The Sunday Afternoon Project, an Austin-based nonprofit dedicated to diversity, identity and storytelling, is seeking a group of 100 people to record and analyze stories about who they really are, starting in September 2024.
In a fun and thoughtful initiative called Fearless Storytelling Lab, group members will kick things off with an interview by co-founders, husband-and-wife team Luis Gramajo and Hans Schrei, who also founded former Austin bakery Wunderkeks.
The Sunday Afternoon Foundation has conducted storytelling workshops and talks at Google and South by Southwest and is currently in conversation with other large organizations to adapt the process. With Wunderkeks, the co-founders also attended the SKU Incubator in Austin and participated in its pitch competition.
Although Wunderkeks’ cookies were delicious, the core of their appeal lay in their excellent branding. Their customers – particularly gay Guatemalan immigrants – really took the motto “Be Yourself” to heart and were therefore uniquely qualified to lead a storytelling workshop.
Using each interview transcript, Gramajo and Schrei create an objective AI analysis in the form of a fairy tale and, in one-, four-, or eight-hour sessions, help participants refine that story and share it with the world—anywhere and as often as they want.
It’s not really about the story, but about making the way we talk about ourselves through abstraction playful: Did the story reflect what a participant really meant? Should they use a funny new phrase? Or should they change the way they present their story to avoid unintended implications?
“When you go out into the world and you want to gain people’s trust, it’s all about whether what you’re saying is consistent with who you are,” Schrei says, “because otherwise the cracks start to show. The problem we’ve identified is that many of us don’t really have that ability… because we’re told that’s how we’re supposed to talk. These are the things we say. These are the things we’re supposed to be, as opposed to who we are.”
Creating the story
Gramajo is the definition of a people-pleaser. Part of Wunderkeks’ success has been his ability to befriend big-name creatives—actor Busy Philipps, musician Dan Reynolds, and other storytellers (including your favorite CultureMap editor, who wrote about their Austin launch). His open-minded spirit and Schrei’s analytical mind are the engine that pushes the process beyond an AI gimmick into what is essentially a marketing intensive, whether participants want it for professional or personal use.
Gramajo’s hour-long introductory interview is like a personality test that the founders say they spent eight months developing, and all participants have to do is answer honestly. I tried out an abbreviated first session of the Storytelling Lab to see how it went.
As predicted by Gramajo and Schrei, there were some things I liked and some I needed to correct, which sets the course for those who go all the way.
Story results
Let’s start with the most fitting: I liked the way the program interpreted “I write about music and food and all that.” (Oops…not a particularly eloquent start.) It used more than just that one disappointing quote, and gave me the much more charming formulation: “In the vibrant kingdom of Austin lived a young sorceress named Brianna, whose magic lay not in grand illusions or powerful spells, but in her ability to distill the essence of ideas and share them with others. From a young age, Brianna was drawn to the kingdom’s most peculiar melodies, flavors, and stories, sensing that these were the true treasures of her homeland.”
One glaring problem is that I didn’t grow up in Austin, but this story actually does its best to expose our own ambiguity. Maybe I should mention my transplant status when I talk about these things.
I was also impressed stylistically with how some of the problems of Austin’s rapid development were explained, although I wonder where that idea came from. While I did say I’m in favor of the weird in the mainstream, the story did add some extra detail.
It said, “As Brianna grew older, she noticed that some of Austin’s most unique customs were disappearing, overshadowed by the glittering towers of progress.” I suspect the AI pulled this story from the internet, where there is no shortage of complaints about glittering towers in this city.
The program called me the “Keeper of Curious Flames,” which I also enjoyed, and my life in general a “Sanctuary of Curious Flames,” which is becoming more and more true the more I get into Craigslist and Junk-tiques. Maybe I need to remember that and get a sign made for my house or something. I’ll put it next to the disembodied mannequin arms I got at the City Wide Vintage Sale.
Finally, I liked the whimsy it added to what I thought of as an ongoing personal challenge: how to take bolder risks while also sometimes making safer, more practical decisions. “Yet even as her power grew, Brianna struggled with an inner conflict: part of her longed to take bigger risks, to push the boundaries of her magic further, while another part feared the chaos such actions could bring. In a moment of clarity, Brianna realized that true magic lies not in reckless action or rigid control, but in finding a balance between the two.”
Decide what not split
What participants should keep in mind (and the reason I’m not telling the story in its entirety) is that once the AI is in control of things, it’s very difficult to separate personal values from the actions of a professional team. Because everything is organized in a metaphorical journey, there’s no distinction between the choices I make at the supermarket, for example, and the choices I make when I log in for the day. If a participant were vegan but worked at a downtown restaurant, this might mean that the restaurant offers vegan food.
However, for someone who owns their own business, or for someone attending the workshop with the main intention of portraying their working life, this would probably not be a problem. This test was of course a special case and there would be plenty of time to tweak it over the next seven sessions.
The first draft of the story is just meant to be a launching pad for further discussion, and Schrei stresses that part of the training is not to give too much away. Given the founders’ backgrounds, this is central to the work of the organization. Marginalized people are often expected to answer inappropriately intimate questions about their problems, and this workshop is about figuring out what you want to share in different situations and how – not about sharing everything at once.
“The fact that there is a very complex truth doesn’t mean they should share every single facet of it,” Schrei says. “There are multiple layers to sharing your story. … There’s a version you want to share with everyone, there’s a version you’re going to share with us, and there’s a version you’re only going to share with one or two people who are very, very, very close to you.”
And they lived happily ever after
I love my story on a personal level, and more importantly, my conversation with the founders was very educational and actually almost embarrassed me a few times. It gave me a lot to think about goals and how to write them, and I may need to hang this story on the wall somewhere in my sanctuary of curious flames.
Anyone interested in participating in the project can contact Luis Gramajo at [email protected] and Hans Schrei at [email protected]. The full eight-hour course costs $3,750, and four-hour courses cost $1,875.The first 100 participants of a workshop of any length receive a 20 percent discount. Those interested can also try the first class (detailed in this article) for $375, with no further commitment and the same discount. Booking is open now, and participants can choose their dates starting September 1. Groups can also inquire.
