It’s funny how new ideas aren’t so new. They are the product of time, energy, and seemingly unrelated events. This is how my new writing project, Two Minute Stories, came to be. To sum up, I write and recite short tales of fiction in less than two minutes. How did I get here?
It all started with my junior year of high school where I met Mr. Dunphy, my English teacher. Before his class, I had little to no interest in writing and literature… but I quickly learned to appreciate the creative arts through stories like Heart of Darkness and Frankenstein. He pushed me to write across many disciplines: poetry, short stories, and essays. I had the bug.
From there, I focused my college minor on creative writing. We practiced writing a lot. I continued developing my skills and devouring great modern fiction like The Intuitionist (shout out to Colson Whitehead!), Snow Crash, The Shipping News, and Native Speaker. This was fun.
After college, I kept at it. Even in my design roles, I gravitated towards the writing, looking for interesting ways to pair language with typography and layout. As if that weren’t enough, I met Nicolas Boillot and was introduced to the world of scriptwriting. He pushed my then co-worker Matt Gustavsen and I to better understand the medium, concept of story, and the power of simplicity. We worked together on a screenplay and made each other better. During my time with Nicolas and Matt, I kept an Evernote notebook full of “story ideas.” They ranged from simple two-sentence summaries to fully developed narratives. I continue this practice today.
More recently, I’ve had the pleasure of co-hosting The Design Game with David Merriell. Our podcast on the role of design in sports introduced me to yet another medium, one that required the power of audio and voice. We continue to investigate this vast world of podcasts.
Earlier this year, I caught wind of a new app called Anchor. It encouraged users to share short audio clips with the world (never more than two minutes). Followers could then reply with their own voice. I was intrigued by the constraints from a storytelling perspective.
All of that history brings us to today. After years in the making, I’m ecstatic to formally launch Two Minute Stories. I’ve been sharing some early stories on Anchor over the past few weeks… but now it’s time to share with other folks. Starting today, you can here Two Minute Stories on Anchor, SoundCloud, and as a podcast through iTunes. I’ll share 1-2 stories every week and look forward to hearing your thoughts. At a minimum, I would love for you to leave a review on iTunes as it will greatly help the visibility of the podcast early in its life.
Admittedly, this missive was neither brief nor witty… but hopefully you can find some of both in Two Minute Stories. Happy listening!
