What is "story club"?
Story Club creates authentic spaces where people can take off the mask and share their real stories. We believe storytelling is humanity's oldest technology for building understanding across difference—and our communities desperately need places to practice it.
After years of facilitating writing workshops and story circles, we've discovered that when you create the right conditions—safety, respect, voluntary participation—something remarkable happens. People stop performing and start sharing. The masks come off. Real connection becomes possible.
A man serving a life sentence writes about the sound of his daughter's laugh. A suburban mom shares the weight of pretending everything is fine. A teenager finds words for experiences that felt too big to hold alone. These aren't therapeutic breakthroughs or literary achievements. They're moments of authentic human contact that change how we see each other.
Three ways Story Club works
Prison Education
Weekly creative writing workshops in correctional facilities. Participants learn to "see like writers," practice short forms like flash fiction and memoir, and share their voices and stories in supportive community. Each multi-week session ends with a celebration—pizza, community, and the power of being witnessed.
Facilitating Story Dinners
Community gatherings where neighbors share personal narratives around shared meals. These aren't networking events or book clubs. They're intentional spaces for the kind of vulnerable sharing that builds real relationship across difference.
Free and Open Access Educator Resources
Curriculum, training, and support for teachers and facilitators who want to create authentic storytelling spaces in their own communities. We share what we've learned about the logistics and magic of safe sharing.
Free curriculum is currently in development and will be available here. Subscribe to our newsletter.
How did Story Club get started?
Story Club was founded by Nellie Croy Smith, who has been creating spaces for authentic storytelling since starting a story club at age 8. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University and teaches weekly in correctional facilities.
Join us
Story Club works because people show up—to workshops, to dinners, to the vulnerable work of being real with each other. If you're interested in this work, we'd love to have you. Email info@storyclub.org.