Field Notes for Storytellers
Research, Security, and the Archival Muse
About the Course
Field Notes for Storytellers: Research, Security, and the Archival Muse fills a wide gap in storytelling instruction by helping you organize and conduct the research that underpins the stories you tell. There are four modules in the course, and each of them draws upon my experience as a storyteller, a folklorist, a doctoral researcher of ethically sensitive topics, and the CEO of a technology company.
The bonus Field Notes for Storytellers Resource List contains links and descriptions for twenty-two free folklore resources you can download or access right now and dozens of hardware and software options to consider for implementation in your technology and security workflows.
Modules in the Course
Dodging the Rabbit Hole: Creative Research Workflow for Storytellers (Module One)
Good storytelling begins with good research, but it's far too easy to fall down a rabbit hole and get lost on the way to the information you need. "Dodging the Rabbit Hole" offers the remedy for this with a Creative Research Workflow that guides you from brainstorming to revision. Learn how to turn a seed idea into a premise and research question(s), conduct a literature review that serves the story you want to tell, organize your notes into an outline, and turn them into a draft with robust story elements.
Love That Local Knowledge: Conducting Archival and Ethnographic Research (Module Two)
Archives and ethnographic interviews are fantastic resources for storytellers, but they're often overlooked in favour of Internet and library counterparts. "Love That Local Knowledge" aims to change that with basic best practices for conducting archival and ethnographic research. Learn how to prepare for your visit to an archive, how to conduct archival research, and how to cover your ethical bases when you're working with these materials. In addition, learn how to conduct an ethnographic interview, what equipment you need and how to use it, and what ethical and archival procedures to follow afterwards.
Safe Secs: OpSec, InfoSec, and PerSec for Ethnographers, Journalists and Non-Fiction Writers (Module Three)
Not many people know my doctoral research involved interviewing activists who might have broken the law. And you know what? That's exactly as it should be. "Safe Secs" is for fellow ethnographers, journalists, and non-fiction writers who want to tell important but thorny stories and need to implement extra security measures but don't know where to begin. You'll learn what operational security, information security, and personal security are in relation to sensitive research, basic measures you can take to make your projects more secure, and how these measures played out in my doctoral field work.
Kit Up: Research and Security Tool Kits for Storytellers (Module Four)
"Kit Up" follows the Creative Research Workflow in "Dodging the Rabbit Hole" and the InfoSec recommendations in "Safe Secs" with a robust discussion of technology for storytellers. This process-forward module teaches you how to use software solutions for capturing seed ideas, developing your premise and research questions, managing your literature review, organizing your research materials, and formatting your manuscripts. It also provides recommendations for Internet writing aids, submission tracking, and security-forward hardware and software.
About Ceallaigh
Dr. Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran holds B.A. in Celtic Studies from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She's also an author, poet, and musician under the names Ceallaigh S. MacCath-Moran and C.S. MacCath. Her long-running Folklore & Fiction project integrates these passions with a focus on folklore scholarship aimed at storytellers, and she brings a deep appreciation of animism, ecology, and folkloristics to her own storytelling.
Work from Ceallaigh's two fiction and poetry collections has been shortlisted for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and nominated for the Rhysling Award. Recently, her podcast radio drama “The Belt and the Necklace,” was produced by the Odyssey Theatre in Ottawa. She's a member of the American Folklore Society, the International Society for Folk Narrative Research, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, and many other professional societies for folklore scholars and authors.
Ceallaigh is also the CEO of Triskele Media Inc., a family-owned and operated technology company specializing in enterprise and government web applications, and she's a Sail Canada certified celestial navigator who is learning to sail and hoping to chart her course by the stars across the ocean while she writes. Meanwhile, she lives on Cape Breton Island with her husband Sean, who hopes for the stars and the ocean too. You can find her online at csmaccath.com, folkloreandfiction.com, and linktr.ee/csmaccath.