Ever heard of The Moth?  It’s one of the better free podcasts to which I subscribe, and it makes for good listening on long walks, flights, and drives.  It’s essentially a New York theater devoted to the art of storytelling.  Think open-mic night, crossed with standup comedy, bred with A Prairie Home Companion, and reared on a front porch.

The Moth [...] was founded in New York in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, who wanted to recreate in New York the feeling of sultry summer evenings on his native St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, where he and a small circle of friends would gather to spin spellbinding tales on his friend Wanda’s porch.

After moving to New York, George missed the sense of connection he had felt sharing stories with his friends back home, and he decided to invite a few friends over to his New York apartment to tell and hear stories. Thus the first “Moth” evening took place in his living room. Word of these captivating story nights quickly spread, and The Moth moved to bigger venues in New York. Today, The Moth conducts six ongoing programs and has brought more than 3,000 live stories to over 100,000 audience members.

 They even get famous people to come tell stories, which is pretty nice.  Here’s a short video about their big fundraiser earlier this week (The Moth Ball), where they had an East Coast/West Coast storytelling duel.