Summer Storytelling Workshop Series

Before there was written language, there was story. There is something almost primal in our draw to it, in its capacity to hold us fixated and leave us transformed. From mainstream movies and TV shows, to podcasts and marketing campaigns, story, in its many iterations, is all around us in contemporary society. But how can we utilize our own personal stories in our work toward social justice and how does it work? What is story doing to us? How are we, as individuals and a society, crafted from it? How might story transform not only what we know, but what we can know, and what worlds we might imagine?

In this 6-week workshop series, we will explore these questions as we develop stories from our own lived experiences. This class is underscored by the belief of the facilitator that our personal narratives can be a driving force for making substantive change— for creating spaces of human connection, healing, and justice. We’d like to invite anyone interested in joining these pursuits to join us, no matter your experience level with storytelling or writing.

Facilitator: 

Joy Young (they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent impact storyteller, performance poet, independent scholar, educator, and curriculum development expert. Currently, Joy a program coordinator at Access Living and Project Assistant for Bodies of Work (BOW) where they focus on disability arts and culture in Chicago, IL. Joy has been accepted to present at conferences on their work around the arts, inclusive practices, learning, and advocacy including presenting at the 4th Annual Symposium on Disability at Yale, the Queer Lecture Series at Sonoma State University, and the Women’s & Gender Studies Consortium at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Joy has an MS in Justice Studies from Arizona State University where they crafted a free, open source, storytelling and poetics for justice informational workbook, Your Story is More Than a Survival Guide based on their research and over 10 years of experience as a teaching artist. The book is available on their website at joyyoung.org. This workshop series is based on that work.

Joy’s performance work, which been featured on Button Poetry, Everyday Feminism, SlamFind, and on stages, in classrooms and community spaces across the country, is underscored by the belief that our personal narratives can be a driving force for making substantive change— for creating spaces of human connection, healing, and justice. Joy brings this approach to their work in community and research where they have partnered with a variety of groups, organizations, individuals, and businesses creating and often facilitating programming that utilizes pragmatic applications of storytelling and poetics as well as other arts-based methods. Joy currently lives in Chicago with their partner and 90-pound dog, Fable and believes our stories hold the key to creating a better world.