Stuff I found while on sabbattical

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I've been on an unplanned sabbatical for the last year. I have been dealing with personal and family issues that take most of my time and energy. Like one blogger said, "Real life intruded."

During my 'sabbatical' I came across four remarkable resources.

Shawn Coyne's Storygrid process.  For writers and story tellers of all kinds. Although designed for fiction , I think it is valuable for nonfiction and film as well.

Peter Broderick's newsletters.  His latest, How to be Unstoppable is a superb analysis of low-budget independent film making, circa 2015. He analyzes a film shot with an iPhone 5!

Susan Orlean's Skillshare Class in creative nonfiction. Orlean is a genius and probably one of the best practitioners of the insightful profile.

Tony Briggs Yoga classes. Briggs is the guy who teaches the yoga teachers. Although his teachings are strongly influenced by the time he spent with BKS Iyengar, Briggs also draws upon Taoist yoga, Chi Kung, western science and the teachings of contemporary world-class yogi's. Briggs main criteria seems to be "what works?" He teaches in Northern California.

The Future of Story in Washington DC

In an information economy, we are all story tellers.

Whether you write books, run a coffee shop, or design web pages--your business is essentially telling stories. And story telling is not easy. Fortunately, you don't have to learn this skill from scratch.

If you will be in the Washington area in August, you could do worse than spending a day listening to smart people talk about "The future of story."