Corey Rosen is the author of the new book A Story for Everything: Mastering Diverse Storytelling for Any Occasion. He also has written the book Your Story, Well Told, and he is the host of The Moth StorySLAM. He lives in San Francisco.
Q: What inspired you to write A Story for Everything?
A: Honestly, necessity. Everywhere I went (boardrooms, classrooms, weddings, memorials, PTA meetings...) people were asking me the same thing: How do I tell this story well? Not just the big, dramatic ones, but the everyday stories that carry our lives forward.
At some point, I realized we don’t lack stories, we lack a simple, humane way to shape them. I wanted to create a practical “story companion” for regular humans navigating real life. A book that would help someone nail a job interview, write a college essay that actually sounds like them, or find the right words when they stand up to toast the people they love.
A Story for Everything came from that same belief that’s guided my whole career: stories aren’t extras. They’re survival tools.
Q: What first got you interested in storytelling, and how did you get involved in hosting The Moth StorySLAM?
A: My earliest storytelling training happened at my family’s dinner table in Rochester, New York. If you told a story and it didn’t land, someone would grab the steering wheel and “fix” it for you. It was like a loving but ruthless storytelling boot camp.
Much later, after years in film, animation, improv, and VFX [visual effects], I found myself drawn back to the intimacy of live, personal narrative. The Moth felt like home immediately—a room full of people leaning in to listen, without judgment, without PowerPoint slides, just curiosity.
I started telling stories there, then volunteering, then hosting. And now, many nights of the month, I get the joy (and chaos) of guiding a room full of people through 10 stories that might make you laugh, cry, or immediately call your parents.
Q: The book is divided in three parts--business, school, and family. How did you decide on the book's organization?
A: Those are the three arenas where storytelling shows up the most—whether we realize it or not.
Business stories help us persuade, motivate, hire, fire, interview, fundraise, and not sound like robots in meetings.
School stories shape how young people understand themselves—who they are, what they care about, and where they’re going next.
Family stories are the ones we carry longest; they hold our identity, our history, and sometimes our sanity.
I wanted the book to feel like three toolboxes under one roof. You can drop in, grab what you need for the moment you’re in, and go use it right away.
Q: Do you have a couple of favorite stories?
A: I always come back to two kinds:
1/The small, human stories that reveal something big. Like the one in the book about my daughter learning to drive, which somehow contains lessons of mentorship, identity, and humility.
2/The stories where something goes wrong and then becomes the best part. These are the stories we end up telling forever, even though we wished at the time they would just… stop happening. I’ve spent a career helping people realize those disasters are actually gold.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A few things:
I’m rolling out a nationwide workshop series based on the book—helping people find and shape their stories in real time.
I’m building an interactive mobile app that’s basically “Corey in your pocket,” offering feedback, exercises, and prompts from A Story for Everything.
I’m teaching, producing shows, coaching executives and creative teams, and developing original content with several entertainment partners.
And yes, there’s another book brewing. I can’t help myself.
Find out about all of it at www.yourstorywelltold.com
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Only this: everyone has a story worth telling. We think other people’s lives are more interesting, more dramatic, more “book-worthy.” They’re not. What people respond to isn’t the magnitude of your story—it’s the meaning you make from it.
If my book can help even a few people discover that their own life is already full of stories - funny ones, wise ones, imperfect ones - then I’ve done my job.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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