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• 2026-04-28

  Cringe and joy, part zero

  This post is the first (well, the zeroth) in a new series of 32 blog posts recalling moments of cringe (when my work didn’t work as well as I hoped it would) and joy (when my work worked as well as I hoped it would, or better). Read more

• 2024-02-23

  New paper, new network name

  Hey everybody. I wanted to tell you about a new paper on Participatory Narrative Inquiry that has just come out. Written mostly by my colleague Rachel Colla (though I helped a little), the paper makes a strong case for the use of PNI in Wellbeing Research. I was so impressed by how Rachel pulled together Read more

• 2023-02-01

  I Made a Story Journal

  I like to watch YouTube videos in which people do things I like to do – woodworking, photography, crochet – so I can learn. Lately I’ve noticed an interesting trend. People keep giving their videos titles that are condensed stories, like “I Built a Cabin” or “That Rescue Turned Out Differently than I Expected” or Read more

• 2022-03-10

  Cleaning the office again (and what stories are for)

  So I’m working on another crazy new business venture (you’ll find out soon enough), and when I start a new venture I always feel the need to clean my office.  What are stories for? Here’s a thing I came across in my cleaning that I thought you might like to see. Years ago, I wrote Read more

• 2022-02-25

  Mail bag: How many stories?

  Last week somebody asked me a question via email that I’ve already answered lots of times: How many stories should a PNI project collect?  I was about to say “it’s on page whatever in my book,” like I usually do, but then I thought — why don’t I write something new this time, just to Read more

• 2020-10-06

  Questions for you, questions for me

  Two posts in a row! Hooray! To be honest, I miss writing in the blog. It was fun. I’ll see if I can start doing it at least once a month again. However, I will need to hold myself back from writing those long essays that took up weeks of my time. Must not get Read more

• 2018-12-28

  A little bit of history repeating

  This blog post has been moved to (and revised for) The Working with Stories Miscellany. You can find it in Chapter 19. Read more

• 2018-10-25

  Guest post – Before anything, storytelling is a conversation

  Readers: I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but I’d like to do it more often. This post was written by Juan Manuel Rodríguez Bocanegra of the Haki Storytelling blog. I am sure that you will find Juan Manuel’s insights valuable. Last year, I contacted Cynthia Kurtz and asked her to be a guest Read more

• 2018-08-27

  Story the Future summit Sept 10-30

  So a while ago I got an invitation from David Hutchens, who wrote Circle of the 9 Muses, to take part in an online summit he and some others were putting together on the future of story work. It seemed like a good thing, so I said yes. Then he asked me to tell you Read more

• 2018-05-28

  Underbutterflies are free

  About a year ago I cleaned up my old “butterflies” blog post (one of the most popular) and submitted it to the Journal on Policy and Complex Systems. After acceptance, review, and revision, the journal volume is now out, and you can read and download the improved version of the paper (or read the stand-alone Read more

• 2018-05-10

  Mail bag: On transcribing storytelling

  I’m deep in some intense (and fascinating) reading as I work on the last essays in the “Store Bought Stories” book. But the blog is hungry, so I went looking in my mail bag again. Here’s an anonymized (names and details changed) excerpt from some emails I sent recently to somebody who was working on Read more

• 2018-01-31

  Mail bag: Dimensional axes for sensemaking

  I get emails pretty regularly from people looking for a bit of focused advice on some aspect of PNI work they are doing. I almost always respond (though usually not immediately). It occurred to me the other day that most of these responses would make good blog posts. So: this is the start of a Read more

• 2017-07-18

  Togetherness

  A while back I was on a discussion list and people were talking about biological symbiosis as a metaphor for people communicating and collaborating. As a former biologist, I felt a responsibility to respond, so I wrote a sort of quick guide to sociality in the non-human world. Several people later thanked me for the Read more

• 2017-03-06

  Conference report, part five: NYSDRA and childhood trauma

  This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about two conferences I attended this fall (NCDD and NYSDRA). Now I’ll finish the series with an account of some other meetings and conferences I attended and talk about what’s coming next. (Actually, this post was supposed to complete the series, but it turns out I will Read more

• 2016-09-14

  Liminal Thinking

  So about a year and a half ago, Harold Jarche introduced me to Dave Gray, whom he met at a conference. Dave was writing a book about agility; Harold told him about my work; Dave wanted to talk. He was interviewing lots of people for his book. I said yes, and thus began a fascinating Read more

• 2016-08-05

  The neverending story of personal storytelling (part three)

  This essay is in three parts, of which this blog post is the third. Click these links for parts one and two. What Mr. Coreander’s choices tell us about personal storytelling I said above that I was going to work my way through the significant choices made by each of six functional characters in The Read more

• 2016-08-05

  The neverending story of personal storytelling (part two)

  This essay is in three parts, of which this blog post is the second. Click these links for parts one and three. What The Neverending Story tells us about personal storytelling Now that we’ve worked our way through all the elements of The Neverending Story, I think we are ready to explore what the book Read more

• 2016-08-05

  The neverending story of personal storytelling (part one)

  This essay is in three parts, of which this blog post is the first. Click these links for parts two and three. I’ve been waiting a long time to write this essay. I thought of it four or five years ago when I was writing a series of posts about natural storytelling. I never wrote Read more

• 2016-05-24

  Where is the participation in PNI?

  Here’s a thought. I saw a reference to participatory narrative inquiry recently that said it’s participatory because during the return phase of a PNI project, stories return to the community. I thought: that’s true, but the return phase isn’t the only place a PNI project can be participatory. There is a place for participation in Read more

• 2015-12-30

  It’s a great big box of chocolates (Circle of the 9 Muses)

  I just now posted this review on Amazon.com. It’s about David Hutchens’ new book about stories in organizations, Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators and Meaning Makers. I first heard about David’s book project two years ago, and I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter ever since. I’m excited to see how Read more