Coachella Valley Storytellers Project is a series of live storytelling nights from The Desert Sun. The Coachella Valley Storytellers Project will coordinate nights of true stories, told live, in which artists, community leaders and everyday desert residents prepare a brief, first-person story on a theme, addressing it literally or metaphorically. In partnership with University of California Riverside - Palm Desert's graduate school for creative writing and writing for the performing arts, we will coach storytellers to help them share their meaningful, entertaining stories in spaces through all valley cities. The series is dedicated to the idea that oral storytelling and journalism have the same goals: serving, reflecting and connecting a community while fostering empathy among those people. These nights blend the authenticity and hype-free discipline of storytelling as an art form with the truthfulness, community-building and empowerment that's at the heart of great journalism.