Share Your Story. Speak Truth. Listen to Your City.

City Speaks is a free gathering where people from our city share stories/poems/songs, speak truth, and listen to one another.

The project’s aim is to give individuals an opportunity to share personal stories, fictional tales, songs, and poems of humor, beauty, pain, & change, provide a platform where individuals can speak truth to power, and create a space where our community can practice public civility and empathy through active listening.

Sign up to tell a story!

Guidelines:

  • Each storyteller, poet, or speaker will share for 5 minutes max.

  • If you’re telling a story, work at adhering to good storytelling techniques like having a clear beginning, middle, and end. Here are some other tips.

  • If you’re telling a personal story it should be your story and it must be true. If the primary action of your story is something that happened to someone else, your story should be about how that has affected you.

  • If you’re speaking truth to a power in your life, please aim at being constructive. Speak honestly and don’t be afraid to share in the ugliness of the power you’re speaking truth to, but overall, aim to add something to the conversation and not only subtract. Here’s an idea of what we mean by “speaking truth to power”.

  • There may be overlap between sharing your story and speaking truth to power and that is great! Don’t shy away from the complexity of what you’d like to share.

  • Those in the audience must practice active listening. This means listening with the intent to understand and empathize.

  • Those in the audience must allow the sharer or speaker to have their full time. Even if you disagree with everything being said, practice civility and work to understand the speaker’s experience.

  • Take advantage of the time after the event in the cafe. Meet someone new. Ask questions. Push back on some of the speaker’s assumptions. Be open and practice civil discourse...it is needed now more than ever.

Interested about finding out more or have a story you'd like to share?
Please fill out the form below and include a brief summary of your story, poem, or song. You may also contact Community Engagement Manager, Marlo Rodriguez at marlovashtirodriguez@gmail.com with any questions. We look forward to hearing from you! 

 

Funding for this organization is provided in part by the Board of County Commissioners of Broward County, Florida, as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council.