This is (hopefully) the final in a trilogy of posts about the time our little boy told a giant lie:

• Post 1: Or Not to Bee (Grade 2)
• Post 2: Watching Your Child’s Dream Come True (Grade 5)
• Post 3: Sam’s Side of the Story (Grade 11)

Last year Sam’s English teacher invited the Story Works Alaska crew into her classroom for a writing and storytelling workshop. Volunteers guided sophomores through the process of writing, editing, and performing a seven-minute story about a real-life experience.

Sam chose to write about his childhood quest to win a geography bee. Enough time has passed that he was ready to share the story with his peers, and we can all finally look back on this event with laughter instead of horror.

Sam’s classroom performance went over so well that the Story Works team passed his name on to the folks at Arctic Entries, which is basically Alaska’s version of The Moth. I have missed Arctic Entries so much this past year: seven storytellers each tell a seven-minute story in front of an always-sold-out crowd at the Performing Arts Center, and all proceeds go to charity. It’s one of the events I most look forward to attending once Covid-19 is a bad memory.

Obviously a packed concert hall would be a train wreck during Covid, but it’s yet another missed experience in the long list of bummers from the past year.

Who knows, maybe Sam will eventually get the chance to tell his tale at Arctic Entries. Meanwhile, StoryWorks has been featuring stories on their website and Instagram page. They posted Sam’s last week, and we finally got to hear the saga through his lens. It certainly brought back memories!

If you want to hear Sam’s side of the story, give it a listen: https://soundcloud.com/storyworks/sam