Let Me Tell You! A Curated Story Telling Jam

A free monthly storytelling event hosted by 2-time Moth winner Errol McLendon

Everyone tells stories. At family gatherings. In bars and coffee shops. Here is your opportunity to share your personal stories with your community. Stories can be funny or poignant. About love or tragedy, or maybe both. They can be about something you learned or something you wish you had never done. Something historic you witnessed or were a part of.

If you would like to participate in our upcoming Jams please submit a description of a 7 - 8 minute story you would like to tell to errol.mclendon@gmail.com to be included in an evening of friends sharing stories with friends. First time tellers are welcomed and encouraged.

A free Zoom workshop will be offered two weeks prior to each show to help enhance your story in a relaxed, informal environment. One-on-one coaching will also be available.

Ages: 18+ yrs.
Day: Monday
Date: March 2
Time: 7:00-9:00 pm
Fee: FREE
Location: Joseph C. Vallez Activity Center, 1529 Harlem Ave., Berwyn, IL.

Concessions will be available for purchase

March Storytellers

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Nicole Lombardi

Nicole Lombardi is a high school English teacher, writer, activist and mother of 4 from Oak Park. She has poetry and prose featured in English Journal, Mindful Word, Dissident Voice, and others.

Nicole is drawn to the moments that crack a life open—bad decisions, moral tangles, and the uncomfortable truths we’d rather not say out loud.

Her stories live at the intersection of conflict and comedy. She likes to find the laughs inside the fracture. And when she's at her best, she implicates herself first.

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Mary Olivieri

When people ask Mary Olivieri what she does, she always responds, “What do I love to do? Or what do I have to do?” What she loves to do is write and perform. You may have seen her on stage at The Open Door theatre or improvising at Second City. She has written several plays including  her sold-out one-woman show “Sex is Painful and Other lessons My Mother Taught Me”, and she has studied writing and storytelling with Julie Ganey at Second Story. What she has to do is earn money and she does that as Creative Director for 2X Marketing.

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Lisa Ebal

Lisa Ebal is excited to be a part of tonight’s show (feel free to add the name) Actually, she is excited to tell and listen to stories any time and anywhere because of the magical way stories connect, inspire, and heal. Seldom does she make it through one story without interrupting herself with yet another story. Lisa is in the final stages of writing her first book on the power of storytelling.

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Anne McNamee-Keels

Anne McNamee-Keels is a preschool teacher, a podcaster, and the former reigning Wrightwood Irish Princess of Chicago’s South Side Irish Parade (5-7 year-old division). She is also a two time Moth StorySLAM winner and Chicago GrandSLAM champ. Anne co-hosts and produces Lapsed, a podcast about growing up Catholic. She lives in Oak Park with her husband, dog, and two adorable kids.

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Molly Sturdevant

Molly Sturdevant work has appeared in After Hours Press, Orion Magazine, The Dark Mountain Project, Crab Creek Review, Poetry Northwest, and other places. Nominated for a Best of the Net and a Pushcart, she is recognized as a Western Federation of Miners Union Scholar, is currently a reader for JMWW LitMag, and has previously served as a reader for Pithead Chapel Magazine and The Maine Review. Her work has been supported by residencies at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest and Elsewhere Studios, and her debut novel The Sleepers (Regal House Publishing, September 2026) reimagines a true story of a 19th century labor strike, researched in union archives. She lives in Oak Park, is a parent working full-time, and is writing a second novel. She mostly writes alone, on the page, and is new to the stage.

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Kate Prior

"Kate Prior is a corporate trainer who teaches cybersecurity basics by day, works on her novel by night, and creates art on the weekends. Occasionally, she tells stories at Do Not Submit, Serving the Sentence, and Is This a Thing? If you like what you hear tonight, you can watch more of her stories on her YouTube channel, Prior Tales."

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