Why Fireside?
In the modern day world, where people are constantly bombarded by packaged entertainment from media conglomerates, it’s more important than ever to keep the tradition of storytelling alive. Storytelling propagates culture through a community by creating immediate, personal, inspiring connections, shared from the heart. This is why we do Fireside.

Format
Only true stories are told at Fireside, and they’re told from memory. Our philosophy is that the sharing of personal experiences from memory creates more powerful connections between the teller and the audience than telling fictional stories, or telling through the intermediating artifice of the written word.

History
Back in 2007, our good friend Ray Allen started a monthly storytelling series called Memoir Spool, which took place at the Bazaar Cafe in the Richmond District of San Francisco.  After running successfully for over a year, Ray brought on a few other people to help with the management, and we moved it to the Climate Theater to accommodate larger audiences and to create a more theatrical experience.

After Ray left Memoir Spool for other pursuits in mid-2009, we decided to rename the series Fireside, and to keep the original format. We thank Ray for having the vision and dedication to start this fantastic storytelling series.