The biggest question I get, anywhere I go — and this is five year olds and seventy-five year olds — is how can I start? I love this art form — whether it’s poetry, storytelling, nonfiction writing — but how do I start?

And there’s this underlying question to that of: What book do I need to read? What certain life experience do I need to have? What’s the right school I need to graduate from to start?

And my best, most simple advice, is to completely throw that out. That that’s not what it’s about. People haven’t been telling stories for thousands of years to all get published in Harper’s. Let go of this idea of perfection. Because that’s not what it is about.

It is about to connect, I think. It is about to make sense of what it is to be human.

Spoken word poet Phil Kaye, from his talk at TEDxMiddlebury, “Why we tell stories.” Phil is a part of Project VOICE (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression) with Sarah Kay, the voice behind the popular TED Talk, “If I should have a daughter …”

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