The Way of the Story: A provocative storytelling workshop, with Tom Abate

Drawing on 20 years as a UC Berkeley Extension journalism instructor, Tom will lead a workshop to help us think about how to make an impact and attain our goals in these topsy-turvy times.

In this engaging session, Tom will share hard-won insights and invite you into a guided brainstorm to help you:

• Clarify your creative goals
• Understand how storytelling is evolving
• Think differently about message, medium, and audience

Sample prompts from the session include:

• If storytelling is humanity’s superpower, why do so many storytellers feel powerless?
• If “the medium is the message,” is interactivity the message of the internet?
• Are modern conspiracy theories any weirder than the printing-press-era myth that women were cutting off men’s penises?

Don’t miss this fun, thought-provoking session with a writer who’s done it all—and still has questions worth asking.

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Tom Abate has worked since 1974 in nearly every medium of communication—from Navy broadcast operations in the South China Sea, to running a startup newspaper in Redwood Country, to covering Silicon Valley for the San Francisco Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle just as the internet exploded into public life, and spent nearly 20 years reporting on how tech was changing everything—from biotech to newsrooms.

Tom later became a science writer at Stanford and has taught journalism through UC Berkeley Extension for two decades. Now retired, he focuses on storytelling in the Attention Economy—where creatives struggle to find an audience as tech rewires how we think.

*To learn more about Tom or sample his current writing, visit tomabate.com/ruminations*

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Open to the Public
NVW Members: $5
Guests: $10
Students: Free with ID

Napa Valley Writers, a non-profit organization, is a branch of the California Writers Club and holds monthly meetings. For more information, contact [napavalleywriters@gmail.com](mailto:napavalleywriters@gmail.com)