BACKFENCE PDX
Creator, Producer, Host, Development, Director, Story Coach, Writer

BACKFENCE PDX is the award-winning live storytelling series of shows I created and host.

I went on a sobbing-snot-filled-breakup-couch-surfing tour to San Francisco in 2008. I happened to see that I like, Beth Lisick, was having a storytelling show. There I was, as sad as can fucking be, in a sea of 800 people, laughing and crying and never once feeling alone. I was changed. I had to start one of these events. I was a fan of The Moth and also knew Dan Kennedy, a founding storyteller. Both Beth and Dan helped me get BACKFENCE PDX off the ground.

Since that time I have hosted over 150 live shows, coached over 400 stories, and written countless social media campaigns and monologues. In 2013, I co-produced a BACKFENCE PDX radio series on Oregon Public Broadcasting that ran in tandem with THE MOTH.

To satisfy my various curiosities, I got to cast dream stories. I featured the blood spatter expert for the OJ Simpson trial, a pet psychic, a funeral director, an etymologist, and more. From there I created two successful offshoot storytelling shows, including BACKFENCE PDX: ROULETTE — a high-risk high-stakes storytelling show I invented filled with mystery and intrigue.

So, why is it included in my copywriting section? BACKFENCE PDX taught me how to produce, write a script for a show, wrangle with the arcs of all kinds of stories to tell them best, work on my feet, make decisions and mistakes, dismantle a show and put it back together in a new way. I built a show big enough to bring in national talent that also partners with non-profits to connect to communities that seek support.