Tag Archives: Storyteller

Events: What is Your White Whale?

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Mixing Melville’s “Moby Dick” w/ contemporary politics, Loren Niemi asks “What is Your White Whale?” at this FREE Spoken Word Cafe event.

March 20, 2021 ~ 7pm CDT ~ FREE event

Loren Niemi will tell a blended story using Melville’s Moby Dick classic as a crucible to examine our current situation in American Culture as obsession and fantasy rein powerful and dangerous. He will ask:

“What is your White Whale?”

While the essence of the story has always been “Man fights whale, whale wins,” Loren has used the elements of a young man’s search for adventure, whaling as an industry, our obsessions and grievances, and homo eroticism which are all present in the novel as a metaphor (or if you would prefer, a Rorschach) for understanding American Culture/ This performance will touch on in our current situation, the creation and pursuit of any number of “white whales.”

Loren Niemi has been telling personal and reconfigured traditional stoires for over four decades now. His work combines vivid imagery with touches of poetry and a sur;prising intimacy. Loren’s recent collection of stories, “What Haunts Us” won a Midwest West Book Award for “Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Hoirror / Paranormal” fiction in 2020

Point of View and the Emotional Arc of Stories: A handbook for writers and storytellers by Loren Niemi

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loren-niemi-532x1024Loren Niemi has been an innovative professional storyteller performing, directing, collecting, coaching, and teaching stories for over 40 years.

August 1, 2020 marks the release of his latest book:
Point of View and the Emotional Arc of Stories: A handbook for writers and storytellers (written with Nancy Donoval).

The New Book of Plots: Constructing Engaging Narratives for Oral and Written Storytelling, completes the set of his instructional books on the craft of storytelling, both written and oral.

Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories (written with Elizabeth Ellis), is the theory behind these two companion books.

And his genuinely disturbing ghost story collection What Haunts Us is the winner of the 2020 Midwest Book Award in the ‘Fantasy / Sci-fi / Horror / Paranormal’ fiction category. It is an example of the application of the three other books.

You can find links to order copies of these books on Loren’s website: https://www.lorenniemistories.com/books

Loren Niemi, Author & Storyteller

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It is Fall 2018 and I sit alone at a table in the back of what was then the Underground Music Café in St Paul, MN, attending one of the last meetings of Chris Title’s long running open mic series ‘Barbaric Yawp’. Across the room sitting alone at another table is Loren Niemi, who I do not know but had met at another reading series Summer 2018. I ask how he is. He tells me he is about to have a collection of ghost stories published. I congratulate him. We get on with our lives.

It is Winter 2019 and I stop attending open mics. I am glad to have met other writers in those communities but realize the open mics are taking time away from my actual writing and provide just enough encouragement to have me fool myself into thinking I am accomplishing something. But I stay in touch with my new community via social media and my blog. I see the news that Loren’s book, “What Haunts Us” is published on February 1, 2019 by Moonfire Publishing. He has a book launch and a reading but I miss it. Continue reading →