We still love walking into The Sofia Theatre before a show.

This week on Prompt, we spoke with Maryam Moosavi, a Sacramento comedian who shared a roller-coaster of a story at our April Nutshell show—so well told and filled with all the best aspects of storytelling that it was hard to believe this was Maryam’s first serious attempt at it. On the surface, her story is about being fourteen and getting sexually involved with a nineteen-year-old, and how that experience unravels her family, her school, and herself. But on a deeper level, it chronicles a young person’s struggle for self-actualization within a constrictive family, the loneliness that such a struggle breeds, and how alienating and indifferent the world and its authority figures can be—even as they claim they are only “trying to protect.”

Maryam shares this story of her younger self with humor, vulnerability, and impressively, without watering down any of the ambivalence or contradictions that come with being fourteen years old. So sit back, settle in, and enjoy the story. My prediction is: Anyone who was a fourteen-year-old girl will relate, parents listening will hold their breath to the end, and the rest of us adults will wonder for the hundredth time how we made it out of our teenage years alive.

(PS We had some mic and tech issues this round—more than usual, that is. Sorry for all the pops and clunks and thuds. It’s still an excellent conversation!)

Prompt: is presented by In a Nutshell Storytelling

Hostest: Amy Bee

Mostest: Keith Lowell Jensen

Producer: Aaron Carnes

Thank you to:

DJ Yuma Tripp for allowing us to use his song “Lazy Skank” for our episodes and our live show.

Hyperpixel for audio and video services.

Sofia Theatre for a beautiful stage to gather around.

Babalou for watching over our event table and engaging with people in the best way possible.

When we found out Kiry Shabazz was going to tell a story at our inaugural In a Nutshell Storytelling live show in January, we were pretty psyched. Keith and Kiry go way back, Aaron knew Kiry from writing articles about him, and Amy saw Kiry at a live show once and fell immediately into deep cerebral infatuation. It’s hard to explain Kiry’s magic; it’s something you have to experience live to truly appreciate—but listening to this episode comes close to capturing it.

Kiry’s story starts with trying to come up with a word to replace the N-word in a joke in order to appease The Tonight Show’s advertisers and then proceeds to take us on a wild journey encompassing everything from Taco Bell jokes and anxiety pooping to realizing that the wrong people have ended up with you at one of your best moments. The tale is funny, emotional, candid and intentful. Our conversation with him was much the same. Kiry’s someone who is very much thinking about everything going on around him; while his observations seem off-the-cuff and of-the-moment, they’re well-thought-out and crafted commentary, an artful extension of his inner workings. The man is magic. Check it out! You’ll see!

A semi-curated list of items, subjects, and places mentioned in Kiry’s interview:

Stepin Fetchit (American Vaudevillian)

The Tonight Show w/ Jimmy Fallon

Nation of Islam

Elijah Muhammad (American religious leader, author)

Blacktop Comedy (closed)

Roseville, Rosevillians

Mrs. Field’s Cookies

AC Hotel in Sacramento (where they know talent when they see it)((where they also serve Pepsi))

Prompt: is presented by In a Nutshell Storytelling

Hostest: Amy Bee

Mostest: Keith Lowell Jensen

Producer: Aaron Carnes

Thank you to:

DJ Yuma Tripp for allowing us to use his song “Lazy Skank” for our episodes and our live show.

Hyperpixel for audio and video services.

Sofia Theatre for a beautiful stage to gather around.

Babalou for watching over our event table and engaging with people in the best way possible.

Storyteller Lucie Moses shared her story about fostering wild squirrels at our In a Nutshell Storytelling event at the beautiful Sofia Theatre, where the theme was “Strange Bedfellows.” We’d seen a clip of Lucie telling this tale at a Moth Slam and later found out that the performance was how her kids discovered the full story of Luke and Busta, two baby wild squirrels who took a liking to each other and sought comfort in each other by, um . . . well, engaging in fellatio. The story has a bittersweet ending, as most love stories do, and Lucie had our audience in stitches when she explained how tediously she tried to sew squirrel britches for Luke because he kept getting bladder infections from all that sweet, sweet fellatio. We’ve all been there, right?!

Want to hear more stories from Lucie Moses? Check out her YouTube channel.

A semi-curated list of items, subjects, and places mentioned in Lucie’s interview:

The Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue (YUWR) and Education Center

Spore (video game)

Freight & Salvage

The Moth

Susan Sontag (Person Amy mentions and paraphrases as saying storytellers have a duty to create endings . . . check out Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers at the Marginalian)

Prompt: is presented by In a Nutshell Storytelling

Hostest: Amy Bee

Mostest: Keith Lowell Jensen

Producer: Aaron Carnes

Thank you to:

DJ Yuma Tripp for allowing us to use his song “Lazy Skank” for our episodes and our live show.

Hyperpixel for audio and video services.

Sofia Theatre for a beautiful stage to gather around.

Babalou for watching over our event table and engaging with people in the best way possible.

If you enjoyed this episode, the paid version has more photos and an extended interview. That’s right! More story-behind-the-story content available right here! Why NOT get more access to your favorite storytellers and help our community thrive? Sounds good to us.

Our inaugural episode shares a story from In a Nutshell Storytelling’s first live show at the stellar Sofia Theatre in January, when the prompt was “Breaking the Ice.” Master storyteller JP Frary told us a tale about turning 21 on an Alaskan fishing boat full of seasoned fishermen. JP felt like the odd man out and homesick until he shared his letters from home with the crew members (Sharing letters with the whole crew was mandatory, the ship’s captain informed a wary JP at one point) and began to see how he was more connected to them—and the rest of humanity—than he had initially thought. It’s an immensely satisfying tale with JP deftly weaving the stories of his family back at home with his own out at sea.

The Nutshell Crew spent a sunny afternoon talking extensively with JP about his thoughts on the craft of oral storytelling. JP, never one to shy away from sharing his opinion, provided us—and anyone interested in turning real-life experiences into shareable stories—with many practical tips on how to intentionally approach storytelling, from the benefits of counting syllables to maintaining a neutral appearance so the audience can imagine their own versions of the story’s characters.

We hope you enjoy our first episode. We want to hear from you! Tell us what you thought of JP’s story in the comments.

A semi-curated list of items, subjects, and places mentioned in JP’s interview:

Dutch Harbor, Alaska

Odysseus

Brogue

Abdul Kenyatta

Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

The Moth (StorySlams)

Haiku

Beyond Borders

George Nakashima

William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

Prompt: is presented by In a Nutshell Storytelling

Hostest: Amy Bee

Mostest: Keith Lowell Jensen

Producer: Aaron Carnes

Thank you to:

DJ Yuma Tripp for allowing us to use his song “Lazy Skank” for our episodes and our live show.

Hyperpixel for audio and video services.

Sofia Theatre for a beautiful stage to gather around.

Babalou for watching over our event table and engaging with people in the best way possible.