West Chester Story Slam: Selected Stories 2010-2014

by Jim Breslin (Editor)

Since West Chester Story Slam launched in 2010, over five hundred stories have been told live on stage in front of rowdy audiences at local bars. Stories are told with no notes and no props, just a storyteller standing at a mic, revealing themselves through their personal tales.

Selected stories include: Eli Silberman's tale of a television commercial shoot gone horribly wrong. Luke Stromberg documents his life in crime and Luanne Sims tells about her worst day as an adult diaper salesperson. Read about Terry Heyman's short-lived fling with an Oscar-winning actor, Kyle Hudson's brush with legendary movie icon Bill Murray, and Carole Mallory's late night search for the grave of Pablo Picasso. Learn about Queen Elizabeth's corgis, raising pigs, and high level miscommunication at the world's largest home shopping network.

These forty stories are sometimes funny, other times poignant. Whether you've attended the West Chester Story Slam live, listened to the podcast, or are coming across the stories for the first time, we hope you'll enjoy this anthology of remarkable personal tales.

246 pages, Paperback

First published October 22, 2014

About the author

Jim Breslin is a writer and former TV producer who worked at QVC for seventeen years. His first novel, SHOPLANDIA, which draws back the curtain on the working lives of show hosts, producers and crew at a home shopping network, came out in May, 2014. His debut collection, Elephant: Short Stories and Flash Fiction, was published in 2011. Jim's fiction has been published in Turk's Head Review, The Molotov Cocktail, Think Journal and Metazen. Jim's first published pieces were even shorter, his tweets were included in the book, The World According to Twitter, which was edited by NYT columnist David Pogue. Jim is the founder of the West Chester Story Slam and the Delco Story Slam.



He lives in West Chester, PA.

Reviews

[Squirrel Circus · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, but I had to force myself to finish it. Hearing these stories LIVE, with all the sights and sounds of a story slam might have given them more impact? None of them, to me, warrant printing in any book. I guess it’s a record of/recognition of a milestone for the founder of the slam, but it was a waste of money for me. The only audience I can imagine for this book would be the people who’s stories are in it. Like paying to be listed in and purchasing a copy of Who’s Who Among American High School Students or whatever that scam is called...