How to share expert knowledge with a general audience as feature stories, popular bestsellers and TED talks.

How to be a rockstar academic

What turns a mild mannered academic into a raging rockstar? It’s a serious question! We live in the age of the rockstar public intellectual. Why are some few thinkers given celebrity and influence? The answer is simple – it’s all about the story.

“To launch a rocket to the moon use physics. To speak to the heart of the human soul use story.”

Damien Walter, Storytelling for Academics

What is a story?

Storytelling for academics gives you the tools to tell a great story in any media – feature articles, bestsellers and, of course, TED talks. Learn the seven parts of the rhetoric of story and answer the question – what is a story?

About your instructor

Damien Walter

Writer and storyteller. Words in The Guardian, BBC, Wired, Independent, Aeon, OUP. Teaches the Rhetoric of Story and Writing the 21st Century Myth to over 35,000 students worldwide. Host of the Science Fiction podcast.

Some things to know:

• Former special-forces Librarian running literacy and reading projects in one of the UK’s poorest cities.

• Now paid mercenary for some of the world’s biggest brands helping them tell killer stories.

• Independent researcher in story and myth, directed the Certificate in Creative Writing at University of Leicester and guest lecturer at University of Nottingham.

• BA(hons), MA, PGCHE, HEA. Other letters now forgotten. Maybe Phd one day.

• Former columnist for The Guardian writing on science fiction, technology and culture.

• Unrepentant science fiction fan, graduate of the Clarion sci-fi writer’s workshop at UCSD, host of the Science Fiction podcast.

• Accidental Buddhist who left the UK in 2013 to study meditation & never went home.