While the West Chester Story Slam is a competition, please be assured we don’t take the competitive part too seriously. Our goal is to provide a fun night of stories for the audience, and we are always thrilled to see new participants hop on-stage. If you’ve been thinking about telling a story, the WC Story Slam is a great venue to get on stage for the first time!

The best advice we’ve heard is this: Know the first sentence of your story and know the last sentence of your story. If you know where you are starting and have your destination in sight, you’ll do just fine! 

Official Rules for the West Chester Story Slam are as follows:
Storytellers register upon arrival. Names are usually drawn out of a hat to decide order of presentation. 

Stories should fit into the theme of the night! (Check Schedule!)
Stories should be true as you remember it!
Stories should be under five minutes in length!
No Notes, No Props, No Music! 

Three judges are selected from the audience. Each storyteller is given a score on a scale of 1-10 for two different criteria: content and presentation. The storyteller with the highest score wins, and is given a spot in November’s Grand Slam! 

Updated February 11, 2014: What if there is a tie? Good question. In the event of a tie during a regular season story slam, the event producer will choose one of the following: 

a) declare the Story Slam a tie and award those tied a spot in the Grand Slam.
b) announce there is a tie, and then have the judges independently cast secret ballots as to which story they deemed best.