Mark Goldman from The Great Arizona Story Slam has made this generous offer to Tucsonans: a special entry fee of only $3 per person (that’s $4 dollars off the online price and $7 off the door price) to his next Story Slam on Saturday, July 30 at the Doubletree Suites in Phoenix.

Dee Dee Wood, Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Famer, who choreographed “Mary Poppins” among other shows you will recognize, will be the celebrity judge. If you want to take advantage of this opportunity to be entertained AND to save money, you will need to call Mark at 602-390-3858 to let him know you are coming.

If you are up Phoenix way and want to enjoy another evening of stories, check out “We Heart Arizona: Stories of the People Places and Things We Love – and That Have Broken Our Hearts” at 7 p.m. on July 28 at Beckett’s Table, 3717 E. Indian School Road.

This event is part of Arizona Storytellers, a very ambitious project sponsored by the Arizona Republic in partnership with Arizona State University and South Mountain Community College. You can watch some of the stories on their website or upload your own.

Two years ago today I accepted the challenge of writing a blog about storytelling in all it’s aspects and I’m surprised and happy that I’m still doing it. Although I just write once a week, it’s still a challenge and I think I just might keep going.

I’d love to make this blog more participatory. If you’ve got ideas for a storytelling post that you’d like to see here, let me know. If you have an event you’d like to be covered, drop me a line. If you want to write a guest post, as long as it’s related to stories and I’m interested in your point of view, I’ll run it.

Here’s to another year of telling stories!

I just got an iphone and I’m musing about the ways stories can be told through this amazing device. First of all I have to say that I’m somewhat obsessed with it, which I think is completely normal given the complexity of this little 4 1/2″ x 2″ marvel of technology. I’m not a novice to cell phones; I’ve had one since 1990 but this “toy” is something else. And it’s not just the iphone, I think that all smartphones are amazing.

I’m sure that it will do so many more things than I can imagine at this point but so far I’ve discovered

• instant email and text messaging
• Facebook and other social media
• the camera for photos and video
• maps and GPS and Yelp, one of many glorious apps (applications), that helps you find anything you are looking for near your location
• Bump an app that allows you to share something on your phone with someone else’s phone by literally bumping your phones together
• Shazam, an app that can “hear” music and then it tells you the name of a song and who is singing so you can read the lyrics or buy the song
• Solitaire and Angry Birds (free or 99 cent versions) and other time wasting games.

And, oh yeah, you can make a phone call too.

What are some of the ways you can think of to use your smartphones for telling stories?