All Y'all

Some folks are just natural born storytellers. Amy Lynn Treme, a pre-K teacher who lives in Shreveport's Highland neighborhoood, is one of those folks. When All Y'all announced that we'd be presenting a night of stories about work ("I Just Work Here" was held at the Woman's Department Club of Shreveport in April 2017), Amy was the first person to reach out with a story pitch. And, wow, it was a doozy.

On May 11, 2016, Christopher Louis Wilson published a post on his blog, From the Desk of Mr. Coach Wilson, about his lifelong love affair with Shreveport-based restaurant Wing Taxi. Within 24 hours, the post had gone viral in Shreveport, with thousands of views and social shares leading the owner of the restaurant to reach out to Wilson. As it turns out, Wilson isn't the only Shreveporter obsessed with the quirky, gypsy-like wing joint. For many locals, the taste of home is Cajun ranch lemon pepper garlic Parmesan. For our November 2016 live storytelling event, "Haunted", Wilson took the stage and shared a surprisingly personal, heartfelt story of love, loss and yearning.

During the second half of our July 2016 storytelling event, “I Fought The Law,” we featured stories from three attorneys who shared an insider’s perspective of our complex legal system. Our last storyteller of the evening, Meghan Shapiro, moved to Louisiana in 2013 to practice death penalty defense law in a place with greater need than most. From 2010 to 2014, more people were sentenced to death per capita in Caddo Parish than in any other parish or county in the United States. Meghan has almost exclusively represented poor individuals charged with capital crimes or sentenced to death, a cause to which she has been heavily devoted since her teens. This story is about her first death row client.

Hi All Y’all! Sara here with a quick update. In addition to hosting our last live storytelling event in November, Chris and I have been hard at work building a new show for All Y’all. It’s called Stuffed & Busted, a podcast that takes an irreverent look at food in Shreveport and Bossier City as well as the fascinating folks who grow, cook and serve it. I wanted to share the first segment from our second Stuffed & Busted episode, exclusively, here with you. I hope you like it and if you do, please listen to the full 45-minute long episode and subscribe by searching for Stuffed & Busted in your podcast app of choice or at stuffedandbusted.com.

Few All Y'all storytellers have ever seemed so comfortable in the spotlight as "Momma and Daddy" storyteller Dr. Jaya McSharma. Jaya had our sold-out audience in the palm of her hand from the moment that she stepped onstage, eliciting roars of laughter and more than a few tears. Her story takes us inside an Indian-American family on the cusp of gaining a new family member.

As one of the citizens leading the Stop The Burn movement near Camp Minden and a pastor, environmental activist and community organizer, Colonel Sam Mims is an impressive figure. When he took the All Y'all stage, we had no idea what Col. Mims was going to say. He delivered a fiery call to action fueled by his righteous indignation over what he sees as systemic failures of leadership in Louisiana. In his voice, we hear anger and exasperation, but we also hear love and hope.

Storyteller Sarah Smith took the All Y'all stage in July 2016, during our live event entitled "I Fought the Law," to share her personal account of trial by fire. The first case that Smith ever took to trial during her time as a public defender turned out to be a maelstrom of media coverage, protests and social media outrage. Much of the public has only heard one side of this highly publicized story, which involved accusations of animal cruelty against a young black man from Shreveport. In this episode of the All Y'all podcast, we present another perspective on this controversial case.

We first met Daniel Ukpabi on an unseasonably cold October morning at Shreveport Farmers' Market, where he was ladling out steaming bowls of spicy Nigerian stew and telling anyone who'd stop to listen about his fledgling not-for-profit organization, The Pacemakers. At the time, we were just beginning to plan All Y'all Live: "Momma and Daddy," and we walked away thinking: "Wouldn't it be great if he had a story about his parents?" It turns out, he did. Daniel took the stage on Saturday, March 12 at Bossier Arts Council's East Bank Theatre and charmed the crowd with memories of his youth in Nigeria, a bumpy road to America and a father who wouldn't give up.

Have you ever met an honest-to-goodness celebrity? All Y'all dedicated an entire night of live storytelling to the topic of celebrity encounters at our June 2015 event, "Brush With Fame." Tom Ayres's story from that night - a well-told tale of an airport encounter with an embattled sports icon - was one of the hits of the night. It made us think about all sorts of things: the drawbacks of a life spent in the public eye, the value of a shoulder to lean on, and the commonalities of the human experience.

Jealousy. Epic adventure. Really good burritos. Elizabeth Beauvais's story of a day in the life of an exasperated mom, told live on the All Y'all stage in March 2016, has it all. When Elizabeth's eight-year-old daughter runs away from home in an act of defiance, mother and daughter find themselves engaged in an emotionally charged standoff that unfolds on the lawns and sidewalks of South Highlands.