From Mic to Memoir
On the night of January 2, 2018, I competed in a Moth StorySLAM at Laugh Boston, a comedy club in the Seaport District. For those unfamiliar with The Moth, it’s a storytelling phenomenon—live events and competitions, a radio show, a podcast, best-selling books—and a global platform where celebrities and regular people tell true, personal stories, often around a designated theme. My friend and I went together, both first timers. We’d never been to a Moth event before, let alone participated in one, but we were ready for the challenge.
Appropriately, that night’s theme was “Ambition.”
From listening to The Moth Radio Hour episodes, which are curated from their gazillion-story database, I knew that the best storytellers sounded natural—kind of like a charming guest holding court at a dinner party. A great Moth story relates something deeply thought-out, but it’s delivered like a spontaneous anecdote.
I decided to memorize just a first and last line for my story, which was about my college boyfriend’s mother showing up at one of my recent Shakespeare talks. I didn’t overthink it; my only goal was to get the story out before the five-minute buzzer and stick the landing.
"From listening to The Moth Radio Hour episodes, which are curated from their gazillion-story database, I knew that the best storytellers sounded natural—kind of like a charming guest holding court at a dinner party."
Laugh Boston was jam-packed, so I assumed at least a hundred of those present had entered the storyteller lottery, and my odds of being one of the ten drawn from the hat were slim. I ordered my usual dirty martini, extra olives, and settled into audience mode.
Turns out, most people come to these events to listen to stories, not tell them. I was the second name called, and my friend the fifth.
I opened with my first line: “I hadn’t had contact with Andy Diamond or his family for over twenty-five years.” Then I launched into my story about giving a lecture on Shakespeare’s heroines to a roomful of elderly “Lifelong Learners” at a local synagogue, including, of all people, my ex-boyfriend Andy's mother."
Her presence moved me to weave in a few of my own hard-earned lessons about women’s resilience after heartbreak (read: getting dumped by your son, Judy Diamond!).
People laughed. And after I delivered my final line, driving it like triumphant stake into the ground, they clapped. At the end of the night, my friend, the other storytellers, and I were called back onstage for the final tally. Audience members had scored each of us from one to ten, and to my shock and delight, I won!
As we say in Boston: Wicked cool.
The win led to three things:
- My story, “To Thine Own Self Be True,” being selected for The Moth Radio Hour.
- My participation in a Moth GrandSLAM (ten winners of Moth StorySLAMs) at Boston’s 800-person-capacity Huntington Theater, and that story airing on The Moth Podcast.
- Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare.
For the GrandSLAM, in front of a full house, I told a story about being eight years old and going to Disney World with my parents, both Holocaust survivors. The event theme was “Never Again” (get it?), and I loved the personal double entendre. The Moth had given me a huge platform for my pain-can-be-funny M.O., and I leaned in hard. Humor has always been a survival mechanism for me. Not the kind of surviving that my parents and other family members did (or didn’t), of course, but the kind that helps navigate the traumatized, tragic world that resulted from their experiences.
To prepare for this one, I returned to my first method: memorize the first and the last lines. I did some run-throughs for my husband and some friends, mentally locking in some other good bits that came out of my mouth. But the most important thing was that I knew where I had to start, and where I had to go. The in-between was kind of like a trust fall with words.
I performed the Disney World story on January 22, 2019 and got a 9.2 overall score. Not enough to win, but enough to place respectably.
A former student who was in the audience emailed me the next day:
Prof. Ephraim,
Congratulations on a wonderful story last night!! I loved the juxtapositions of dark and bright, somber and silly. You said that you don't tell stories that often — yet you came in third, behind only two people who have each won multiple GrandSLAMs. I certainly hope this is not the last story you tell!
Best, Ken
(I came in fourth, but whatever.)
I would later understand my “two-memorized-lines” method as an insight into memoir writing. My Moth stories worked because they were crafted roadmaps with a clear beginning and end, yet filled throughout with spontaneous, inspired flurries of words. They were journeys that demanded both control and surrender.
To write Green World, I had to make sense of much more, on a far bigger scale. But that hot mic on The Moth stage remains a treasured compass in my writer’s toolbox.
Listen to additional Moth podcasts
“To Thine Own Self Be True," The Moth Radio Hour
Listen
“Never Again," The Moth Podcast
Listen