Martha Retallick  of Western Sky Communications, recently posted an article in FreelanceSwitch about her experience telling a story, called Public Speaking – a Storytelling Odyssey. In it she talks about her process of crafting and telling her story on the Odyssey Storytelling stage from the unique view point of a freelancer (but the insights can apply to anyone.)

She has this unique bit of advice for freelancers.

Here’s how storytelling can help your freelancing career:

• Quite often, freelancers are solitary creatures who work at home on computers. Getting up in front of an audience will expose you to a wider community. Who knows, you may find a new friend or even a client out there.
• Words are very powerful tools. And words presented with flair are even more powerful. Politicians and religious leaders have known this for a long time. It’s something that freelancers would also do well to learn.
• People who speak publicly are perceived as experts. As successful people. And brave. Did you know that public speaking is the most feared activity? So, if you look for speaking opportunities, you’ve already separated yourself from the rest. Such courage will spill over into many other areas of your life.
• If you persist, there will come a time when people pay you to speak in public. Which opens up a whole new profit center for your freelancing career. Not to mention the spinoff sales of books and recordings.

Odyssey Storytelling took their Story Cart to Occupy Tucson in Armory Park on Sunday, October 16, to collect stories. We asked people a simple question: “Why are you here?” Click on this LINK for some of the answers.

Interviewing participant at the Story Cart

Sarah K. Smith, Penelope Starr and Adam Hostetter, Story Cart crew members, are the 99%

Lori Riegle, Story Cart crew member

The Story Stage schedule* is jam packed. For three days you can be a story-glutton at  Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival. African stories, Irish stories, Tucson stories, Sonoran stories, Icelandic stories, Animal stories, Celebrity stories and the list goes on. It will be hard to pull yourself away long enough to go get some of the incredible food that Tucson “Eat” Yourself is so well known for.

And the Story Stage is just one of seven stages!  The Festival, whos mission is to “research document interpret and present the living traditional arts and expressions of everyday life of the folk and ethnic communities of the multi-national Arizona-Sonora region,” stretches from above Alameda Street down to the Tucson Convention Center. It’s huge. The theme is year is “Traditions of Health and Wellness” and you certainly will get your exercise walking from place to place because you won’t want to miss a thing.  Good thing it’s three days, from October 14 through the 16th. Here’s a link to a Map.

See you at the story stage!

*Note: double click on the schedule and it will appear full screen for easy viewing.