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This autumn, fall for Moth Stories as we travel across the globe for our mainstages. We're excited to announce our fall lineup of storytelling shows. From New York City to Iowa City, London, Nairobi, and so many more, The Moth will be performing in a city near you, featuring a curation of true stories. The Moth mainstage shows feature five tellers who share beautiful, unbelievable, hilarious, and often powerful true stories on a common theme. Each one told reveals something new about our shared connection.
To buy your tickets or find out more about our calendar, visit themoth.org slash mainstage. We hope to see you soon. Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Gabriel Scheinert, associate producer at The Moth and your host for this episode.
There are so many different parts to The Moth. There's the podcast you're listening to right now. There's The Moth Radio Hour airing on public radio stations every week. There's workshop programs where we help communities and students and advocates all around the world craft personal stories. Our main stage events where storytellers craft their stories with Moth directors. There's so much happening here at The Moth. And then there's the open mic story slams, which are some of the coolest shows The Moth produces.
At Story Slams, people put their name in a hat, and if they are one of ten folks selected, they get to share a true, personal five-minute story on stage without notes. If you've been to a Moth Story Slam, you know there's an energy to them. None of us know what's going to be told next, and there's a great sense of togetherness and community in the audience.
Story slams are special because it's everyday people telling these stories. From teachers to scientists to actors to doctors. At the last story slam that I went to, there was a garbage collector that was still wearing his uniform from the work day. One of the things that I love most about story slams is that you become closer to the community that you're a part of.
To kick off this new year, we want to put a spotlight on these open mic moth story slams that are open to everyone and produced in cities worldwide. It may be your New Year's resolution to tell a story, or maybe it's your resolution to come out and hear local stories and support your community. Our first story is all about that. It was told by Liza Cooper at a, you guessed it, story slam in New York City. Here's Liza, live at the moth. They say that divorce is like a death sentence.
But I died during my 10-year-long marriage. The passionate, sensual, creative poet and writer was gone. And despite our bitter union, my husband and I, when we came apart, were quite amicable. We moved into a tenement building three stories apart because, after all, we had three beautiful beings between us.
our precocious eight-year-old son Liam, our beautiful Siberian husky Luna, and our sweet lap cat Pablo Neruda. And things actually went pretty well. We had 50/50 custody and our three kids went back and forth with relative ease. My ex and I got along better than we ever had before. So one night about 10 months after we split, I was home in my apartment with my young son, my elderly dad was visiting,
And I knew my ex was out on the town and that he had left our dog Luna home alone in his apartment. And I felt bad for her. I thought she'd be lonely and that she should be upstairs with us. And so I texted him that I was going to go get her. And I went downstairs and keyed open the door and the apartment was dark.
Luna started running toward me, and to my left I saw a big woman's purse. It was gaudy and garish and nothing like me. And as I was processing that, I heard a woman screaming. But it wasn't frightened screams. It was euphoric, pleasured screams. And I realized at that moment that my ex was in the shower with a woman. And a lot of feelings and emotion came to me at that time.
But the most prevailing thought was, "I want that." I want intimacy and closeness and sensuality and connection. And that in worrying about my dog's loneliness, I had discovered my own. And that night, I penned my first OKCupid online dating profile after a decade of being married. Soon after, I got an interesting note from an interesting man, and we met up.
And we liked each other. We connected. And we started dating. And we connected on a lot of different levels. Intellectual, political, emotional, and physical. It was really nice. He was a writer and a musician. And we saw each other. We got each other. And we saw the best things in each other. And we started to open up windows in the other world.
And he started to write music again, which he hadn't done in a long time. He wanted to perform on the stage, which he also hadn't done in a long time. And I started to write poetry and short stories. And I was realizing that that sensual, creative poet was coming back to life. We were even writing stories together as co-creators. It was pretty cool.
But there was something that I wanted to take him to that I had written about in my OKCupid profile. As a fellow writer and person of depth and storyteller, I wanted to take him to the Moth Storytelling Hour. And I knew he'd love it. And so I looked at the upcoming topics. And there was a topic on baggage coming up in a couple of months. And I thought that was perfect because, to be honest, I thought he had a lot of it.
So I scored us some tickets and we went to see the moth baggage here at Housing Works. And it was amazing. We loved it. And we analyzed all the stories. We had the same favorite. And afterwards, we went back to his place and we were sitting and talking. And then very suddenly, he turned to me and said, "I feel like I'm wasting your time." That hit me like a bullet. You see, because we had a few small problems, but we had one big problem.
He was a die-hard bachelor. He wasn't a fan of monogamy, much less love or long-term. And even though we shared strong feelings for each other, we both knew that I didn't need to have all those things at that particular moment, but eventually I would. And so he said that he had something else to tell me, that he loved the moth, and that, in fact, he wanted to tell a story at the moth, at the next slam.
and that it would even feature me and about why we couldn't be together. And I had that same feeling that I had standing outside my ex's bathroom door when he was in the shower. A moth story? I want that. So today I'm almost 50. I'm divorced. I have a little boy who wants to spend less and less time with me. And that creative, passionate, sensual writer and poet has returned.
And I've realized that sometimes it's the people you don't end up with that can be your biggest influence. And for 20 years, I've been sitting in the moth audience, watching other people tell their stories. And this is the first time I've had the courage to climb the moth stage and tell my own. Thank you.
That was Liza Cooper. Liza is a mom, writer, storyteller, and photographer who uses words and images to capture grief, joy, and resilience in the everyday. Outside her day job, she spends time helping women over 50 find love as a dating coach.
Story slams happen all over, from New York to New Orleans, from London to Louisville, from Melbourne to Michigan. If you want to see a list of the upcoming story slams, the full list of cities, dates, and themes is at themoth.org/events. We'll also have a link in the episode description. Another great thing about these story slams is that you don't have to tell a story. About 90% of the audience comes just to listen.
We do allow the audience to participate by filling out anonymous answers to the question of the night. At a recent Story Slam here in Brooklyn, the theme was "Confessions." And the question of the night was, "What was a time you did or did not spill the beans?" An anonymous patron wrote in and answered, "The person sitting next to me has no idea I bought them a diamond ring last week. I've never seen so many partners turn to their significant others in disbelief."
Our next storyteller is Jim Winship. He told this at a Story Slam in Madison, Wisconsin. Here's Jim, live at the Moth. When my dad died, it was neither a tragedy nor unexpected. He was 88 and had a good and a full life. But the last year had been hard, both for him and for his family. And when he died, it was a little bit of relief, but it hit me harder than I thought it would. So a couple of days after the funeral,
I asked my brother if we could go to Carter Fold. Now we live here in Wisconsin and I grew up in Bristol, Tennessee where my family lived and my brother and sister still do. So my brother said yes and so we drove to Carter Fold. Now Carter Fold is the music venue that the children of A.J. Carter founded. A.J. Carter who collected the first kind of folk songs and pressed and produced the first country music album in 1923.
And so, I'd never been there, but mostly I just wanted to spend time with my brother. So on a late Saturday afternoon we drove up. It was 20 miles if the crow was flying straight, 22 miles on those windy roads, and about 45 minutes to get there. And on the way up we didn't talk much. It was like sorrow and sadness were also riding with us in the car.
But then we get to Carter Folt and it's amazing. It's unlike any music venue I've ever seen. So there's this old kind of country house and they've got a deck built on back and that's the stage. And then the hill slopes down and that's where people sit. And if you get there early, you get the good seats, which are bench seats that have been taken out of old trucks and put right in front of the stage.
And everybody else sits on kind of benches. So they take these logs and they push them into the ground and they put 12-inch planks and they nail those down and then carpet squares on top. So we're sitting there and the music, it's either bluegrass or old-time music. I don't know if you know what old-time music is. It's bluegrass without the banjo.
So there was a group that was going to be playing. I didn't really care who it was. I just really wanted to go and spend the time with my brother. But about 15 minutes before the show's going to start, some people start pulling amplifiers up on stage, and there's this kind of buzz that goes through the audience. And I look at my brother, and he's got this little smile on his face, but he's just shaking his head like he's not going to tell me what's going on.
I found out later that they're pretty much purists and almost nobody gets to plug in there. And then Jeanette Carter comes on stage, one of A.J. Carter's daughters. She's an imposing figure, you know. She's farm woman strong. And she welcomes us and she thanks us all for coming there and about how this really is kind of helping keeping mountain music alive and thriving. And then she pauses and then she says, "I want to welcome another guest here."
He's a friend of Carter Fold, a special friend of the family, and she kind of steps back. And a man walks slowly up to the microphone and says, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." Holy shit! I'm 40 feet away from Johnny Cash! So Johnny sings "Big River," and then he calls June out.
And June Carter Cash comes out. I mean, this woman's a goddess. And they sing Ring of Fire. And after they do that, Johnny says, "You know that part that has the Mexican trumpets? That came to me in a dream." And then June steps back, and Johnny pulls a chair up to the microphone and lowers it down and gets his guitar and sits down and says, "Bruce Springsteen sings one of my songs in concert, so I thought I'd sing one of his."
And so he sings "Highway Patrolman." It's a story song about brothers and about one of them who's a police officer, kind of puts his job aside to let his brother go free. The chorus, you know, "Me and Frankie were brothers, nothing stronger than blood on blood, taking turns dancing with Maria while the band played night of Johnstown flood."
So we're sitting there and we're listening to him, and I don't know how we happened to all be there that night. It was the first time I ever went to Carter Fold, not the last, the first time I'd been, and it was the last time Johnny Cash played there. He died in the following year. But that evening, as he was playing and singing, it seemed like sorrow and sadness just kind of faded away into the background, giving us some space to breathe.
As my brother Dave and I sat there on those planks, singing along softly, nothing stronger than blood on blood. That was Jim Winship. Jim is a documentary filmmaker, a social worker and retired social work professor, and an oral and digital storyteller. That's it for this episode. We'd love for you to join us at an upcoming Open Mic Story Slam. Throw your name in the hat for a chance to tell a story, or just come to listen. Every storyteller needs a listener.
For locations and dates of all our Moth Story Slams and all our other shows, just visit themoth.org slash events. From all of us here at The Moth, we hope to see you and hear your story soon. Gabriel Scheinert is an associate producer at The Moth who will not let you forget he's from Miami, even though he's from Broward. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Ginesse, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Sollinger.
The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Cloutier, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leigh-Anne Gulley, and Aldi Casa. The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org slash giveback.
All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the public radio exchange. Helping make public radio more public at prx.org.
