Moth stories have the power to bring you into a world that is often not your own and leave you wishing that you could live in that world

Just a little bit longer since 1997 the moth has shared more than 50,000 stories with audiences around the world through shows,

workshops and on the moth podcast and the moth radio hour once the curtains have closed the rooms emptied and the voice is

Quieted it's the stories still ringing in our ears that whisper over and over we are all of us more alike than we are different

Help us write the next 25 years of the moth story by making your year-end gift today

Text moth22 no spaces to 41444 to make your gift and help provide the space, tools and resources needed for more people to embrace the art and craft of

Personal storytelling in their own lives. Thank you.

From PRX this is the moth radio hour. I'm Jennifer Hicks. The first moth story slam was in 2001 and we are still going strong.

There's different themes and different hosts and different cities. A lot has changed a lot continues to change

But one thing stays the same every February as a sort of answer to Valentine's Day or an all to Valentine's Day

We put on shows all over the country with the theme love hurts

Now maybe it sounds to you like it would be a huge bummer, but somehow it's not

Yes, people bring stories of heartbreak and good love gone wrong and being crushed and kicked to the curve all of that

But it's always somehow a lot of fun too

The math of love always switches things around you lose, but then low and behold you find again

We always enjoy the interpretations of our themes and in this hour we'll hear five stories all born in February at a love hurts stories slam

Our first story was told at the love hurts stories slam in Boston where we partner with PRX and WB

We are little inside baseball at our storytelling competitions people sign up to tell but there are often more wannabe

Tellers than there are slots so as a rule we only hear ten stories after those ten stories are told

We have all the people who didn't get a chance come up and give their first lines

But every once in a while there aren't three or eight extra names in the hat, but just one extra and if the audience gets wind of it

Well just listen to how our Boston host handles it

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