Malouf emerges from female-dominated field to win The Moth Story Slam

NPR sensation ‘The Moth’ stopped through Anchorage last week for a second straight year, and followed up a sold out show on Wednesday at the Performing Arts Center with a Valentine’s Day Story Slam across the street at Williwaw.

This was at least the second of the three years The Moth has visited in Anchorage, and fittingly the theme for the competitive storytelling competition was ‘Love Hurts’.

Sixteen submitted blurbs of their stories and 10 were chosen to read. The event was hosted by longtime Moth host Peter Aguero, who also hosted the Wednesday concert themed ‘Uncharted Territory’.

Each story, kept to 5 to 6 minutes in length — as opposed to the more coached up and polished concert shows the night before, kept to 10 to 12 minutes — was referred to three teams of spectators who served as judges. In the end, and in a close, close vote, 16-year Anchorage resident Amy Malouf took the top prize with her story about the naivete and repression of her Mormon upbringing clouding her sense of time, space and probability on a road trip down the California coast. Long story short, she was convinced a surfer on the side of the road was a past boyfriend and in a hurried and ill-advised attempt to track him down, ran headlong into a post for a most unceremonious end to a most unlikely attempt at resolving love unrequited.

Malouf said she had no nervousness about telling her story to a crowd of mostly strangers.

“No, being Mormon, that’s what Mormons do — we talk in front of crowds all the time,” Malouf said. “We’re used to standing in front of people and talking, but this way it’s free — I don’t have to (tithe) 10 percent and I get to drink beer!”

What stood out most for Aguero was the way the Alaskan storytellers related their stories of ‘Love Hurts’ — usually a topic that would lend itself to love stories between persons — so consistently to place. One story even involved sentimental feelings about a cow from the reader’s youth.

“This was awesome,” Aguero said. “So many traditions, so many people connected to a place. A place connects you.”

None of it surprises surprises Aguero anymore after 12 years working with The Moth and the last 7 hosting live shows and slams through thousands of personal stories.

“You open up a mic and you get the goofiest stuff; you never know. With the slam there’s the random chance you’ll have no idea what the show’s going to be, but with that, you’ve got to be ready for anything. Sometimes the shows are all very serious and you need that tension-breaking moment. This was a good mix; really interesting variations. There was a lot of love and friendship — some of it familial, some of it about a place, and one the love for a cow.”

Malouf’s background in storytelling has roots in her formal education.

“I’m an artist; I have a degree in sculpture, so I spent a lot of time in critique in dialogue, pretty bullshitting about the world around you and explored verbally,” she said. “This was super-fun; what a cool venue. The thing I really love about this is the level of connection people can get without any of the coersion that typically comes from other things like churches or clubs — you can show up and invest, or not.”

Nine of the 10 chosen to read on stage and 14 of the 16 to sign up were women. Aguero said that sort of breakdown isn’t common at slams he hosts around the country, but the number of women participating has increased.

“When I started doing this about 12 years ago it was probably more male-presenting people telling stories, but as time went on, more and more women have been putting their names in the hat,” Aguero said. “I think more women storytellers is a great thing. In general, when you have a majority of women in the show, the show has more depth, generally. There’s amazing depths of stories that come out and tonight was great.”

Malouf thought it was more the national and international climate of women seeking empowerment than anything unique about Alaska and its effect on women that would account for a ratio like Thursday night’s at Williwaw.

“Women are finding their voices and are willing to share them, being vulnerable and powerful at the same time,” said Malouf, who in addition to being a mother and artist is a helicopter pilot. “I think Alaska is good for humans; it makes humans strong — I don’t know that it’s gender-specific… I don’t think there’s an advantage for women to be in Alaska in that it’s going to make her strong, but women are not oppressed here — not in Anchorage, not in this culture. I don’t know about other places.”

Malouf hopes to return to the storytelling stage soon with Arctic Entries, telling a story more difficult emotionally than last Thursday night’s, which, while self-effacing, was mostly lighthearted slapstick.

“I hadn’t told mine because mine was too raw — my actual story, the one I want to share — so it’s been on the back burner,” she said. “This one was just funny. It’s easy to share the funny. The harder stuff, the stuff that actually shaped your life needs to be more polished because it holds more weight.”

It was confirmed during Wednesday night’s show that the Anchorage Concert Association would be bringing back The Moth for a fourth straight year in 2020. Aguero doesn’t know whether his turn on the show’s rotation will land him as the Anchorage host again, but he does have plans to be back in Alaska in September, doing an event with another NPR celebrity, author and famed Motel 6 spokesperson, Tom Bodett someplace near Homer, which used to be Bodett’s hometown.