Those who know me from before this blog started already know of my partner, Sage Tyrtle. However, for those of you who’ve just met me let me tell you a bit about her.

I met Sage online back in 1991 and after a very short time we ended up living together. (I’m deliberately being vague here – there’s a story on the way about that…). Together we’ve had a fairly odd life, living in a yurt in the woods for a while, homeschooling, and eventually immigrating to Canada from the US, making good on our promise that “If the Republicans get any worse, we’re moving to Canada.  She had a podcast for several years called Quirky Nomads and eventually simply the QN podcast.   In the past several years, though, she’s been a professional storyteller, telling true stories live and on the CBC and NPR as well as teaching others how to tell stories at places like Second City and now on her own.  She also teaches storytelling at Seneca College. It was this job, where she heard so many great stories from her students that gave her the idea to share others’ stories in a live show: High Stakes Storytelling.

Now, Sage has begun podcasting again – this time she’ll be sharing her own stories as well as others at the High Stakes Storytelling Podcast.  There are ten episodes waiting for you here.

Here’s a little taste of what you’ll hear:

• A true story from Jess Beaulieu. Her choice of a fake name gives her secret powers.
• My Sister’s Golden Hair, a true story by Roya. When girls were barred from school, her father cut her hair like a boy’s. From the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, read by Brand Gamblin with permission.
• Duck and Cover: There was so much that was terrifying about growing up in the 1950s, in the United States, but the “Duck and Cover” idea had to be one of the scariest. Sage’s mom, Kite, was born in 1946. By the time she was in elementary school, “Duck and Cover” was in full swing. She was one of many kids who knew it had to be absolute nonsense.
• Kate Southey tells the story of her mother in law, who discovered ten minutes after arriving that moving to Africa to save her marriage was the biggest mistake of her life.
• 1970’s Online Love: Sydney Bacon lived to be 105 years old. I met Sydney when he was 102 and was astonished to hear his bold voice unchanged by the years. Today, a true story he recorded when he was a young man of 85. Find out what online dating looked like in the mid-seventies.
• And many more – go visit the site to listen to them all and subscribe.