The Story is the Destination: A 5-Week Personal Storytelling Workshop

Class Description

In this storytelling workshop, guided by storyteller and educator Jill Howe, we’ll use the language of maps as a playful and powerful tool to explore how personal stories take shape. Through writing prompts, personal reflection, and creative mapping, participants will discover how journeys, detours, and destinations can inspire meaningful personal narratives. We’ll dive into how true stories are built, how they move, and how the lines we follow (or break) reveal deeper truths.

This workshop is for anyone who loves personal narrative: whether you write or just want to explore new ways of thinking about how we shape and tell our experiences. All levels, all humans, are welcome in this creative and brave space.

Jill Howe is the producer and founder of Story Sessions, a live storytelling series with real-time illustrations, since 2013. She has performed widely across Chicagoland, served as a resident storyteller at the Field Museum, led storytelling workshops for Newberry Library, and presented a Naperville Tedx Talk on vulnerability. Find more of her work at jillhowe.com

What to Expect

Format: In Person 

Class Capacity: 10 

Class Style: Workshop; participation- and assignment-based 

Materials List

Required

• Instructor-Distributed Materials

A Brief Syllabus

1. Where are we headed?
2. First Story Shares
3. Rewrites and Story Mapping
4. Story Journey
5. Final Tellings

Cost and Registration

5 Sessions, $255 ($229.50 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.

We offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($255), Community Supported ($235), and Sponsor ($275). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.

Take a Look

View our full schedule of adult education classes.

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Questions?

Call us at (312) 255-3700 or send us an email at adulteducation@newberry.org.

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