Storytelling at The Highground

Hosted by Scott Schultz of the Heartbeat Center for Writing and Love Wisconsin, a project of Wisconsin Humanities

Join us on March 15 for a day of storytelling at The Highground. You can sign up for the morning skill-building workshop (10am-noon) and/or for the afternoon of hearing stories (2-4pm). There is a connection that sticks with us when we find a piece of ourselves in someone else’s story. Come to hear and tell some stories at The Highground Veterans Memorial Park.

Storytelling skill-building workshop description 

Each one of us is made up of a million moments…a million stories. Some of them are big moments: The day an eagle soared overhead as you paused at one of The Highground’s tributes or the memory of seeing your family for the first time after a year-long overseas deployment. But our stories are also cumulative. Our everyday stories add up to something bigger. We know the importance of veterans and their families telling their stories as part of their lifelong transitions from military life to civilian life. Everyone has a story to tell, join this free workshop to gain skills to craft your story. This workshop is open to people from all walks of life.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to find, shape, and tell stories. We will discuss the five main elements of a story and how to discover them. By learning dynamic storytelling elements, you will gain the tools to pull stories out of everyday life. Participants will learn how to turn an anecdote of something that happened into a story that illuminates a central truth about life. This will be an interactive workshop with a mixture of mini-lecture, 1:1 dialogue, and small group work.

Storytelling event description

There is a connection that sticks with us when we find a piece of ourselves in someone else’s story. Come to hear and tell some stories at The Highground Veterans’ Memorial Park. Hosted by Scott Schultz of the Heartbeat Center for Writing and Love Wisconsin, a project of Wisconsin Humanities. 

Open Mic storytelling: We welcome you to come and share a five to seven-minute story. Mike Gemignani, U.S. Army Global War on Terror veteran and Justina Gemignani, teacher, mother, and military spouse will be telling a story as part of the Open Mic.

Love Wisconsin Connection 

Research has shown us that human connection makes us happier. Wisconsin Humanities’ program, Love Wisconsin, shares real stories from people living in Wisconsin to help us recognize our shared humanity and feel more connected to our neighbors. For ten years, Love Wisconsin stories have been capturing the hearts of over 100,000 followers. We are celebrating this milestone with storytelling events that create welcoming spaces where community members can share their experiences. Workshop presenter Scott Schultz is one of our Top Ten storytellers, so we are partnering to create this opportunity at The Highground.

Workshop presenters:

Jen Rubin is the Executive Producer of Love Wisconsin, a statewide storytelling project of Wisconsin Humanities. She produced the Moth StorySlam in Madison for nine years, co-hosts the storytelling podcast Inside Stories, and leads storytelling workshops around the state. She co-leads storytelling workshops in four Wisconsin state prisons through Odyssey Beyond Bars. Jen was a producer for Wisconsin Humanities’ “Human Powered”’ podcast, about the power of the humanities inside Wisconsin prisons.  Jen is the author of “We Are Staying: Eighty Years in the Life of a Family, a Store, and a Neighborhood”, and can be found on her Great Midwest Bagel Quest. 

Scott Schultz was raised on a dairy farm in Clark County, Wisconsin. He is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, career print and broadcast journalist, and former executive director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union. He has an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree in reflective storytelling. In 2001, Scott founded The Heartbeat Center for Writing, Literacy and the Arts and continues to serve as that nonprofit organization’s president and executive director. The organization’s mission is to use writing and the arts to help people find place on the land. One of The Heartbeat’s major programs is its Veterans Expressing Themselves project, in which veterans are helped to find their voices, heal, and realize identity by telling their stories. Scott produces a podcast that uses veterans’ voices to help other veterans heal unseen wounds. During the past two years, Scott has worked with the University of Wisconsin Odyssey Beyond Wars veterans’ storytelling project. He has lectured about writing and storytelling in many Wisconsin and Florida high schools, universities and organizations. Scott also has produced stories for Wisconsin Humanities’ Love Wisconsin project, is the author of the book Rural Routes and Ruts: Roaming the Roads of Rural Life, and maintains a blog, www.ruralroutes.blog. His essays about rural life have appeared in publications across the country. He joined the Wisconsin Humanities board in 2024 and lives on a small farm south of Osseo, Wisconsin.

Neillsville lodging information for folks who might want to arrive the night before:

Moraine Motel LLC (adjacent to The Highground)
Super 8 by Wyndham
Fannies Supper Club and Motel 

The Highground is located at W7301 Ridge Rd. Neillsville, WI, 54456