The Story Collider Story Collider, Inc.

Everyone has moments when they’re totally clueless about something; that’s just part of being human! In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share the growth that comes from a moment when they didn’t know better.
Part 1: Growing up in sexually conservative Ireland, Connor O’Donoghue is completely in the dark about sex, sexuality, and anatomy.
Part 2: Justina Assaad thinks the nausea she’s feeling while waiting to go parasailing is just a fluke.
Connor O'Donoghue is a 42-year-old Irishman, living in London. In his professional life, he runs a teacher training company. In recent years, he has started writing and performing true stories, including a one-person show called Homobesity: How my fat gay body made me, which has had runs in London, Brighton and Dublin.
Justina Assaad is a Speech-Language Pathologist in the Stroke & Neurological Rehabilitation program at Sunnybrook Health Sciences centre, and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto, finding joy in helping others discover their voice. Outside of her regular working hours, she is an actor, director, and playwright for her local parish, and self-proclaimed drama queen whose adventures and misfortunes appear to occur solely to entertain others. Though new to the art of performative story telling, she has been sharing her personal triumphs, laughs, and tragedies with complete strangers since childhood. 
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English, with its complex phonetic rules, presents challenges for pronunciation. Seriously, can anyone say Worcester right? In this week's episode, our storytellers delve into the personal and psychological aspects of pronunciation, exploring the nuances and hang-ups associated with the way people say certain words
Part 1: As someone who values language, Jerzy Gwiazdowski is thrown into turmoil when his partner says “suposably.”
Part 2: No one can ever say Casie Caldwell’s name correctly and it makes her furious.
Jerzy Gwiazdowski is a writer/performer who has appeared on Broadway, originated roles in new plays (NYC and regionally) and made numerous film/TV/streaming appearances. His plays have been produced on four continents. Jerzy is co-creator of Vocabaret, a monthly wordplay variety show since 2019. An ten-time champion at the O.Henry Pun-Off World Championships, Jerzy is pretty sure he's the winningest wordplay competitor in the world. His most recent project—THE LIE (a True Story)—is a solo show about the time he gave the greatest performance in history (which was only ever seen by one seven-year-old child). Alum: UNC School of the Arts. Faculty: The New School.
Once deep-fried in an almost 20-year-long restaurant career, Casie Caldwell has now simmered down into the world of marketing consulting. While her culinary chronicles remain a proud part of her legacy, it's her newfound passion for pickleball that's spicing up her life. Her friends joke about her undeniable "pickleball problem” now that she’s crafted her work schedule around being on the court five times a week without fail. And her penchant for decorating everything, including her Halloween décor, with everything pickleball-related, truly gives the game away! Beyond the court, Casie cherishes the art of storytelling and life's quieter moments on the lake with her wife and ever-loyal Australian Shepherd, Indigo. Trading the sizzle of restaurant operations for the pop of pickleball shots, she's found a delightful balance between her professional journey and her playful present.
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It’s important to remember that incompetence is not a permanent state but often a stepping stone on the path to mastery. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share their experiences of navigating moments when they felt completely out of their depth.
Part 1: As a student, Emily Pitts was never a fan of science, but now, as a middle school teacher, she’s not feeling confident in her skills to teach the subject.
Part 2: Despite his deep desire to study science, Andrew Barnes is constantly told he can’t.
Emily Pitts loves telling stories of all shapes and sizes. From 99 seconds to a one-hour Fringe shows. When she's not jotting down notes for stories, she's working on a manuscript about trees, co-producing comedy shows in Iceland, or wandering off in search of other exciting things to do. Recently, she started co-producing and hosting a powerpoint edu-tainment show in Seattle called ‘My Comedian Teacher’. In her spare time, she teaches middle school.
It's never too late to follow your dreams, and at 30, Andrew Barnes is doing just that. Back in school to get his degree in biology, Andrew plans to work in Veterinary Medicine or ecological restoration, or both. That story is still being written.
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In honor of Mother’s Day this week, both of our storytellers are sharing stories about the good, the bad, and the unexpected parts about being a mom.
Part 1: Silvana Clark finds a bat in her newborn’s room and thinks it may have bitten her baby. 
Part 2: Leah Moore navigates the challenges of raising a daughter with cri-du-chat syndrome alongside her other children with their own special needs.
Silvana Clark’s storytelling career began in high school when she made up creative stories to get out of boring classes. Since then she’s gone on to write 12 books, travel to 63 countries and train her dog to star in TV commercials. Silvana has told stories to groups ranging from the Canadian Llama Association to the American Sunbathing Society. (Yes….nudists.) She’s trying to figure out how to tell a story about when she was a recreation major and had to dissect a cadaver. No gloves provided in those days!
Leah Moore has been teaching English and Theater for over sixteen years. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and has a master’s in Educational Theater from New York University. She was the recipient of the prestigious, Teacher of the Year award, presented to ten New York City Teachers annually. She first premiered her writing on her parenting blog, www.lovingyoubig.com, which has an international audience in over 57 countries. Her family has been featured in a documentary about cri du chat, a rare chromosomal disability. She has been a guest on popular media outlets, such as Forbes and ESPN, working to create more stories centering around individuals with disabilities. She is the author of the memoir, Loving You Big: one family embracing the unexpected. She lives in New York with her husband, three children, and her daughter’s collection of rainbow wigs.
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You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals, and in this week on the podcast, both of our storytellers share some Discovery Channel worthy tales about coitus.
Part 1: A new baby and a new job make Edith Gonzalez feel distant from her husband, so she decides to spice things up.
Part 2: While working at the zoo, Lee Osorio learns a lot about zoo animal sex and himself.
Edith Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Archaeology and Critical Museum Studies at the University at Buffalo - SUNY. She studies the global flow of ecological knowledge within the context of transatlantic slavery. Edith is a Fulbright Scholar of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library, will be a Research Fellow at All Souls College - Oxford University in 2024, and is committed to decolonizing the spaces in which she works. Her current NSF-funded field research takes place on the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda in the Eastern Caribbean, but she is not there on vacation no matter what the photos of pina coladas might indicate. She is a two-time champion of the Smut Slam sex storytelling show because of her creative use of profanity and complete lack of shame. Her dedication to logic and sci-fi fangirldom have earned her the nickname of "the Puerto-Rican Mr. Spock.”
Lee Osorio is an actor and playwright based in Atlanta, GA. You can catch him Guest Starring on NBC's Found, or make the trek down to Savannah to catch him in his one person show, Prisontown, premiering at Savannah Rep in May. To learn more visit his website at LeeOsorio.com.
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Almost everyone has at one time or another felt inadequate despite their achievements. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers share their struggles with feelings of self-doubt, insecurity and the fear of being exposed as a fraud.
Part 1: Sarah Demers has this nagging feeling she’s not a real physicist.
Part 2: After dropping out of college, Kevin Smiley can’t seem to shake his feelings of inadequacy.
Sarah Demers is a particle physicist and professor at Yale University. She studies the Higgs boson and looks for physics beyond the current "standard model" using CERN's Large Hadron Collider. She's also an interdisciplinary enthusiast, having co-written the book "Physics and Dance" with choreographer and dancer Emily Coates, and regularly teaching a "Physics and Music" course at Yale. When she isn't physics'ing she can be found hiking with her kids, foraging for mushrooms, brewing beer, or blissfully watching certifiably terrible science fiction with her husband.
Kevin Smiley is a US Army veteran and senior mechanical engineering undergraduate with a minor in applied mathematics and an interest in thermal-fluid science.
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