Circle of the 9 Muses

Chapter 2

Use story circles as the core structure for all of your shared storytelling activities.

Story circles are the most fundamental structure for shared story sharing, sense making, community building—and even human survival and evolution.

For this exercise, you will need:

• A comfortable space or third place (as described in “Find or Create a Third Place.”)
• Chairs or cushions
• A reason to tell stories

Here's how to host a story circle:

Step 1: Sit in a circle, facing one another.

Step 2: Take turns telling stories.

That's all there is to it. Really. Class dismissed.

Recently I visited my teenage daughter, Emory's, high school on a pretty day, and I saw her and her friends sitting together on the grass just after lunch. They were in a circle facing one another and telling stories: stories about boys, about chemistry tests, about driving, and about music. No one instructed them to do this, and they didn't take any facilitator training on how to host a good story circle. But they looked deeply engaged to me. I suspect my daughter will never forget those conversations on the lawn.

The story circle is the foundation of all of your narrative practices. It is an exceedingly simple structure that delivers incredibly robust data about the work, the organization, your shared ...