The Intangible Real World of Story by Susan Metallo

Posted by CBethM on October 28, 2025 in Author Posts | The first graders gaped at me like zombie fish. “An onlooker at the World Storytelling Day Event” by Pratham Books is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Can you picture it? Twenty-four six-year-olds sitting crisscross apple sauce on their industrial blue classroom carpet, their tongues languid in slack-jawed mouths, eyes round and unblinking—and standing in front of them, me: a twenty-something grad student halfway through my library science degree, at my first ever storytelling gig, creeped-out goosebumps peppering my skin. Marilyn Torres-Sierra Tellebration 2013 (Public Domain) I’d been forewarned, of course. My professor, Dr. Brian Sturm, had shared his research on the storyteller’s trance. Illogical opening phrases like “Once upon a time,” or “There was, there was, and there was not,” tempt the analytical side of the brain into standby mode, allowing the listener to divert all of their brainpower into building a world from the storyteller’s speech. The listener isn’t even seeing the storyteller anymore. The world between them has become so solid and concrete that the storyteller is obscured. Later, the listener will pass the teller ...