Let Me Tell You! A Curated Story Telling Jam
Monday, January 6, 2025
7:00-9:00 pm
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Ages: 18+ yrs.
Fee: FREE
Location: Joseph C. Vallez Activity Center
                    1529 Harlem Ave., Berwyn, IL.

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A free monthly storytelling event hosted by 2-time Moth winner Errol McLendon

Everyone tells stories. At family gatherings. In bars and coffee shops. Here is your opportunity to share your personal stories with your community. Stories can be funny or poignant. About love or tragedy, or maybe both. They can be about something you learned or something you wish you had never done. Something historic you witnessed or were a part of.

If you would like to participate in our upcoming Jams please submit a description of a 7 - 8 minute story you would like to tell to errol.mclendon@gmail.com to be included in an evening of friends sharing stories with friends. First time tellers are welcomed and encouraged.

A free Zoom workshop will be offered two weeks prior to each show to help enhance your story in a relaxed, informal environment. One-on-one coaching will also be available.

Concessions will be available for purchase

January Tellers:

Ursa Miles is an Ozark-born Chicago-based storyteller, author, and electric kazoo player. She holds an MA in storytelling from East Tennessee State University. Recent credits include the Fox Valley Folk and Chicago's Rhinofest. Her new show, Dragons of Lake Michigan, is set to premeire in September of this year and her book, Passive Aggressive Fables for Adults, is available whereever books are sold.

Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, Rashada Dawan is truly the definition of Every Woman. When she’s serving in her full time job as a Trainer with Playworks advocating for safe and healthy play during school recess, she is either performing in musical theater production or working on a play or singing with her band, in stage productions, while managing her two daughter’s acting careers. Rashada also loves advocating for wellness through the arts in her community. Whether it is through serving as the CEO of her arts organization, B.Fli Productions, Inc. where the mission is to increase mental wellness and decrease violence through performing arts, or serving on various committees including South Shore Works, Back Alley Jazz, South side Jazz Festival, Golden Institute Peace Fellows, Actors Equity Association and Burst Into Books, she definitely stays busy. Rashada has served throughout the nation in community centers, schools and corporations for over 27 years. With mental wellness through the arts as her passion, Ms. Dawan believes that once we take care of ourselves and heal then we can look to help others take care of themselves and heal. Through healing comes understanding and through understanding comes respect. She attributes any perceived success to her God, the love and support of her Village and children and the belief in herself. Rashada Dawan is truly every woman.

Life’s a blast with Val & Jeff Gee. Married in 1970. Irish twins circa ‘73. Flew across the pond in ‘83. Started their own business in '85. Became American citizens. Acquired two sons-in-law. Got 3 grandkids. Did all kinds of crazy stuff like climbing to Base Camp, Mount Everest, Val going all spiritual and shaving her head; Jeff beating cancer; starting a comedy Fawlty Service dining business in Lake Forest, hired to do standup comedy on the train from Wilmette to Chicago, performing The Queen and Prince Phillip at the Winnetka Follies to drowning in the recession, climbing back out, writing books, telling stories, and still keeping their corporate business afloat after 38 years. Their target audience is everyone who wants to laugh out loud at life.

Doug Dusik is communications professional living in Naperville. He has been a fan of storytelling since childhood, when he was allowed to sit at the adult table and listen to grownups tell their tales. He still enjoys hearing stories as well as sharing his own experiences.

Sayard is the daughter of a preacher and a teacher. She was raised on stories at the family farm, around campfires, and at the dinner table. There’s no better way to get to know someone and no better way to let things go. Sayard works as an assistive technology specialist with mostly nonverbal communicators…trying to get more people talking. She lives in Downers Grove with her husband and two children.

Gar Doherty had no idea he would be standing up, adjusting a microphone and reading stories to the kindest people.
He had a dream that he would run a coffee/bookstore upon retirement but when he did retire, it all sounded like responsibility..  so he did very little and very little fit him and his nine and one half loafers.  
His adult daughter, Emily, told him it was OK to loaf.  She said”you have done enough”.  He loved her for that.
Loafing takes some time but it apparently fits his schedule.  He takes notes.  He rewrites notes.  It is possible to make new friends as an old man.

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