightgown for my 16th birthday so it must have been 67 – or maybe it was a different nightgown . . .” We’ve all heard this (and probably done it!) and it really interrupts the flow of the story. And, unless the date is crucial to the story, i.e. if it was tied to a historical event, who cares exactly which year it was (except, perhaps, your significant other).

Sometimes the need to be precise inhibits us in telling our personal stories when the most important thing is to share the emotional impact of the story. I’m not advocating passing off fiction as fact, I’m suggesting that the meaning should take over as the most important thing rather than the color of the nightgown. Supply lots of details so that the listener can visualize the scene and, if you can’t readily remember, make your nightgown blue so that you can move along in the story line.

I’ve found that telling a “true” story is relative.  My memory of a an event from childhood can be very different than my sister’s remembrance.  We each saw it from our unique point of view and who’s to say which one of us has the truest story.

I think that fiction is making it all up BUT facts + a little enhancement is a good story.

What do you think?  Is embellishing a story OK?  When is embellishment straying from the truth?  Would our personal stories be totally flat if we didn’t add the zest of imagination?

The next few days are are packed full of story and spoken word happenings for people of all ages and sensibilities.

1. Author Nick Belardes has devoted his life to poking around the peculiar and perplexing.  He’ll be sharing strange stories, random obsessions and bizarre trivia at the Random Obsessions Book Tour on Wednesday, September 23 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the UA Student Union Bookstore, 1209 E. University Blvd., Call 621-2814 for more information.

2. Refugees’ amazing stories of hardship, courage and hope come to life using music, song, dance and live performance via the talents of the Stories that Soar! professional acting troupe on Saturday, September 26, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Catalina High School Auditorium, 3645 E. Pima.

This free community event hosted by Chairman Richard Elias is open to the public.  The stories start at 6 p.m. and a public forum to discuss issues and share ideas  follows at 7. Food provided by the refugee community will be offered during the intermission.

3. Poetry Joeys, a Saturday morning reading and activity group for children ages four through ten will meet this Saturday, September 26 at 10 a.m. at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 East Helen Street (At Vine Avenue).

Two experienced teaching artists divide children into age-appropriate groups and inspire them to develop their flexibility with language. Participants in each session read and write poems and enjoy creative movement activities that spark the imagination. Poetry Joeys meets in the Children’s Corner of the library.

4.  Edge 17: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers, curated by Melissa Buckheit will be featuring three poets on Thursday, September 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Casa Libre en la Solana, 228 N. 4th Avenue.  There’s a suggested donation of $5.

Stephanie Balzer is executive director of VOICES Community Stories Past and Present, Inc., a Tucson nonprofit that mentors youth in the documentary arts and publishes their work.

Rafael Otto writes fiction (long, short and flash), poetry, spoken word, and lyrics.

Orlando White is originally from Tólikan, Arizona. He holds a BFA in creative writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Brown University.

According to the Casa Libre website, you can join White for a workshop, Let Err Poetry, focusing on “reexamining and rewriting the English alphabet from an imaginative perspective of one’s own ethnic and/or social sensibilities”.  The workshop is on Saturday, September 26 from 10 to 1 and costs $50.  Contact Casa Libre to register.