Folk

Episode 140 – Reaching Geek Culture

Table top games. Cosplay. Anime. Superheros. Star Wars. Conventions. These are a few of a geek’s favorite things. Those who love these things love to share them with others. Together, they make up geek culture. But behind these shared interests and hobbies are individuals who need the love and hope of Jesus Christ. In this…

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Episode 131 – What’s a Storyteller Worth?

Imagine you’re part of a hunter-gatherer tribe. Who do you value most? That awesome hunter dude who brings home the boar bacon? The guy with the big muscles who tore apart a lion with his bare hands? Or is it the storyteller who tells the myths of your people? This episode, hosts Timothy Deal and…

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Episode 124 – Like the Lilies of the Field

Every story, whether long or short, written or visual, occupies a space of time–and then it’s over. Gone. Unless, of course, you can read or watch it again. Still, there is a transience to stories, a space they occupy in our lives that ends and can never

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Episode 108 – Fields and Fountains, Moors and Mountains

The flowers are blooming, the trees blaze green, and the world shines in the aftermath of cool showers. Spring is here! And so, naturally (pun intended), Nick and Tim discuss the place of nature in fiction. They follow up with a short, plant-based “It Cam

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Episode 93 – Give Thanks for Stories

It’s Thanksgiving, and while the commercial world is rushing on to Black Friday, Timothy and Nick want to pause a moment and give thanks for stories. So, in Story School, we list the ways stories benefit our lives. Then in What If? we shoehorn the oft-neg

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Episode 81 – Can You Picture That?

If you’re reading this, chances are you have eyes. And if you have eyes, I’ll wager you tend to see things, you know, things like images. And while words are fascinating and important (see episode 79), we would be remiss if we didn’t discuss the power of

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Episode 79 – A Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Words. Since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, you’ve been bombarded by them. Flash cards, spelling bees, Facebook comments from people who haven’t learned how to use gifs yet…they’re everywhere. Sometimes we take them for granted, and sometimes we t

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Episode 78 – Everything is Story!

Here at Derailed Trains of Thought, your premiere podcast on storytelling, we like to discuss, well, telling stories. So this episode we unpack the assertion that EVERYTHING is story…or, at least, it can be if looked at right. Then, in our second half,

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Episode 75 – As Easy As A, C, B

For most of us, Friday comes after Thursday, college comes sometime after preschool, and death follows taxes. For those living in a story world, however, life is not necessarily so simple. Dinner might be interrupted by a memory of childhood before you re

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Episode 71 – Get Lost Already!

We read all sorts of things everyday–tweets, emails, menus, Cracked articles, etc. But not all reading is equal. This episode Nick and Tim discuss “deep reading,” the act of engaging in a text (or, similarly, in a visual story) in a real and immersive wa

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