We recently connected with Jocelyn Tatum and have shared our conversation below.

Jocelyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

I have always practiced a style of journalism that goes by several names: literary journalism, creative nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, longform journalism, you get the point. I apply the basics of news writing yet enhance its delivery by employing  literary devices like dialogue, scene-setting, characterization and more. All of the details needed are found in something we call immersion journalism where we spend substantial time getting to know our subject gathering telling and relevant details. To report and write like a narrative longform journalist is a skillset that takes time to cultivate, and one that can be locked behind layers of gatekeepers such as editors, publishers and others in the news production industry.But the corporate world needs good storytelling methods as much as journalists do, so I am opening those doors, or gates. It is needed. Story and communication are everything for businesses to succeed, and I can help with that.

But I launched Narrative Moth with much hesitation, because the thought of starting my own business is terrifying. So many ‘What ifs?” A fear of failure. Over the years, people have asked me to consult and speak on the art form at universities to the journalism, advertising, public relations or marketing departments, or to a group of entrepreneurs about how to employ this skillset to tell their story or their clients’ stories, and I have consulted on how to launch a narrative magazine for women. All the while, I have done this mostly for free while struggling to make ends meet with a low paying 9-5 working as a freelance journalist and college journalism instructor. And as a single mom, working long hours in an office with inflexible benefits was killing me. I was barely living, and definitely not living my own life. I will forever be grateful that the recent pandemic disrupted antiquated workplace norms, because it opened my eyes to this pain.

I realized I needed to make my own way and serve others with my unique and advanced skill set, making it accessible to the business world. When a local university asked me to speak to their strategic communications department and help workshop ways to create narratives for their client’s nonprofits, a light bulb went off! That’s it! I can still mentor writers and news outlets, but what about agencies and corporations? I started researching what people need, and with that information, I developed my Narrative Moth plan even more.

While storytelling is everywhere now, telling stories like a narrative journalist using ethics and a skillset you can trust and only acquire through years of experience is a niche that is needed. Why? Because I have watched this human and engaging way to tell true stories about the world (or your world/business) is the most effective way to get people to listen, to care, to stay engaged, read, and thus, create change.

Informed citizens are engaged citizens. Informed clients are engaged clients. Informed employees are engaged employees. All of the latter become empowered in their roles when informed and connection through story.

So I started Narrative Moth as a way to serve and make this skill accessible to the corporate world. How can we ethically and factually get potential clients to care about what you do, and alternately, show them all the ways you can serve them, through story? Often journalists are locked behind many layers of gatekeeping, and while I will always be a journalist, through this business, I can share these valuable insights, skills and research methods with those who need it outside of the journalism community. Because I know how to empathetically gather information and organize it into a compelling narrative in a way that would elevate the communications of corporations, marketing, public relations and advertising agencies.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into my line of work because I love people. I love them in all of their messiness, brokenness and beautiful complexity. In college, I was a philosophy and humanities major because I got to study human nature on a macroscopic level. When I read logical maxims of ancient philosophers next to Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, I started to see that we are all alike, and human nature doesn’t change. It’s universal. Good stories told well illustrate this, and I felt less alone in my own messy humanity when reading a good story with relatable characters.

Once I graduated from college, I thought, “OK, how can I take this lofty academic love of mine and help serve these beautiful humans in the real world? After all, I can’t live in this ivory tower in the clouds forever. Journalism!” So at 25 years old I started studying the discipline andn interning as a city courts reporter in Dallas, then I I ended up with a full scholarship to a graduate program in journalism. I would soon curl up under the wing of a mentor who was a former Wall Street Journal bureau chief and crusader for the art form of narrative journalism. This man gave me boots to hit the ground and a purpose, allowing me to bring my liberal arts background with me into the bone dry world of nut grafs, data and inverted pyramids. That is journalese for the world of news. This was in 2006, and I have been writing news narratives for newspapers and magazines long and short ever since. I also taught college journalism courses for the better part of 12 years hoping to pass on the craft and recruit more narrative journalists.

I am most proud of moments when I have seen the impact of narrative journalism change the community for the better. My first memory of this was in 2008, when a women’s abuse shelter had lost its annual federal grant of $200,000 and was going to have to close. These women would have nowhere to go, making them vulnerable to more violence. The editor simply assigned me the task of reprinting a version of the press release sent from the shelter. But I knew I knew I needed to go in there and spend a day with the women there and write the story from their perspective. What would their lives really look like if this place was gone, and what would the impact be on the community? I wrote the short narrative illustrating all the ways this nonprofit saves lives, and within a few days an anonymous donor wrote a check for $200,000. I have stories like this from my entire career. More recently, in early 2021 a woman reached out to me for help with launching a women’s magazine. She was a graphic designer, but had no concept of the editorial side. I consulted with her for months, and within nine months we were celebrating the launch. Together we built a beautiful and meaningful women’s magazine that inspired many. This very solution that I bring to clients. I can make their story better, so that together we can build their dreams and be seen and heard in a way that is meaningful and brings change. Storytelling is also the most powerful form of advocacy, which is why I also wish to help more nonprofits with their cause.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This idea that I had to have everything figured out, that I had to appear to be perfect, that people I have worked for throughout my career held the key to my worth, that being a woman is not a weakness, in fact, it is my superpower.

I had to unlearn that you have to grind and work yourself to death to have success, and that balance and rest are for people who aren’t driven. I learned later in my career that we get to have joy-filled work with purpose and meaning. We get to enjoy this life to its fullest. Anything otherwise is a lie someone told us to get us to do work that supported their dreams, not ours. I learned that my worth comes from deep within my own heart, and that to jump into the fullness of who you are, your creativity and your business ideas takes more courage than I could have ever imagined. But that we will always be OK when following our heart’s calling. The world needs us to do this work, because without our light, your light, the world is just a little bit dimmer. We are here to be the fullest expression of who we are meant to be, and often being an entrepreneur allows that. Our gifts are also our greatest responsibilities to the world, and I have a responsibility to serve through my love of narrative nonfiction, to help people be seen and heard in a way that empowers them and their clients. I know you have important gifts too.

All of these things I had to unlearn came from growing up in a patriarchal society and corporate world where our worth was measured by productivity levels, which lent to these notions that we don’t get to rest, and toxic notions of survival of the fittest that lends to the belief that competition over collaboration leads to success, and a masculine belief that emotions and intuition are negative things, that being a woman is a weakness, and needing a break to take care of our babies should never be a problem. Not to mention that management in most newsrooms comes from a generation brought up in an overexertion of masculinity, which displays a different style of leadership than the feminine, especially if the former manages from unhealed wounds. Unhealed leaders hurt those they manage. Healing leaders heal those they lead, which lends to my next answer.

Any advice for managing a team?

It is so important that the people you lead feel valued and appreciated. Show gratitude for the ways they contribute to your business as often as possible. If they need some constructive feedback to perform better, do it from a place of love and gratitude. Actually care about them and their success with you. If they have a concern, trust them that it is really affecting the way they are able to show up to work.

Listen.

Become learned in the ways of psychological abuse and micro-aggressions. These are the quiet ways people in management could unwittingly be hurting their employees. We are all so focused on the louder ones like sexual abuse and blatant discrimination that some of the lesser obvious forms of manipulation go unnoticed by the person doing it. And often the ones being abused or manipulated don’t have the language for it.

Be self-aware.

Help those you lead feel like they are a part of something, because as human beings, we want to belong. We also want to be seen and heard. I always take notes from nature, because nature gets it right, and in the case of leadership, I take notes from wolves. The leader of a wolf pack leads from the back. The wolf is last and acts as a servant-leader. And operate from a place of connection — we are in this with them and not some separate lofty entity dictating the ways they must perform.

Make crying OK.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jocelyntatum.com/narrativemoth
• Instagram: @NarrativeNewsCoach
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelyn-tatum/
• Twitter: @JocTatumTweets
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYjB1xkxsjJXV3aC3zzcS1g

Image Credits
The black and white image of me tossing my hair was taken by Rambo Elliott.