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As a third grade teacher in my twenties, I told stories all the time, both true and ridiculous. And in 2011, when I left teaching for grad school and I could finally stay up late enough to see a show on a school night, I went to an evening of storytelling. I’ve been immersed in stories ever since.
For 8 years now, I’ve been telling true, personal stories nationwide. I’ve won a couple of Moth GrandSLAMs, co-founded and led The Moth’s Education Program, wrote a dissertation about storytelling and identity (and defended it!), and I've worked with students, educators, entrepreneurs, political advocates, podcast producers, and just interesting folks to make their stories unforgettable. I’m passionate about using narrative strategies and my own expertise to engage listeners and learners in brand new ways. I’ve got deep experience as a storyteller, one-on-one coach, educator, script doctor, and qualitative researcher. I bring joy, caring and rigor to everything I work on. Get in touch if you’d like to work together! |
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Want to know more? Or maybe you need a bio to read onstage to introduce me? Here are some more things about me:
MICAELA BLEI, PhD, has been teaching, studying and performing true, personal storytelling nationwide since 2012, and teaching and facilitating arts education for 20 years. A two-time Moth GrandSLAM winner, former Director of Education at The Moth, and former third grade teacher, Micaela has performed worldwide and taught storytelling and hosted shows at schools across the city and at Columbia University, Brown University, Skidmore College, Penn State University, Northeastern, and many others. She has given keynotes and research talks on storytelling, identity and empathy at conferences and universities nationwide.
Micaela is the co-founder of The Moth’s Education Program, growing the program from a single high school after school pilot in 2012 to a national resource reaching hundreds of NYC high school students, college students across the country and providing training and curriculum design for over 1,500 educators worldwide.
Micaela’s dissertation research focused on the role that storytelling plays in the identity formation of K-12 educators. Her research interests include the aesthetics of personal narrative performance, the role of narrative in organizational development strategy, and the relationship between the personal and the professional in educator identity. She is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education. She has held fellowships with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale; UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers; and Skidmore’s MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute.
Micaela’s storytelling has been called “heartbreaking and hilarious.” Her stories can be heard onThe Moth Radio Hourand podcast, Family Ghosts, Risk! and many others. She is also the writer and performer of three solo storytelling shows: City of Islands, a dystopian fantasy for middle grades; The Secret Life of Your Third Grade Teacher, which was a sold-out FringeFAVE at the 2016 NYC Fringe Festival; and the forthcoming science fiction comedy, Causality: The Single Ladies’ Guide to Time Travel on a Budget, playing at the 2019 SOLOCOM Festival in November.
Micaela is the co-founder of The Moth’s Education Program, growing the program from a single high school after school pilot in 2012 to a national resource reaching hundreds of NYC high school students, college students across the country and providing training and curriculum design for over 1,500 educators worldwide.
Micaela’s dissertation research focused on the role that storytelling plays in the identity formation of K-12 educators. Her research interests include the aesthetics of personal narrative performance, the role of narrative in organizational development strategy, and the relationship between the personal and the professional in educator identity. She is an adjunct professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education. She has held fellowships with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale; UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers; and Skidmore’s MDOCS Storytellers’ Institute.
Micaela’s storytelling has been called “heartbreaking and hilarious.” Her stories can be heard onThe Moth Radio Hourand podcast, Family Ghosts, Risk! and many others. She is also the writer and performer of three solo storytelling shows: City of Islands, a dystopian fantasy for middle grades; The Secret Life of Your Third Grade Teacher, which was a sold-out FringeFAVE at the 2016 NYC Fringe Festival; and the forthcoming science fiction comedy, Causality: The Single Ladies’ Guide to Time Travel on a Budget, playing at the 2019 SOLOCOM Festival in November.