I‘m in, are you?
I know a bunch of storytellers who are more than just in, they’re all over IT.
“IT” is the mess that the patriarchy has created.
We’re pissed and we’re over IT. We’re here to create something new.
Will there be angry stories telling of the inequality we’ve endured for millennia?
Will we talk about the horrifying threat of the withdrawal of our right to bodily autonomy? Our RIGHT to VOTE? Talk about patriarchal. These rights we’ve been granted by daddy. As if we need permission to exist and thrive and pursue our dreams.
Will there be hopeful stories about what’s possible? The old dog-eat-dog, every man for himself nonsense has got to stop.
Will we talk about how patriarchy has systematically destroyed the planet, creating one war after another and leaving absolutely nothing good in its wake? Nothing except death, homelessness, starvation, trauma, ruined towns and cities, and the acquisition of what isn’t ours to take?
Will there be a story or two about unusual parents, decades ago, who empowered their daughters to aim high and go after their dreams instead of doing what everyone else does, because it’s expected by virtue of our sex?
Will we talk about how we can raise girls and boys as equals, supporting creativity, encouraging strength and gentleness, heart and vulnerability?
Will there be laughter? I’m planning on it. Whether it’s laughter that turns to tears, or tears that yield laughter, we’ll be together sharing the stories of our lives.
We won’t know what will be revealed until June 20th, so get your ticket and attend our next slam.
If you haven’t been to one yet, this is an opportunity to see what we’re made of.
At Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam!, we don’t disappoint.
Come hear these stories. The slams come packaged with all the feelings. There may even be a couple you haven’t felt before.
If you couldn’t make the last one, here we are. Again!
And, we’ll be here for every month that follows.
We’re already planning our 2027 theme calendar.
If you feel the urge to join us on our virtual stage, to tell your story AND you have a Substack publication, you can sign up for a slam.
Storytellers
Mel Moseley is a storyteller, writer, actor, musician, mosaic/mixed-media artist, and fledgling witch at Mel’s Messy Love Lab. She lives with her black cat, Shadow, mostly off-grid in Fiddletown, CA. If you want to collaborate with her, the project has to include play, community, and creativity and Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! passes the litmus test!
Socially awkward, overthinking misfit who’s 6-word story was “found an island; burned a bridge” for most of her life. Turns out she’s a late bloomer and now she’s burning down a lifetime of shame and guilt by telling true stories live onstage. She co-founded In a Nutshell Storytelling, WILDCARD story swap, and the Nutshell True Story Hour podcast because, and I quote: “FUCK YOU, MOM!”
Carrie Kaufman is a journalist, radio host, performer, pain-in-the-ass mouthy woman. She has done a lot, achieved a fair amount, and has little money to show for it. But she does have two kick-ass daughters who know their worth.
Dana is the author of The Uncluttered Mother. Since midlife, she has been discovering more and more things to let go of, including outdated beliefs and pesky self-sabotage.
Dina is an American abroad, currently hanging her hat in the shadow of the Berlin wall. She writes books, essays, and excellent birthday cards. Her sub, American Woman, is home to essays about all things feminine. Meet her there and she’ll tell you a story.
Jane McGuinness is an author, registered psychotherapist, hiker, and former 1950s housewife who decided to set her world on fire beginning with her divorce. The blaze continues to burn this summer as this intrepid Aussie packs her life into a storage unit and sets out across the globe in search of adventure.
An essayist, sometime podcaster, and debut storyteller, Jane focuses on topics around aging, but in her head, she is younger than springtime.
Amy is normally a peace-loving proponent of non-violent conflict resolution, except in the case of patriarchy, which should be killed like the motherf*cker that it is. While Amy’s preferred method of murder is by pithy satire, she proactively pleads the fifth, requests a lawyer and has an alibi. When she isn’t causing mischief and mayhem, Amy can be found writing at her kitchen table or doing a livestream to promote her new memoir, Widow in the City, A Memoir of Heartbreaks and Hookups. Available in our Wham! Bam! Bookshop, on Amazon or wherever you prefer to purchase your books.
Professor Meredith is a historian, writer, and professional overthinker who spends an alarming amount of time yelling about gender, politics, and pop culture. When she’s not ruining nostalgic myths for the public good, she can usually be found talking about Star Trek, Taylor Swift, or why the past is never as dead as people keep insisting.
Author, activist, and journalist. Author of Rage Becomes Her, The Resilience Myth and the newly released, All We Want is Everything. Would rather laugh and dance than cry. Petty is my middle name.
Susan Kacvinsky is a modern mythologist flying her broomstick through the compost heap of the collective unconscious, gathering our most outrageous stories, and showing how they become our personal experience of life, and of course, the news. You know: our worldview. She can frequently be heard muttering: “How on earth do we still believe this shit?”
TerriSunflower, a singer-songwriter and lover of words, waxes poetic on her Substack to muse and prattle on much longer than the average 3 minute song allows. Her songs, poetry, and stories capture her sense of place as a desert dweller, of coming out later in life, finding love and loss, the patriarchy and protest as well as such things as humoring the illusive need for rest and mastering menopause (as if!!).
Wyrd Sister has PhDs in feminist ranting, whimsical decorative cake theory, and procrastination with a minor in circumlocutionary storytelling (via the generous use of em dashes, Melvillian tangents––including parenthetical asides––and footnotes). She enjoys wearing pajamas in the afternoon and repeatedly reheating her forgotten half-finished decaf tea throughout the day while she writes. She lives alone (half the time) with her collection of malnourished houseplants (and the rest of the time with a feral 8-year-old boy).
Nan Tepper is the creator of Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! She’s memoirist-in-chief at The Next Write Thing. She styles stacks for writers on the Substack platform. She’s living her creative dreams, writing, designing, and being a kosher ham on stage. She recently discovered that she’s lusted for the spotlight since childhood, so now she’s making up for lost time! What’s your story?
Be a paid subscriber, because…
or you can buy a ticket for this slam.
Help this project grow by spreading the word. There’s more than one way to support Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! You can buy a ticket to the show or become a paid subscriber (you get in to the live show for free). Or you can sign up to tell a story.
We obtained a fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas. Direct donations made in WBTYS’s name are tax deductible as permissible by law in the U.S.
Law? Do we still have that here?
The last few slam replays:
