Everyone has a story at MothUP events

On the fourth Tuesday of the month, the tables at Manuel’s Tavern will fill with all the cops, sports fans and Democrats who usually pack the place, but also gardeners, artists, writers, desk jockeys, college students looking for a quiet night and parents looking for a crazy one. They will come to hear stories, or to tell them.

They will be funny: “I think we were sniffing Pixy Stix.”

Exasperated: “You don’t want to see welding on the ship while you’re traveling on it.”

Self-conscious: “I’m full of pain and snarkiness and I can be in a Catholic church. I need to be out being the sea urchin I know I am.”

Wistful: “Her hair always smelled so good. It smelled like apples.”

And honest: “I have a dead gerbil in the freezer.”

And they will all be true.

Potential storytellers drop their names into a hat, and if selected, must spin a nonfiction yarn loosely based on a theme such as denial, tradition or rules. This is how MothUP Atlanta, the new monthly storytelling event, keeps the hat full.

The Moth is a nonprofit that inspires and delivers stories in several forms — a weekly podcast, a public radio show with a new season in May and Moth Mainstage performances featuring curated stories and celebrity tellers. There are Moth StorySLAMS, popular competition-style events in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit that are known to breed book deals and stage shows for the storytellers.

Then there are smaller, locally organized meetups, known as MothUPs, held in living rooms or bars, like the monthly event at Manuel’s. The name The Moth recalls the nights many years ago when the event’s founder stayed up late with friends, swapping stories and watching moths swirl around the porch light. It is famous in some cities and unknown in others, but it assumes that stories can bring people together anywhere.

Atlanta’s MothUP organizers relied on word of mouth and expected maybe 20 people at their first gathering earlier this year. They got more than 70. The second event moved to a larger room and overflowed with more than 100 drinkers, diners and listeners. The hat overflowed, too, with stories to be told.

“I almost canceled. I was scared it would be a room full of people shaking and not telling a story,” said MothUP organizer Joyce Mitchell. “They kept coming in and coming in and I was running out of seats.”

Even Moth HQ in New York didn’t know what to think of the turnout in Atlanta. MothUP events were designed to be 50 people or fewer; Atlanta beat that number in its first hour. Organizers are tight-lipped about adding new StorySLAM cities for 2011, but “the idea of starting a slam in Atlanta is pretty exciting,” said Sarah Austin Jenness, producing director for The Moth in New York. “Georgia has really taken to The Moth.”

Or maybe it’s that other places have really taken to Georgia’s style of storytelling.

As a young man, author and poet George Dawes Green and his friend Wanda would sit up late on her St. Simons Island porch, drinking bourbon and telling stories. The tales got wilder as the whiskey disappeared, Green remembers, and moths would crawl through holes in the screens and then orbit the porch light.

Years later, he was publishing novels like “The Juror” and living in New York, where nobody could finish a story without being interrupted by a bigger ego. Green decided to resurrect those long-ago Georgia nights at his Flatiron District loft. There were drinks, music and true stories told without interruption. He called it The Moth, hoping people would gravitate to stories the way moths go to light.

“There’s something in our DNA that responds to stories. Somehow, stories are perfect ways to store clusters of rich information,” Green said from Savannah, where he’s working on a new project. “These are really just kitchen stories, stories from the campfire, put up on stage.”

In Atlanta, Ryll Mathews came alone to the first MothUP. She had a story rolling in her head, one she’d recently lived, just started to type and hadn’t finished. The hat was empty and the evening winding down when she raised her hand and moved toward the microphone.

“It just felt so natural to fall in love,” she told the crowd. He was a friend and then he was more. It didn’t work out.

She stumbled a few times and paused to remember where she was. Afterward, she was glad she’d just told the story, instead of writing it out and rehearsing.

“It’s a lot more soulful than when you’re typing and in your own mind,” said Mathews, 29, of Sandy Springs. “We have all these kind of closed communities, where they’re particular to common interest or religion or whatever have you. This is so broad, just people telling stories.”

So how do their stories end?

Mitchell, the worried organizer: “I think I was very lonely and looking for more connection and intimacy. After the last event, I walked out of here with friends, amazing friends.”

Mathews, the unexpected storyteller: “This had just happened, I had just broken up with this guy. After that point, I felt much more settled in my decision. And it’s always nice to get warm applause after you stand up and be vulnerable.”

And Green, the story-starved founder: “The response has been immediate and powerful and visceral. They don’t go home. They hang out and drink and tell more stories.”

Storytelling steps

Before: Prepare a true story at least loosely based on the theme of the night and up to 10 minutes long. (The April 27 theme is rules.) No rants, essays or stand-up routines allowed, although angry, poignant and funny stories are welcome.