This workshop series  is based on work that I am undertaking at Brandeis University to identify the neuroscience  behind how and why people remember certain stories over long periods of time.  The project included collecting data from students and adults on three fiction and nonfiction books they remembered for more than three years and culling various lists of “best books” to identify common characteristics of the books that deeply affect people  I then spent more than a year reviewing neuroscience books, articles, and case studies, to determine how our brains inform and respond to the elements of memorable stories.  I am in the process of writing a series of interconnected essays on our findings and have developed workshops and presentations that can be offered as a one-off or in a series of up to twelve sessions.  Topics that are covered include among many others:

• Our Thirty Senses
• Arousing Emotion
• Time, Place, and Action in the Making of Memory
• Our First Metaphors (Bet You Can’t Think Without Them)
• Rhythm and Resonance
• The Transformative Story Pattern
• How Stories Help Us Survive and Cope with Mortality

For more information or to schedule a workshop, click here.  If you would like a copy of the handout from my panel presentation on the Science of Story at the NonfictionNow Conference, click here: AWP Science Of Evocation handout.