Once upon a time we held the first Digital Storytelling Festival in Crested Butte, Colorado. There were about 30 of us that assembled in the old town hall’s second floor meeting room on Elk Avenue. But quite the 30 (see below). Among these amazing group of folks was my dear old friend Jo Carson. Jo was there representing the oral tradition, as a playwright and performer. Her Appalachian take on the world was very straightforward.

Place defines story. It is the dominant character.

You can’t make sense of what meaning means to a person without placing them into a rooted context of some kind, what most of us mean by “Where you from?” Not necessarily where are you living, not necessarily where you were born, but the deeper sense of belonging that most of have as our deep genetic birthright or a deeply felt sense of permanence and connection from a place we have landed.

My people are from this place…. or I found the place I truly belong.

In the journey into story over my 40 years in the arts here in the US, and really going back to my experiences growing up, my work as a tenant’s rights activist, and someone almost always part of the conversations about the dislocation of gentrification here in the Bay Area and in other parts of the United States, I have an endless fascination with place-making. With the ways people claim their connection to a location with story.

This effort led me to a decade of work, first as someone playing with the do-it-yourself map tools of GoogleMaps API (application programming interface) in the mid-2000s), and then shortly after exploring all the potential innovations in digital storytelling using mobile computing devices aka smart phones and tablets. I return to this work during the global pandemic because I feel among the many things the crimp in our relative mobility has done is force us to re-acquaint ourselves to what is right outside our door, in our neighborhoods, countryside, and walkable/rideable distances. And as a good buddhist-type fellow, I believe all the stories that ever need to be told in a lifetime can be found right there, in the square mile you exist in.

So what you’ll find on this site are the emerging efforts of a new generation of placemaking storytellers. Ones that I am meeting through workshops or our network of friends and supporters at StoryCenter. I hope you’ll find resources as well.

Joe Lambert
February 9, 2021

Original Attendees – 1995 Digital Storytelling Festival

Dana Atchley
Festival Founder & Creator of Next Exit
Denise Aungst
Festival Producer
Greg Roach
Interactive game designer and Founder of Hyperbole Studios.
Scott McCloud
Author of Understanding Comics
Harry Marks
Graphic designer & new technology visionary.
Victor Masayevsa
Hopi film maker, Creator of Ritual Clowns.
Marty Pottenger
Solo performance artist and storyteller
Pedro Meyer
Photgrapher and Digital Artist
Jon Sanborn
Interactive Director, Creator of Psychic Dectective.
Richard Conroy-Heale
Director of Publishing, Double Impact Multimedia
Jo Carson
Playwright & Traditional Storyteller.
Harry Mott
First Director of Education, American Film Institute.
Mark “Spoonman” Petrakis
Interactive Storyteller, Creator of Cobra Lounge.
Joe Lambert & Nina Mullen
Directors of the SF Digital Media Center.
Luis Humberto Crosthwaite
Interactive writer
Peter Bergman
Hypermedia Artist, Founding Member Firesign Theater
John McDaid
Hypermedia Novelist, Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse.
Patrick Milligan
Lingo Magician for Next Exit & We Make Memories.
Abbe Don
Multimedia producer and creator of We Make Memories.
Hal Josephson
President, Media Sense; Producer, Interactive Media Events
Chip Woerner
Director of Corporate Marketing, Radius, Inc.
Ralph Rogers
Marketing Manager, Tools, Apple P.I.E. Division.
Kate Adams
Multimedia Goddess, Apple Computer
Mark Frost
Editor-in-Chief, The Net.
Crystal Waters
Writer and Web Magician, The Net Magazine
Cynthia Decker
Media Sense
Scott Rosenberg
Writer and Journalist
Erik Geelhoed
Hewlitt Packard
Terry Taylor
Artist, Watershed Media Center
David Ditzler
Crested Butte Interactive
Don Carter
Technology Teacher, Crested Butte Schools
Students
from the Crested Butte Academy