The Moth’s first book

It is patently impossible to attend an evening of storytelling with The Moth and walk away unchanged. Nathan Englander wrote a love letter to The Moth in The New Yorker‘s Page Turner blog that I’ve recently gone back and re-read – it’s here. Nathan sums up The Moth experience perfectly. You go, you get hooked – whether you’re in the audience or a storyteller. Nathan says The Moth is “basically the storytelling version of the high-diving board…I’ve spent hours and hours with the Moth, listening to stories, retelling them to anyone who will listen, taking them apart in my head. I’ve been writing stories for most of my life, and there’s something about the Moth that serves me, personally, and serves my work. Each time I listen to a story told aloud, and feel that direct connection with the teller, I am reminded of what a story, well told, can do.”

The Moth has their first book coming out September 3 – THE MOTH: 50 True Stories – and I am over the moon to be helping them with publicity. The book collects 50 great Moth stories from well-known writers such as Sebastian Junger, Andrew Solomon, and the aforementioned genius, Nathan Englander, to an astronaut floating in space realizing he’s not alone, to the White House Press Secretary who overslept and missed his flight on Air Force One, to a man who broke his wife out of hospice to give her one last ride on his Harley.

You can read a couple sample stories by Ed Gavagan and Janna Levin at the fabulous new website for the book: here.  And if you’re new to The Moth and do nothing besides read these two sample stories – I know it like it’s already done! – you will be hooked on The Moth too.

Pre-order The Moth book here.