Our Story

Lancaster Story Slam, which began in January 2015, is the brainchild of co-founders Carla Wilson and Jim Breslin. Carla was a fan of the West Chester Story Slam and approached WC Story Slam founder Jim Breslin with the idea of starting a story slam in Lancaster. The two met in the summer of 2014 and discussed modeling Lancaster Story Slam on West Chester Story Slam.

In 2022, after seven seasons of producing Lancaster Story Slam, Carla handed the reins over to frequent storyteller and 2017 Grand Slam champion Tony Crocamo and York Story Slam producer JJ Sheffer. Tony and JJ are proud to help continue the tradition and community that Carla so lovingly cultivated.

How It Works

While the Lancaster Story Slam is a competition, please be assured we don’t take the competitive part too seriously. Our goal is to provide a fun night of stories for the audience, and we are always thrilled to see new participants hop on-stage. If you’ve been thinking about telling a story, the Lancaster Story Slam is a great venue to get on stage for the first time!

The best advice we’ve heard is this: know the first sentence of your story and know the last sentence of your story. If you know where you are starting and have your destination in sight, you’ll do just fine!

Official Rules

– Stories should fit into the theme of the night (Check Schedule!)
– Stories should be true as you remember it
– Stories are yours - you are the central character
– Stories should be under five minutes in length
– No notes, no props, no music

Three judges are chosen from the audience and each storyteller is given scores based on content and presentation. The winner gets a spot in November’s Grand Slam and takes home one of our prized pint glasses.

In the event of a tie during a regular season story slam, the event producer will choose one of the following:
a) declare the Story Slam a tie and award each of those tied a spot in the Grand Slam.
b) announce there is a tie, and then have the judges independently cast secret ballots as to which story they deemed best.

* Storytellers register upon arrival by completing a release form and we draw 10 names to share stories. The storyteller release form states that they are okay with having the story posted on YouTube, our website, and/or social media pages. Storytellers retain all rights to their stories.