To Perform at the tell:

Send a link to thetell@michaelleviton.com with a video of yourself playing a song or telling a story.

Stories should be between eight and fifteen minutes and told in a semi-improvised, casual way, not read from a page or memorized.

Michael will respond to your video within a month. If he doesn't, he's being a deadbeat; please write him again to shame him.

Michael picks the performers himself and would like to note that his opinions are preposterously subjective.  When he used to tell stories at THE MOTH Storyslam, he'd almost always receive the night's lowest scores. Those same despised stories have been well-received elsewhere. So, keep in mind that the response to a story (or song) is entirely personal.

here ARE SOME TYPES OF STORIES MICHAEL OFTEN LIKES:

A confrontation with an extreme character, positive or negative

Unexpected humor in a dark or sad place or unexpected emotion in a funny place

A time someone appeared to be one thing and was revealed to be another

A deluded quest or wild scheme

An attempt to deal with someone or something intolerable

An experience that changed your mind

A swindle or trick (from the side of the swindler or the swindled)

An encounter with danger, pain, or madness (one’s own madness or someone else’s)

An experience with the supernatural or an extreme coincidence

An action driven by envy or jealousy, a revenge

A seduction or wooing or time you were seduced or wooed

An embarrassment, disgrace, or extreme failure

A narrow escape (near-death or law problem, police confrontation)

An unfriending or dumping (from the side of the dumper or the dumped)

A personal experiment

A time you were wronged or wronged someone else

A mystery, solved or unsolved

AND SOME THAT MICHAEL DOESN’T USUALLY LIKE:

An encounter with a celebrity

A trip to another culture that brings about adventure and new perspective

A decadent or hedonistic experience with food, drugs, sex, or money

A personal triumph, a big win, an uncontroversial accomplishment