Class Isn’t Everything - A Short-form LARP for Overcoming Library Presentation Anxiety

1- Short Session Description:

While public speaking being the world’s greatest fear is a lie, it still can strike terror in the hearts of many a brave library adventurer (yes, even Bards). But gaming can help! Join two librarians, one from technical services and one from public services, who are live action role players (larpers), game masters (GMs), actors, improv-ers, and larp designers, to learn tips, tricks, and techniques drawn from these disciplines. Learn how to roll up (develop) a stage persona to slip into when presenting and guide that persona through unexpected situations using a few simple mechanics pulled from improv and american freeform larp.

2- Session Style/Format:

Skill workshop/larp

3- Takeaways: 

Attendees will leave this workshop with increased confidence in your abilities, techniques to eliminate your speaking/performing anxiety, and your very own stage name and character sheet. Techniques taught will be practiced repeatedly during the workshop and will be simple and easy to use before (and during!) most public speaking one might do. In addition to improving public speaking, attendees will see an example of how larping can be used within their own libraries for education and training.

4- Organization:

Fully formed. Two presenters will be Kate Hill and Amanda Glenn Bradley, who developed this workshop together in 2017 and have been taking it on the road to rave reviews (though not yet out of North Carolina!).

Kate Hill is the Electronic Resources Librarian at UNC Greensboro. In her other life, she also designs, edits, and runs larps both in her hometown of Durham NC and across the United States. Her games have been featured in published anthologies and run at conventions from New York to San Francisco. She also is a trained actor and in a past life, got paid to sing!

Amanda Glenn-Bradley is the User Engagement Librarian & CRAFT Studio Coordinator at UNC Asheville. Her library’s resident extroverted librarian, she has a stage and performance background complete with a minor in broadcast meteorology and a demo reel. She has participated in and GMed tabletop and online roleplaying games (everything from 2e DnD to a Palladium game based on an 80’s animated series!) since the days AOL chat rooms had dice rolling functionality built in. Her favored set of dice are mostly translucent purple except for the black-and-grey swirled d20. The purple one kept rolling critical 1’s and is now in dice jail.

5- Contact Information:

Kate Hill, kmhill@uncg.edu