By Victoria Durgin, Digital Media Editor
Members of the Susquehanna and Selinsgrove communities will be able to share their mistakes and personal stories at the Stories on Tap event at 8 p.m. on Dec. 6 in Isaacs Auditorium.
The event is a collaboration between English and creative writing professor Monica Prince and religious studies professor Matthew Duperon as well as the organizer of the Stories on Tap program, Julie Hagenbuch.
“We wanted our courses to produce more content that is publicly available and entertaining and uplifting for the community,” Duperon said.
Participation is mandatory for the students in Duperon’s Daoism, Zen and authenticity course. In the spring, Prince’s choreopoem class will also hold an event that will produce content available to the public.
Duperon and Prince said they were inspired to plan events for the public after attending a conference on project-based learning together.
While Stories on Tap has been done previously at Susquehanna, this year’s event is unique in one aspect.
“It’s been done but never tied to a class before, which is exciting,” Prince said.
Prince explained the event will last approximately one hour. Within that hour, 10 randomly selected participants will each share a story that can be no longer than five minutes.
These ten will be chosen from anyone in the audience who expresses interest in participating.
The theme is “Oops” and invites storytellers to share their biggest mistakes.
Prince said she thinks the theme is an important discussion given the current political climate and the fact that “the world sometimes feels like it’s on fire.”
“It’s really important for us to see each other as human beings, and the theme really humanizes people,” Prince said.
Duperon said he chose the theme to push his students to think about the authenticity they study in class.
He also echoed Prince’s thoughts about the theme.
“It’s going to be an engaging evening of hearing other people’s stories and connecting to humanity,” Duperon said.
Prince added that the casual setting will also hopefully encourage a wide variety of people to participate.
“It’s going to be a living room-type setting and the storytellers can sit on the stage, go to the edge of the stage, whatever they feel comfortable with,” Prince said.
Stories on Tap will be open to the Selinsgrove community as well as all Susquehanna students and staff.
Duperon said the community engagement he saw at the last Stories on Tap event at Susquehanna stuck in his mind and inspired him to hold the program again.
“I saw a lot of the Selinsgrove community at the last one and I’m really excited to hopefully see community interaction in December,” Duperon said.
Prince said she hopes the audience comes away from the event with an appreciation of how difficult storytelling is for those doing it.
“Storytelling is not just about beginning, middle and end. It’s all about delivery, and it’s hard to get up on stage,” Prince said.
Duperon and Prince both said they think the night will be entertaining and engaging to someone whether they choose to tell a story themselves or not.
“It’s going to be entertaining in a really genuine, human way,” Duperon said.
