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Bio: Katharine (Kathy) Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, is an educator, author, and blogger who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits its newsletter QuintZine, and blogs about storytelling at A Storied Career. Kathy, who earned her PhD from Union Institute & University authored Tell Me About Yourself (April 2009), Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates, A Foot in the Door, Top Notch Executive Interviews (fall 2009), Top Notch Executive Resumes; and with Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., Dynamic Cover Letters, Write Your Way to a Higher GPA, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Study Skills.

1.What is Storytelling? and why are you interested in it?

I am among the storytelling fans who do not like to be boxed in by a specific definition of “story” or “storytelling.” I’ve found in the more than 57 interviews I’ve conducted with storytelling practitioners that most of them, perhaps surprisingly, prefer not to define “storytelling.” (However, a few feel a strict definition is vitally important.) Of the definitions offered by the practitioners who prefer to define story/storytelling, I’ve liked some more than others. One of my favorites is: “Story is context.”

I think I have been interested in storytelling for most of my life, but I didn’t really recognize the passion until I began my PhD program. I was taking an organizational-behavior course that focused on postmodernism. While researching the concept of postmodernism, I discovered an entire academic (and applied) discipline I had never heard of: organizational storytelling. This field instantly resonated with me, causing me to realize how much I had always loved storytelling, going back to reading the anecdotes in Reader’s Digest as a child. I was so intrigued by organizational storytelling that I made it the centerpiece of my doctoral dissertation, which combined my professional background in career management and job search with storytelling.

While in my PhD program, I started my blog, A Storied Career (http://astoriedcareer.com) as part of my coursework. As I completed my doctoral program, my storytelling interests began to expand. Organizational storytelling was too narrow to encompass my interests, so I broadened the blog’s scope — and my own passions — to the field of “applied storytelling,” a term I first heard from Michael Margolis.

My work on the blog was sporadic for its first three years; I would go long stretches without blogging. But in February of 2008, I made a commitment to blog 7 days a week. I have mostly lived up to that commitment, although I have skipped some days during my recent major, cross-country move.

2.On your blog (Astoried Career) you interview a wide variety of story thinkers what characteristics attract you too a potential interviewee?

When I first began sending out invitations for the Q&A series in the summer of 2008, I focused on applied-storytelling practitioners that I knew, or knew of, and admired. I was familiar with them through their books (for example, those of Terrence Gargiuolo and Annette Simmons), through their presentations at conferences (for example, Madelyn Blair, Michael Margolis, and Svend-Erik Engh), and through encountering them on the Web (for example, Shawn Callahan and Stephanie West Allen). Once I had invited all the best-known story luminaries — and most of them accepted the invitation and participated — I didn’t really have to search hard for new interviewees. I encountered them through my ongoing research for blog material. I’m excited that for the most recent series of Q&As, I’ve received nominations and self