Mini Moth Club

I love the Moth Club. I love storytelling. I love stories. I love hearing stories form ordinary folks about ordinary and extraordinary things.

I want to hear everyone’s story. I want to hear your story. I want to gather all of my friends and tell our stories to one another.

Something I’d love to start doing (and I’d love to see others start doing) is hosting my own Mini Moth Club—a small gathering of new and old friends with a single prompt, a bottle of wine and a dim lamp.

The Moth Story Slam event publishes their prompt online for the folks who want to give it a try on the night. Here’s the next one coming up at The Moth San Francisco, titled “Gumption”:

Prepare a five-minute story about go-getting. Moments of courage and the peaks and pratfalls of a daring spirit. Scaling mountains or admitting to mistakes. Nerves of steel or jelly legs. Tell us about your gutsiest gambles and the mettle that forged them. You’ve got moxie, kid!

Who wouldn’t want to hear all of their friends tell that story? Hopefully you’d be excited to tell that story yourself! Sometimes a simple prompt can unearth a story you’d almost forgotten, or help you to reflect on one that you think about all the time.

I scripted a GitHub action that generates me a new Moth-style story prompt every day, so that (even if I don’t write about it or tell anyone the story) I get to dig into my memory and see what’s there.

I responded to one of those prompts yesterday, and it was so wonderful to recount that moment in writing. It really made me feel things. Happy, sad, and a few things in between.

If you start your own Mini Moth, tell me about it, and tell me the story that you told! I’d love to hear it, however you choose to tell it.