ACW and NCPR celebrated the end of the Howl Story Slam’s seventh season this past weekend at St. Lawrence University! The night was full of SO MUCH LAUGHTER and a few tears as eight storytellers competed head-to-head to be crowned 2023’s Howl Grand Slam Champion.
If you’re new to the Howl, it’s a live, spirited storytelling competition that started in 2016 where storytellers (anyone can sign up!) take the stage to tell a true story in under 5 minutes. A few selected audience members serve as judges to score the stories based on relevance to the night’s theme, overall quality, and staying within the time limit. At the end of the night, a winner is announced. All winners are invited to the annual Grand Slam.
This past season, The Howl Story Slam traveled to 12 towns in every corner of the park, giving 120+ people the chance to tell a true story live on stage. Each slam welcomed an average of 70 people and over 300 of you showed up in Canton for the Grand Slam!
“The 2023 Howl season was exciting because we went to so many new communities—Morristown, Brant Lake, Ticonderoga, Keene—and each new venue was packed the same way it is at our mainstays like Tupper Lake, Lake Placid and Canton.” – Nathalie Thill.
Of the 2023 winners, Carrie Woodcock, Jen Signell, Joe Conto, Phillip Kokotailo, Silas Smith, Linda McKenny, Johanna Martin, and Dakin Henderson returned to compete in the Grand Slam. WHO WON? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that soon! Our hosts, Nathalie and Mitch, as well as two of our past winners, Tanya Roy and Aaron Todd, joined in with a few stories as well.
“It’s thrilling to see storytellers who we met in bars in a very casual setting all have their stories honored on a stage as prestigious as the Gulick Theatre at St. Lawrence University.” – Nathalie Thill
The Grand Slam allows contestants to tell 8-minute stories, as opposed to the 5-minute limit of regular season story slams. The other Howl Story Slam rules remain intact: stories must be true and no notes are allowed.
This year’s Grand Slam winner was…
Congrats, Johanna Martin!
Thank you to our growing Howl community – the storytellers, the bars and venues that hosted us throughout the year, St. Lawrence University for hosting the big one, our audience (over 1,100 people came to the Howls this season), and to NCPR aka the other half of the Howl dream team.
The 2024 Howl Story Slam lineup is in the works! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram or subscribe to our enews for all the Howl updates.
The Howl Story Slam is a partnership between Adirondack Center for Writing and North Country Public Radio, two organizations that believe in the power of stories.
Missed the Grand Slam? Don’t fret! Stories from the Grand Slam will appear on The Howl Podcast, produced and distributed by NCPR. The show’s first season was the fastest-growing and most popular podcast in the station’s history, with nearly 35,000 downloads to date. The Howl Podcast can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google and Amazon.
Season 2 of The Howl Podcast is here – 12 new episodes will stream weekly starting on Wednesday, January 31st!
Each story told at the Grand Slam will also be released as a standalone video in the next few months – keep an eye on the Howl Facebook page for those!
Looking forward to hearing Johanna Martin’s winning story. Were there runners up or honerable mentions, also? There seems to be a big gap in the page after “and the winner is…” But maybe I have a weird internet connnection.