South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute

11/18/2025

‼️TWO WEEKS LEFT TO APPLY‼️

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Community Storytelling Fellow apply at this link: https://lnkd.in/gcYRSySb

Oral storytelling is an art that builds effective communication and leadership skills, trust, and community connections.
This opportunity is open to anyone within the Maricopa County area who want to develop and strengthen their storytelling skills.

The fellowship will include:
- Scholarship covering 6 credit hours for 2 storytelling courses - The Art of Storytelling and Using Storytelling in a Variety of Settings
- Mentorship from experienced faculty and community partners
- Opportunity to create and develop storytelling skills to build a repertoire of stories to use in your personal and professional life

Questions? Contact Melissa Soza Fees at [email protected]

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

11/13/2025

Update for the Community Storytelling Fellowship!

Dec. 1 is the new due date for applications to become a storytelling fellow at South Mountain Community College.

This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone that is interested in strengthening their storytelling skills. The fellowship will include:
- Scholarship covering 6 credit hours for 2 storytelling courses - The Art of Storytelling and Using Storytelling in a Variety of Settings
- Mentorship from experienced faculty and community partners
- Opportunity to create and develop storytelling skills to build a repertoire of stories to use in your personal and professional life

Oral storytelling is an art that builds effective communication and leadership skills, trust, and community connections.

This opportunity is open to anyone within the Maricopa County area. You don't have to be a student at SMCC, just a part of the community.

Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gcYRSySb

Questions? Contact Melissa Soza Fees at [email protected]

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

11/03/2025

What to be part of a rewarding, hands-on experience providing, storytelling training, mentorship and an opportunity to represent and serve your community through storytelling? Apply today!

08/13/2025

Friends - Have you been wanting to build your collection of personal stories? Now is the time! I'm teaching Creating and Telling Personal Stories at SMCC this fall on Wednesday evenings, starting in two weeks. You can attend virtually or in person. Need more info? LMK!

07/18/2025

Friends! Check out Melissa Fees representing the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute at the National Storytelling Network conference!https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HZuAtPhwA/

Panelists discuss storytelling performance programs in higher education at ETSY, Kennesaw State, and South Mountain Community College

04/30/2025

Last Friday, the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute held its 2025 graduation. It was a wonderful night of stories and celebration. Congratulations to all the graduates for all their hard work and commitment to the art of storytelling.

High school students from the Arizona Agricultural and Equine Center (AAEC) and the Achieving a College Education program who take concurrent college courses also earned certificates from the Storytelling Institute.

Our hope is that all the graduates will go out into the community, share their stories, and help build empathy and understanding.

04/21/2025

The SMCC Storytelling Institute will be hosting our annual graduation celebration on Friday, April 25th. This year, two people will be completing their 30-credit academic certificate in storytelling. One of them, Bryce Barraza, has written some excellent posts for the Tell Me Something Good blog over the years as he has become a storyteller. Check out this one with his recommendations for including the senses to spark imagination!

"Let's Make Magic" by Bryce Barraza

"Let’s make magic! …by using imagination! Yes, your imagination! You know, the willy-wonka-style contraption making inventions in your head. There is logic to what I’m proposing. I swear. Just follow the trail of everlasting gobstoppers.

Elizabeth Ellis explains that, as storytellers, “When we help others use their imagination, they make an image, and something magic happens.” (E. Ellis) That magic refers to the ability of story to transcend time and space. When a story is well crafted and told, the events of that story are happening in present-time, in the imagination of the audience and storyteller –regardless of when and where the story takes place."

Read the full blog at:

Let’s make magic! …by using imagination! Yes, your imagination! You know, the willy-wonka-style contraption making inventions in your head. There is logic to what I’m proposing. I swear. Just follow the trail of everlasting gobstoppers. Elizabeth Ellis explains that, as storytellers, “When w...

04/12/2025

Join us on Thursday, April 17th, at 6:30pm in the Studio Theater (PAC 725) for a night of stories and a chance to hear Sharon Gilbert talk about her stories, her process, and her life as a storyteller.

Sharon is moving, and you won't want to miss her parting Swan Song concert. She is one of those gifted storytellers who has the capacity to weave beautiful images with compelling and evocative language.

“The thread of story links everything that I do. I listen for stories, tell stories, and help others tell their stories. When developing stories, I am reminded that I am connected to timeless things: the earth, the universe, and all people."

04/09/2025

April is National Poetry month, and at the SMCC Storytelling Institute we know that poetry and stories go together like meter and rhyme! Check out this post by Joan Misek celebrating a meaningful poem.

"A Special Poem" by Joan Misek

"I started to read Irish Poems to learn some special stories. One after another and nothing rang a bell until I read “A DREAM” Beauty! Truth! I knew I’d like to share this poem: A DREAM By William Allingham."

Born in the moonlight of the lane, Quench’d in the heavy shadow again.

Schoolmates, marching as when we play’d At soldiers once—but now more staid;

Those were the strangest sight to me Who were drown’d, I knew, in the awful sea.

Read the full blog at:

I started to read Irish Poems to learn some special stories. One after another and nothing rang a bell until I read “A DREAM” Beauty! Truth! I knew I’d like to share this poem: A DREAM By William Allingham. Born in the moonlight of the lane, Quench’d in the heavy shadow again. Schoolmates, m...

04/06/2025

Need a road trip?? Come to the Miami Loco Arts Festival next weekend! The festival lasts from Friday through Sunday, but tellers from the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute will be presenting on Sunday at 1:00 pm at 411 Sullivan Street! If you come, you will hear Diana Dinshaw, Bryce Barraza, DonnaSue Martin, Michelle Cannon, Chrissy Dart, Rachelle Dart, Kate Pawlik Helm, Roxanne De La Rosa, Liz Warren, and Mark Compton. It's super casual. If you show up with a story, you could tell, too! Plus, there's great Mexican food right down the street at Guayo's El Rey!

04/06/2025

Don't miss tellers from the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute at the Desert Botanical Garden this Saturday, April 12! We will be telling stories at 11am and 1pm to engage listeners in the ideas represented in Ann Morton's Toward 2050 installation at the garden. Huge project with hundreds of individual contributions displayed in a labyrinth to engage us in thinking about our climate as we head toward 2050. Come for the stories and walk the labyrinth! Don't miss it! Tellers include Nereyda Martinez, Gloria Scheeland, Bryce Barraza, Chrissy Dart, and Mario C Avent.

04/03/2025

Tuesday was April Fools’ Day and at the SMCC Storytelling Institute we are celebrating some classic folktale fools. Check out this post from the Tell Me Something Good blog by Chrissy Dart about the classic trickster, the Mullah Nasruddin!

"The Divine in the Ordinary" by Chrissy Dart

'The divine is in the ordinary.' I cannot remember who drilled this statement into my psyche, but it resurfaced while thinking about defining what exactly is a “Sacred Story.” The divine is in the ordinary. I like that statement. Can I live my day with an openness to see the divine in the ordinary? What might that day look like? What if I live my day denying the divine in the ordinary?

https://irelandjournal.typepad.com/tell_me_something_good/2016/09/the-divine-in-the-ordinary-by-chrissy-dart.html