JANUARY 2015
Karen Genelly
I have always loved to tell stories. I am a native Chicagoan who grew up on the north side of the city and even though I have traveled a lot I always return home to Chicago. I have spent my professional life as a teacher and a counselor working for the Chicago Public Schools. My time with CPS can be described as the best of times and the worst of times-the best being the kids and the worst being Rahm Emanuel. As much as I loved teaching and being a counselor last year I decided to broaden my horizons and to test my abilities in other areas, such as storytelling, so I retired from CPS. So far it has been a great year learning new things and traveling the world. I've learned there is life outside the public schools and in India that getting on and off a camel can be a tricky business.
April Hiller
Don’t be fooled by April Hiller’s pasty white complexion – she’s actually a recent transplant from San Diego, California, which is why most of her stories take place there. By day, April is a technical editor and writer for an industry you’ve never heard of and is kind of hard to explain. By night, she can be found at different venues around Chicago telling stories, most of which make you glad you’re not her. She also loves Corgis to the point of obsession. (Like, seriously, it’s becoming a problem).
Kenny Kelly
Kenny Kelly was born and raised in Northern California and studied English Literature at Chico State. He is currently a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago working on an MFA in Fiction Writing. He is also a graduate of The iO Theater's improv program and has performed at various theaters and bars (mostly bars) around Chicago. His fiction has appeared in Watershed Review and in the dumpsters outside Ploughshares.
Heather Mangan
Heather Mangan used to lie awake at night telling stories out loud to the dark room. Her brothers often pounded through the wall to tell her to shut up and she aggressively responded, “I am practicing for Oprah!” Heather is originally from South Dakota and moved to Chicago seven months ago to take a writing position with a service organization. A former journalist, she has a terrible habit of making everyone she meets recount his or her life story. But she also likes to tell her own story, you know, in case Oprah ever wants to chat.
Amy Merrick
Amy Merrick is a writer and teacher in Chicago. Her work has appeared in the Poynter Institute’s Best Newspaper Writing series, the New Yorker online, the Wall Street Journal, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. She performed at last year's Side Project Theatre Storytelling Festival.
John Park
John Park is a Chicago based writer, cartoonist, and filmmaker. He has had stories read and published online and is currently working on a comic book where animals where suits and work real jobs.
FEBRUARY 2015
Mackenzie Boyer
Mackenzie was born to tell stories. At a mere five years old, she hosted "The Big Max Show" in her grandmother's living room in Texas. She managed to make her late night (7 pm) talk show a hit despite the lack of guests or lights or cameras or transitions between thoughts. All she needed was the attention of her extremely patient and supportive family members. Years and years and years later, at 23 years old, she has moved past the fame and glory of The Big Max show and has moved herself up to Chicago- exploring various other methods of sharing stories; screenwriting, sketch writing, stand up comedy, and now just straight up Storytelling. She is quite enthused for her Story Lab debut and hopes that this Chicago audience finds her stories as compelling as her family pretended to.
Dan Frysinger
Dan is a passionate environmentalist, design strategist, and occasional unicyclist. In the winter you can find him cross-country skiing, ice sailing, and exploring ice caves. Professionally, Dan helps create new products and solve social issues by taking a human-centered design approach. As design strategist, Dan draws from research to develop insights that guide design teams in creating concepts. In the end, Dan is determined to create solutions that actually respond to the user and business/community needs. Outside of winter sports and design strategy, Dan can be found unicycling, juggling, or playing carillon.
Nestor Gomez
Nestor Gomez was born in Guatemala and moved with his family to the United States in the mid eighties. One of his passions is collaborating with T-shirt illustrators around the world. His design ideas have been printed by Threadless, Shirt-woot and other T-shirt companies. Nestor also enjoys dancing to Latin music, having taken classes at Latin Rhythms, Latin Street, MMA and having participated in Modern Clave dance company. He is an avid reader and self-taught poet who happened upon the storytelling community a few months ago. Since then, he has participated in several storytelling events around the city. He also has organized his own storytelling event Voces ( stories with a Latino flair) and co-hosted Do Not Submit with Scott Whitehair and the Stoop with Lily Be. He can also be found at his day job as Quality Control at S&C Electric and walking his Pit Bull dogs with his girlfriend in Edgewater. If you are lucky you might find yourself being driven around the city by Nestor as he drives under Uber and Lyft during the weekends, where you might unknowingly become a subject of one his stories. Above all Nestor's biggest passion is his family.
Lisa Kampwirth
Lisa Kampwirth is an early childhood educator from Chicago. Although she gives workshops on how to help young children tell stories, it never occurred to her to tell her own stories until a few months ago. She took a class thinking it was about children’s stories, and it turned out she had to tell her own. Now she is hooked, and her stories are definitely not for children.
Ray Teresi
Ray Teresi is a enthusiastic story collector and sometimes storyteller who believes in the power of stories to transform lives. Since entering the Chicago storytelling scene over a year ago, He has enthusiastically lent his support in many ways to the storytelling community and is now co-producing a storytelling series called Storytelling: Missionary Style, a charitable event that has some of Chicago’s finest storytellers and takes them beyond the city boundaries to spread their art far and wide. When not concentrating on storytelling Ray spends his time working at WBEZ as the Membership Coordinator: Pledge Drive Producer and on NPR’s ‘Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me’ as Volunteer Coordinator for the live show in Chicago. He also produces a segment called “On Location” for the Chicago arts & entertainment podcast fuse:chicago where he focuses on telling people’s stories. Ray lives in Lincoln Park with his black & white cat Audrey.
Tyler Prinz
Tyler B. Prinz is an actor, solo performer, and writer. Prinz has a theatre and performance background, where he focuses primarily in solo performance. Prinz has performed with Chicago's The Public House Theatre with their monthly installment of Share-a-Show, where he performed his solo performance piece "Satisfaction". Also, he has performed his full-length solo performance show "Mental Furniture" at the 2014 United Solo Theatre Festival in NYC, at an LGBTQ based organization in Naperville, and originally in Savannah, Georgia. This is his first time with Story Lab and is excited about it. You can check out his website at:www.tylerbprinz.com
MARCH 2015
Amanda Claire Buckley
Amanda Claire Buckley is a writer and composer whose work--which ranges from political essays to comedic operas--has been performed and published in Chicago, New York, Vermont, London, and Italy. She is currently a company member and marketing director for Off-Color Comedy and works as a Social Media Assistant for the Chicago Writers Conference. Currently, she is a writer for "In Fraud we Trust: The Live-Action Sitcom" going up at Stage 773 this April and her play "The Out of Tooners" will be performed this summer at Capital Fringe in Washington, DC.
Kristin Klade
Kristin Reed Klade is a local Lutheran seminary student from Fort Worth, TX, and is finishing her 4th and final year this May. She once dreamed of being a ballet dancer and studied dance for most of her life. Now she moonlights as a ballet and contemporary dance teacher and at a couple studios in the Chicago area and adores her 8-18 year old students. Kristin fell in love with religious studies in college at the University of Oklahoma and is now pursuing her Master of Divinity degree with an emphasis in interfaith dialogue at the Lutheran School of Theology in Hype Park. On that note, she'll never say no to a good Iftar dinner. Her most recent side-job has been working as a chaplain and as a perinatal bereavement counselor at a hospital in the west burbs. She currently lives in La Grange Park with her husband, John, and their beautiful Saint Bernard mix, Shirley. Kristin is a pretty positive person, but if you want to see a different side of her: say something stereotypical about Texans... I dare you.
Mac MacDevitt
Since moving to Chicago last year from a small town in the Adirondacks he has plunged into life in the urban wonderland of the Second City with both feet. He is riding his bike in city traffic, building furniture as a member of at Pumping Station: One, fixing two wheelers at the Recyclery and Working Bikes, and singing his heart out with the sea shanty rowdies at the Atlantic Bar and Grill. He is splashing around in storytelling and buoyed up by the support and deep friendship he has with the kindred spirits in his story telling class.
Gail Patejunas
Gail works as a copy editor in a big ad agency and wishes she were as perfect as she insists others be. A Chicago native, she was raised a Cub fan in the heart of White Sox territory; her mother taught her about sports; her dad taught her how to sew. Gail enjoys playing ukulele and drawing, and she can be found dancing all across the country (although she will admit that flying is faster). Her first true, personal story, written with a fat pencil in the second grade, was about how her pet toad “Bitsy” would glow in the dark after she fed it fireflies. Tonight’s story is her first told in front of a live audience, and she’s hoping it’ll leave a little something in you.
Christine Sisson
East coast by birth and Chicagoan since the early aughts, Christine has worked among designers in various roles that have taken her from High Point, North Carolina, to Prague. She is currently a knowledge manager at an architecture firm, but spends her free time cycling, scouring estate sales and coveting shiny objects and geometric patterns. This is her first live storytelling experience.
APRIL 2015
Kelly Connell
Kelly J. Connell M.S.Ed., C.A.S.H.S.E. has a Master’s Degree in Human Sexuality Education from the University of Pennsylvania and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Human Sexuality Education from Widener University, which means she completed everything for her PhD including her dissertation proposal and then ran out of money. She has many years as a sex educator, counselor and consultant under her belt and has taught sex education to just about everyone from 12 year old kids to people in their 90’s. Kelly works a lot with persons with chronic illness/disability and health care providers but has resolved to never miss an opportunity to talk about sex. She is the Owner and CEO of Kelly Connell Consulting which offers sexuality education, counseling and consulting services Educator, public speaker, wedding officiant and more, Kelly’s alter ego SexpertKelly comes out at night to host Sex Trivia. Check her out on Facebook www.facebook.com/pages.sexpertkelly Or follow her on twitter @sexpertkelly
erica dreisbach
erica dreisbach is an artist, writer, and coder in Chicago. She doesn't make meaningful distinctions between art, writing, and code. Her recent projects include: a Game of Thrones recap series on YouTube, a monthly blog review of the Harper's cryptic crossword puzzle, a slam poetry Midwest mini-tour in April 2015, and improv classes at Second City. Learn more about her work and upcoming performances at ericaricardo.com and on Twitter @ericaricardo.
Kim Nelson
Kim Nelson is a writer/performer, retired roller derby skater, avid camper & kayaker, and parent to three rescue animals. A graduate of Columbia College, she has lived in Chicago for the last 18 years. Kim has performed sketch comedy at Donny's Skybox and stand up and storytelling with The Kates. She is also an original member/regular contributor of DrinkersWithWritingProblems, a literary blog based out of Chicago. You can follow her on Twitter @ponytailup.
Jill Schacter
Jill Schacter is a writer and communications professional who works in a Chicago area public library. On her breaks, she can be found roaming the stacks. Every day she takes out books and every day she brings a few back. Jill has written extensively about the healing power of writing on her blog: The Heartbreak Diary. She is a highly experienced widow and a single parent and some of her stories are about death and cancer, so watch out. If you're lucky, you might get a happy tale! For example, a bed without a partner has lots of room to store books.
Jonathan Schmierer
Jonathan Schmierer grew up in California, but has lived in Oregon, the Czech Republic and Ethiopia. He moved the Chicago just in time for winter 1 1/2 years ago. He works in Global Health and travels around the world organizing medical trainings. He has also worked as a wilderness ranger, a peace corps volunteer, rental car manager, motel maid, and assistant manager at a theatre. His free time is spent drinking cider, meeting people and discussing ideas.
MAY 2015
Nancy Brown
Nancy has been a fan of storytelling for many years. She has three adult children and three grandchildren who are the love of her life. She is an inclusion advocate for individuals with disabilities and has a consulting/public speaking organization with her daughter Bridget who has Down Syndrome. Nancy also oversees a free summer camp for children with limited resources. She loves the outdoors and her favorite time is sitting around a campfire with friends and family listening to stories and telling stories. She has often been told that she could be a professional laugher!
Michael Grossman
I moved to Chicago 4 1/2 years ago to study religion at UChicago. Since then I've done some odd jobs, mostly adjuncting writing and philosophy at community college. I'm headed to law school next year, though I'm still not sure which one. I live in a co-op on the south side and am excited to be performing in my first show.
Christina Kolski
Christina Kolski is a lifelong Chicagoan of Mexican and Polish descent and has coined the phrase “Polican” to describe herself. A School Social Worker with Chicago Public Schools for 11 years, she hears some of the most heart-breaking and heart-warming stories. She is fortunate enough to have two passions in life – working with youth and performing. A theatre and psychology major at the University of Notre Dame, Christina realized the two areas weren’t so unrelated – they both involved an understanding of people, though she admits she is still trying to “figure out people.” After undergrad, she went on to receive her Masters in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Christina is a big I Love Lucy fan with a dog, Desi named from Desi Arnaz.
Sami Nerenberg
Sami Nerenberg is one of seven siblings born to hippy parents. Her father is a champion powerlifting jewish psychologist and her mom helped ignite the car-sharing movement in the 90's in San Francisco. Despite being responsible, adventure is in Sami's DNA. She's been an extra in a Nepalese film, a model in Mexico while apprenticing as a wood-worker and once spent the night in an airport bathroom on a blow-up queen sized mattress. During the day, Sami runs Design for America, a national student organization that tackles social issues through design.
JUNE 2015
Mario Contreras
Mario is a documentary filmmaker, photographer and teacher at Harper College. You can find his work online at The CG Project and Sixty Inches from Center. The next installment of his webseries, My Father's Knee, will come out this fall. He's also editing digital content for the Brave New Voices live poetry competition in Atlanta next month.
Jeanne Lambin
Originally, from Chicago, now living in Hong Kong, Jeanne left her lucrative career in historic preservation to pursue a new one in storytelling, improvisation and writing. She has told stories, written and done improv in all sorts of places, some sanctioned, some not. Jeanne is a co-organizer of Hong Kong Storytellers. Most recently, her work has been featured in the Hong Kong’s Top Notch Storytelling Festival, Liar’s League, Mamagushi Shanghai, Literary Death Match and the Art’s House World Voices Presents. When not working, she enjoys travel, reading, kayaking, hiking and running, not necessarily in that order or at the same time.
Susan Fruth
Susan hails from the near west suburbs of Chicago, but because she's walking distance to the green line, claims she's really from Chicago. She studied vocal performance in college, and although she loves to perform in front of a crowd, please don't ask her to "just sing something right now." But she will gladly take requests after a beer or two. Currently she has a lovely day job at the University of Chicago that allows her to pay for things like food, housing, races (mostly for the free tee-shirts), and transportation to all the wonderful opportunities to embrace her creative nature.
Kimmy Higgenbotham
Kimmy Higginbotham is a West Virginia born actress and artist who has been living in Chicago for the past 5 years. She studied theatre at Fairmont State University, The Conservatory of Stella Adler in NYC, and The Conservatory at Act One Studios in Chicago. She is currently taking classes to join the Chicago Roller Derby scene, and working for a staging company, and auditioning her butt off. Kimmy has a collection of ever-growing lists that never get finished, speaks nothing fluently, and owns no fewer than four guitars, a keyboard, and a flute, but unfortunately, owns no musical talent. It should be mentioned that her bike is also completely useless, as she also has no talent for things that require balance. What she does have talent for is being a lifelong student who is always trying to learn new things, being the coolest aunt in the entire world to her seven nieces and nephews, acting, painting, drinking whiskey, quoting Gilmore Girls, Scrubs, and every song she's ever heard, eating nachos, MAKING lists, and dancing like an idiot while giving exactly zero fucks. Telling stories is something she'd like to add to her list of talents.
Joe Lambin
Joe Lambin grew up in Chicago and studied history and dead languages at UIC. He now lives with his family and pets in the wilds of Racine, Wisconsin. Following a Guitar Craft workshop, he played with the Chicago Guitar Ensemble, and still plays the guitar and piano. Restless soul that he is, he has recently taken up running, and has slogged his way through a few marathons. He also expends that restless energy on family hikes in state parks and re-learning dead languages. This will be his first official storytelling performance.
Lisa Maggiore
Lisa Maggiore is the author of a children’s picture book, Ava the Monster Slayer: A Warrior Who Wears Glasses (SkyHorse Publishing Fall/2015) and a fiction short story, Pinterest Saved My Marriage. Lisa is a hybrid author (and you thought that title was only for cars) and is working on other awesome writing projects for traditional and self publishing. Before her writing career, Lisa was a social worker for twenty years. Lisa is a Chicago native and resides in the Irving Park neighborhood with her husband and four children.
JULY 2015
Amelia Aldred
Amelia Aldred was raised by a folksinger and a lawyer in southern Indiana, leaving her with incurable sincerity and the need to check facts. She lives in Chicago, IL, runs two rag-tag writing groups, and is a foot soldier in the war of the Oxford comma. Learn more atwww.ameliaaldred.com
Elizabeth Cambridge
Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio Elizabeth has lived in Chicago for 6 years. She originally came to Chicago for the food and to attend school but stayed because of the great performance atmosphere. She is heavily inspired by RuPaul and hosts a weekly podcast called Random Conversations with Elizabeth.
Lena Krause
A New Jersey native, Lena attended Northwestern University where she studied theatre, French and Arabic. She recently returned from teaching English for a year in France and in September will be leaving to study oral storytelling and education in Morocco with a Fulbright research grant. In the meantime, she's soaking up all the city has to offer: mostly biking, eating and scoping out as many music and theatre events as possible. She's excited to one day call Chicago home.
Enid Muñoz
Enid Muñoz is the first Illinois native in her family line. This means she learned never to put ketchup on a taco nor a hotdog. She moved to Chicago 4 years ago and hasn't looked back. Except for when her mom invites her to eat tamales. She became a Theatre graduate a year ago and since then has stayed busy performing and writing. Most recently she has taken up capoeira. Beware, she can kick over your head.
Wesley Ringfelt
Wesley Ringfelt is a husband to his wife, a son to his parents, a brother to his....brother, and a servant to his dog. He teaches high school English and sometimes people laugh at things he does. He often sees the good in people and really, truly believes he's better at Connect Four and Wheel of Fortune than anyone he's ever met.
Andrew Rios
Andrew Rios is the co-founder of Yost & Rios Enterprises, Inc. and publisher of Golf+Life+Business the digital golf and business lifestyle publication. He is currently working with social enterprise partners The Chi Chi Rodriguez Academy and Midwest Association of Golf Course Superintendents. He previously worked with Mark W. Travis on Life Stories. Mark Travis is regarded by many in Hollywood to be one of the world’s leading authorities in the art and craft of film directing. He previously worked with Julie Hudash, the Founder and CEO of Team Kids, which is an Orange County, CA based nonprofit that runs school-based community service learning programs. He was also mentored by Candace Silvers of Candace Silvers Studios.
Jen Roehm
Jen Roehm is an actor, performer, and occasional writer based here in Chicago. She originally hails from the small town of Clinton, Indiana. She has performed with Chicago-based theatre companies such as Curious Theatre Branch, Jackalope Theatre Company, The Right Brain Project and is a proud company member of The Ruckus. Her regional theatre credits include The Human Race Theatre Company and Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati.
AUGUST 2015
Rich Aspell
Rich Aspell has been seen telling stories on stage in the far south suburbs at Homewood Stories, at Rosa's Lounge for Stoop Stories with Lily B and Clarence Browley, and at the Black Rock Pub after taking one of Scott Whitehair's most excellent classes. He has recorded for Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic, you may remember him from his epic performance in "Introduction to College Microbiology". In real life he is as white bread as a man can be, a suburban dentist, but he hopes to overcome that someday through structured play and merriment.
Shelby Bower
Shelby grew up in lots of different countries and lived in lots of East Coast cities until landing in Chicago just over ten years ago with her two kids, Camille, 15, and Jackson, 13. By day she organizes everything for everyone on many screen sizes, and in her spare time you can catch her carting her kids around Oak Park, in the Chicago Fringe Festival with the League of Miscreants, or making barbecue with her team, Beer & Smoking in Las Vegas. She has a love for ridiculous hats and always uses the word "sparkly fun" before everything she googles. She credits her kids and friends with helping her to live a life interesting enough to get her up here to tell you a story about it.
Amy Chick
Amy Chick isn’t exactly a storyteller by choice. Instead, she stumbles into ridiculous, often funny situations that turn into stories that beg to be told. Amy is a fundraiser by profession, but a people-loving, over-sharing, awkward, up-for-anything goofball by passion. Her work can be seen in the inboxes of long-distance friends, notes taped to her refrigerator and, most notably, in the 2008 and 2009 editions of Naperville Central High School’s Flight yearbook. Amy lives in Chicago with her husband and their four-and-a-half bikes.
Dan Frysinger
Dan is a passionate environmentalist, design strategist, and occasional unicyclist. In the winter you can find him cross-country skiing, ice sailing, and exploring ice caves. Professionally, Dan helps create new products and solve social issues by taking a human-centered design approach. As design strategist, Dan draws from research to develop insights that guide design teams in creating concepts. In the end, Dan is determined to create solutions that actually respond to the user and business/community needs. Outside of winter sports and design strategy, Dan can be found unicycling, juggling, or playing carillon.
Mikee Pourhaudi
Mikee is a semi-recent college graduate who has yet to use his college degree to any significant end. Born near Chicago, and having lived within city limits for near six years, he's beginning to feel a little restless and hopes to start new adventures in new cities relatively soon. He plays drums, and loves to create music in his free time, secretly hoping that one day someone will pay him in real currency for his musical services. He's not good at telling stories. Please bear with him.
Marnie Shure
Marnie Shure is a Chicago-area native who is unlikely/unwilling to ever dislodge herself from the Midwest. Marnie studied poetry and French at Knox College, allowed her poetry and French to fall into disuse, spent some time in a surprisingly rewarding gig at a transcription agency, and now serves on the editorial team of The Onion. While writing and performing are among Marnie's chief interests, she has never presented any of her stories to an audience without holding a reassuring sheet of paper in her hands.
SEPTEMBER 2015
Anna Besmann
Anna Besmann came from Tennessee to Chicago for school and stayed for lack of anything better to do. She holds a Master's Degree in Social Sciences by way of convincing the University of Chicago to buy her a Nintendo 64 and has published a paper about human/computer social interaction. Her use of video games for global mind control purposes is forthcoming. She also holds a trophy mask in the Ink and Blood Writing Duels for a frantic ten minutes of live writing about dinosaur noir. Anna has a predilection for noticing oddities and runs "The City of Wind" photoblog, chronicling the odd sights and occurrences of Chicago living. She holds approximate knowledge of many things.
Jordi Blythe
Jordi Blythe is a native northwest suburbs of Chicagoan who is soon to be LA bound. She has no real responsibilities currently aside from feeding her 2 cats and even that she often forgets to do. You can find her reading on trains and asking people what they're reading right now. Because this book she just started is really good and she thinks you'd really like the narrative and in depth character description. She'll let you borrow it when she's done.
Paul Conrad
I moved to the northwest suburbs last summer from Kansas. I work as an engineer for a construction materials company, and I fill my spare time with volunteer voiceover work, churching like a boss, writing never-to-be-published-under-pain-of-death poetry and fiction, and hiking every chance I get. I'm 27 years old, but I've had official residency in seven states since the start of my professional career, met a ton of people, and had quite a few unconventional life experiences.
Steve Coombs
Steve Coombs grew up in Detroit in a big Catholic family. He was an altar boy at St. Mary’s, but came out unscathed. He claims to no musical, writing or artistic talents. Steve works as a Risk Manager by day and a risk taker by night. He is “left brain” dominated. He enjoys analyzing anything and everything involving numbers. Just last night, while walking to a party on Ashland Ave., he calculated the number of cars parked illegally in all of Chicago at that hour. In his spare time he flies airplanes and samples craft beer. But not at the same time. Give him a nice round of applause, as he surely will be measuring the decibel level here and comparing it to the last venue he shared a story at.
Sean Ewert
Sean Ewert is a Chicago actor, writer and puppeteer. He has performed his stories at Links Hall,Oracle Productions "B" Sides, Reading Under The Influence and The Chicago Mammals. Sean is an avid traveler, taking his first airplane ride at three years old. Originally from Los Angeles, he has lived in more cities and apartments than he can remember. For example, his six year college career spanned three presidents, three cities, two states, five cars and he lost a full head of hair in the process. Sean recently appeared in "The Anyway Cabaret" with TUTA Theatre (where he is a company member) and "The Walk Across America For Mother Earth" with Red Tape Theater/Steppenwolf Garage Rep. Many thanks to the fantastic Scott Whitehair for his amazing classes. Love to John and new dog rescue, Pilot.
Hallie Rosen
Hallie Rosen is part Jersey girl - part Valley girl having spent her childhood years equally in both New Jersey and California. Her love of stories began as a kid when her parents would read to her and continues until this day. While she has been telling stories, both made up or real her whole life, she only began preforming them a few years ago. She is the Director of Volunteers at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and lives with her family in Evanston.
OCTOBER 2015
Becca Bowlin
Becca Bowlin attended the University of New Mexico where she graduated with a BA in Criminology. She works with runaway and homeless teenagers at the National Runaway Safeline for a living and is a starving artist and storyteller on the side. She enjoys painting, writing, attempting stand-up comedy, and collecting rare, expensive parking tickets. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and couch potato pooch named Trout.
Rebecca Duxler
Web Developer by day, chef, literary artist, and athlete by night, Rebecca Duxler is always hungry for adventures. Rebecca was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree from Illinois State University with a major in Web Development and a minor in Business Administration, and has lived in Chicago itself for about a year and a half. As a self-identified nerd, you will usually find her taking people’s breath away on a Dance Dance Revolution machine, destroying her friends at Mario Party or Super Smash Brothers, working on her blogs and websites, in the dojo training in Shotokan Karate (and getting her black belt at the end of the year), attending open mic nites, volunteering, cooking, hitting people with foam weapons in the Belegarth Medieval Combat Society, attending networking events, and trying to get on a game show, especially Wheel of Fortune! Rebecca’s ultimate goal is to be able to make a difference in the world with healthspiration (health and inspiration), spreading positivity, enjoying a randomly spontaneous moment, and sharing her contagious laughs!
Dan Finnen
Dan is a writer who has recently self-published his first novella 'Orvieto' and is also co-owner and operator of Polymyth, a Chicago video production company. Dan is hard of hearing, and in an strange twist of fate, has initials that spell out 'DEF'.
Steve Glickman
Steve is a third-generation Chicagoan. He grew up in the suburbs, but now lives in Uptown with his partner Mark and their imaginary dog "Ruffles" who gets into everything and is usually to blame for the mess in the living room. He has been telling stories at weddings and funerals his whole life to wide critical acclaim and is psyched to be doing this in public with StoryLab. Steve is a software engineer by day and a proud nerd in general. He is obsessively analytical and enjoys dissecting any topic of conversation into its sub-atomic particles, which normal people may find annoying. He is a classical music fanatic and often air-conducts whatever symphony or opera is playing on his iPod or in his head, which normal people may find disconcerting. Steve is an avid runner and tennis player and the current ping-pong champion in his office, and if you wanna play a match, he says "bring it!"
Nitsana Lazerus
Israeli-born Nitsana has always loved telling stories to others. Nitsana married a Yankee and moved to NYC in her early 20s where she had her first two children. Her children inspired her to create games, write songs, and tell more stories geared to educating the very young while containing messages for adults. The family left NYC and moved to Israel for 3 years where Nitsana took acting classes and puppetry courses while raising her children. Puppets and props joined her storytelling world, adding a variety of characters and personalities to her performances. When the family moved back to Long Island, NY, she studied puppetry with well-known author and puppeteer Carol Fijan and started a puppeteering career in both Hebrew and English. Later, the family relocated to Houston, where Nitsana's puppeteering career took off and she became involved with arts & education and arts & medicine programs. When raising her now-four children in Houston, she started teaching Hebrew, and helped lead services. In addition, she worked with many of the churches in her community, writing original stories and songs for them as well. Nitsana recently moved from Houston to Chicago. She is a storyteller and puppeteer who has performed and given workshops throughout the United States and Israel.
NOVEMBER 2015
James Dyer
James Dyer is a Minnesota native who has traveled and lived extensively overseas – Europe, South America, Asia -- for much of his life. He worked as a journalist in Latin America and the Middle East and also wrote for four large metropolitan daily newspapers in the United States before he entered academia as a professor of multimedia journalism. He teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, IL, and in his free time enjoys freelancing journalism articles, river rafting, playing tennis and drinking German wheat beer – but not necessarily in that order.
David Fink
David Fink is co-owner of The Acorn Theater in Three Oaks, MI, producing and presenting world-class live entertainment. David has produced and presented a number of storytelling events at the Acorn including improvised storytelling competitions, prepared storytelling competitions, and a few storytelling shows, both series and one-offs. David also curates a monthly LGBTQ storytelling show in Chicago entitled OUTspoken! David coached, taught, judged, and performed storytelling with Indigan Storytellers at a workshop and storytelling festival in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico. David has told stories in a number of storytelling shows both in Three Oaks and in Chicago. David has told stories on the stage at the Acorn Theater, in Storylab, Guts & Glory, San Miguel de Allende storytelling festival, Indigan Storytelling, and The Moth.
Nestor Gomez
Nestor Gomez was born in Guatemala and moved with his family to the United States in the mid eighties. One of his passions is collaborating with T-shirt illustrators around the world. His design ideas have been printed by Threadless, Shirt-woot and other T-shirt companies. Nestor also enjoys dancing to Latin music, having taken classes at Latin Rhythms, Latin Street, MMA and having participated in Modern Clave dance company. He is an avid reader and self-taught poet who happened upon the storytelling community a few months ago. Since then, he has participated in several storytelling events around the city. He also has organized his own storytelling event Voces ( stories with a Latino flair) and co-hosted Do Not Submit with Scott Whitehair and the Stoop with Lily Be. He can also be found at his day job as Quality Control at S&C Electric and walking his Pit Bull dogs with his girlfriend in Edgewater. If you are lucky you might find yourself being driven around the city by Nestor as he drives under Uber and Lyft during the weekends, where you might unknowingly become a subject of one his stories. Above all Nestor's biggest passion is his family.
Natalie Green
Natalie Greene grew up in Oak Park and then left the Midwest for seven years. She has lived in seven countries and ten U.S. cities, speaks a little bit of a lot of languages, and is adjusting to being back in Chicagoland one block of cheese at a time. Natalie's true loves include learning Chinese, reading sci-fi, and riot grrl.
Mac MacDevitt
Since moving to Chicago last year from a small town in the Adirondacks he has plunged into life in the urban wonderland of the Second City with both feet. He is riding his bike in city traffic, building furniture as a member of at Pumping Station: One, fixing two wheelers at the Recyclery and Working Bikes, and singing his heart out with the sea shanty rowdies at the Atlantic Bar and Grill. He is splashing around in storytelling and buoyed up by the support and deep friendship he has with the kindred spirits in his story telling class.
Joel Pearson
Joel Pearson grew up in a small town in Northern Illinois, where he learned the importance of dedication, hard work, and a good alibi. Once he was old enough to obtain a passport, he became a citizen of Chicago, where he has primarily resided ever since. A software developer by trade, he enjoys playing the piano, making small electronic gadgets, and traveling, especially by train. While new to storytelling, his love of stories goes back to his childhood, when one day... well, it's a long story.
DECEMBER 2015
Karen Genelly
I have always loved to tell stories. I am a native Chicagoan who grew up on the north side of the city and even though I have traveled a lot I always return home to Chicago. I have spent my professional life as a teacher and a counselor working for the Chicago Public Schools. My time with CPS can be described as the best of times and the worst of times-the best being the kids and the worst being Rahm Emanuel. As much as I loved teaching and being a counselor last year I decided to broaden my horizons and to test my abilities in other areas, such as storytelling, so I retired from CPS. So far it has been a great year learning new things and traveling the world. I've learned there is life outside the public schools and in India that getting on and off a camel can be a tricky business.
Tetiana Kachmaryk
I am a social justice activist for a living. 70% of time home I cook because it's the only crafty thing I can do. I absolutely love dogs, farmers markets and Bourbon. Trying to go through life embracing awkwardness instead of avoiding it.
Rachel Kanarowski
Born in a small town just outside of Yosemite National Park, Rachel became an accidental expat after a 6-month nanny gig in Europe led to 9 years in Prague. During that time she carved out a job in fashion media, eventually ending up as the Editor-in-Chief of InStyle magazine in the Czech Republic. She's back in Chicago now, working as the Director of Content Strategy at Leo Burnett and spending way too much time in Andersonville with her fiancee, his two awesome kids, and a motley crew of friends.
Renee LaCroix
Renee LaCroix holds a BFA in Theatre and Minor in Dance from Jacksonville University as well as an MFA in Performing Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. She is an NCAA Division 1 softball player as well as being an avid fan of stuffed animals. She grew up in Orlando, Florida where Disney World was her backyard. Which now explains her quirky personality and love for all things fluffy and cute. Her dream football game would be a playoff between the Minions and The Muppets... to ultimately play the Gremlins in the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls. She also likes long walks on the beach and snowboarding :)
Baylee Miller
Baylee is a newbie to facing away from the hearth; his last onstage speaking performance was MC'ing a high school variety show up in his Northern Michigan hometown! As a longtime lover of storytelling, he's excited for the opportunity to contribute something personal back to the Chicago storytelling community that has shared so much with him.
Willy Steiner
Willy has been an executive coach for over 20 years and has been an actor, facilitator, presenter and speaker forever. His new book will be published in early 2016. He's a proud father of three and loves telling stories. He also likes golf, scuba diving and wandering around aimlessly, but counting all the steps taken.