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Chris Higgins
Ira Glass on Storytelling
by Chris Higgins - May 28, 2008 - 9:39 AM

Ira Glass, host of PRI’s This American Life, is a master storyteller. But it’s taken him a many years to achieve that status. Today I came across a series of four videos of Glass explaining storytelling and his own past in broadcasting. He gives simple advice for storytellers of all kinds, and he even plays clips of his old (and pretty embarrassing) NPR reporting. If you’re looking to develop your sense of narrative, or just love listening to Ira Glass ramble, take a few minutes to watch these.

Originally produced for Current TV, the videos are also available on YouTube. I’ll post them here in my preferred order — most interesting (Part 3) first:

Now back to Part 1:

And Part 2:

And the last little bit in Part 4:

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Comments (5)

  1. Ira is my hero! “This American Life” is the sole reason to get cable! If you are not listening to the radio program you are missing out on the best stories in this country.

    posted by Dustin on 5-28-2008 at 10:24 am

  2. Thank you for sharing this with us!

    Here’s a quick tip for future posts with a video in multiple parts: If you make a YouTube playlist containing all the videos, in the order you desire, and then use the embed code for the playlist, all the videos will play in the same window. When one video ends, the video after it will automatically load and play.

    posted by gmsc on 5-28-2008 at 11:59 am

  3. I don’t know, watching him ramble about storytelling doesn’t bring the same sort of satisfaction as listening to him talk about Random acts of kindness or coming of age in America. All of which is amplified if you happen to be on a long road trip and flipping between channels to hear the next section because one NPR station is fading and you might just get another one better. I think that is what Ira Glass is for – lulling you into a trance like state with a simply soothing voice so that you don’t think about everyday frustrations or other annoying drivers. I guess that when I hear his voice I want to hear something more interesting that what he thinks about himself and his own art, which is just that much less random than T.A.L. ever is.

    posted by Stack on 5-28-2008 at 1:16 pm

  4. @gmsc – Oh! I’ll totally do that next time. Thank you!

    posted by Chris Higgins on 5-28-2008 at 1:50 pm

  5. Ira Glass is a master story teller, and best of all, his desk is very messy (here’s where I originally put a link to his messy desk, but they won’t let me, and now you’ll never see it. Feel free to complain to the webmasters on this site, and include our new catchphrase: “messy desks want to be free.”), like mine, which means I’m a master story teller.
    Don’t argue with logic.

    posted by Ipswich McGwinnick on 5-13-2009 at 1:58 pm

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