Diane Allen 

A few months ago, the never-ending saga that is COVID-19 began to get to Bend storyteller, speaker and violinist Diane Allen. “With the pandemic, I’ve had a couple of months — I’ve actually been fine, but November last year was tough for me, and August this year, was tough for me,” Allen said. “I was feeling frustrated. I think it was when the delta variant was raging. We had experienced some freedom, and then we were like, ‘Ugh.’”

“I was just like, ‘I really want to do something,’” Allen said. And though she couldn’t do anything about the mutating, deadly disease, she could organize the first Live Storytelling at Craft event, held in September. Allen is a thought leader in the positive psychology of peak performance known as “flow state.”

“As a professional speaker, I’m usually out of the Bend area, and … I haven’t done something in the community in a long time,” she said. “I know that storytelling connects.”

Storytelling has a long and, well, storied past in Central Oregon. In 2013, there were a few individual efforts afoot, including Armchair, Solo Speak and Bend Storytelling Circle. More recent years saw the advent of “To Tell the Truth,” dating back to the Old Stone Church when it was an event hall.

However, the last couple of years have been quiet on the local storytelling front, the pandemic being at least partly to blame. Nearly two years in, though, just about everyone has a story to tell, and a yearning for the kind of connection Allen mentioned.

“I’ve been in storytelling shows in Bend before, but the people who organized them weren’t doing them anymore,” Allen said. “I thought I may as well pick up the ball, and why not me?”

The first storytelling night was also held at Craft before a sold-out audience, and Allen expects tickets for Friday’s event to sell out as well. It features four speakers, including Allen, whose band, Swing 44, will provide an element of live music to the evening, too.

“What’s awesome about it is the intimacy,” she said of host venue Craft. “You can just really connect with people because of the size of the space, and we’re limiting seating to make sure that people can spread out enough.”

The four storytellers participating in the event are Peter Gunby, Pauly Anderson, Katy Ipock and Allen herself. She was reluctant to divulge too much about the specifics of the stories that will be told, but each tale relates to the theme of metamorphosis: Gunby will tell of reinventing himself via woodworking after multiple concussions.

Anderson will share what occurred when he finally stopped and stayed at a place he’d seen more than once in his travels. Ipock will talk about an experience with harassment and how it changed her.

And Allen will share what she learned from each of her two skydiving jumps.

“I learned something about myself from each jump — very different — that were life-affirming or life-changing thoughts,” she said.

Allen said that the internal journey the storyteller undergoes that makes for a great story.

“When you share that, the listeners end up gaining in their own way,” she said. “Every time you share a story, people automatically reflect on themselves. … When you highlight your own self-journey, it highlights people’s self-journeys, and so they are listening to the story, but then they’re also thinking about their own at the same time. And so storytelling connects.”

What: Live Storytelling at Craft: Metamorphosis

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Craft Kitchen & Brewery, 62988 Layton Ave., Suite 103, Bend

Cost: $25 in advance, $27 at the door

Contact: bendticket.com