That One Story

A 5-Week True Story LAB · Online · Sundays 11am–1pm IST

24 May – 21 June · Maximum 8 participants

What happens at these LABs?

Over five weeks, you’ll stay with one lived experience long enough to understand it, shape it, and bring it to a complete telling — on stage, on the page, or simply for yourself.

Each session is a structured working space. You’ll write into the memory. You’ll read aloud. You’ll use practical tools drawn from oral storytelling and creative writing practices to find where your story begins, where it turns, and where it finally wants to stop. You’ll discuss stories. And you’ll do this alongside a small group of people doing exactly the same thing, which matters more than you’d expect.

The LAB doesn’t rush you into shape. But it does ask you to show up, stay curious, and push a little further than you’d go alone.

Eight people. Five weeks. One story.

If your story has been waiting — this might be its time.

Why do you need this LAB?

Some memories don’t surface in a single sitting.

They appear, retreat, change shape. They ask for time, not urgency. Attention, not pressure.

You know the one — the experience you keep returning to, keep almost telling, keep not quite finishing.

This LAB is to shape that memory into a story.

How are these LABs structured across the five weeks?

Each session builds on the last. Sharing is always optional. Listening is as important as speaking. Nothing needs to be polished while it’s still in progress.

Session 1: Discovery — Find the story that wants to be told, or go deeper into the one you’ve arrived with
Session 2: Connection — Discover which moments belong together, what can fall away, and what’s running underneath
Session 3: Scene & Summary — Learn the one distinction that moves a story from forgettable to lodged in memory
Session 4: Structure — Build it so it stands on its own — easy to follow, satisfying to experience
Session 5: Voice, Sharing & Beyond — The last 5%, which is you. An invitation to share with the cohort
The 1:1 Session — Alongside the five group sessions, each participant will have one private session with the facilitator, scheduled outside the cohort sessions, at a mutually agreed time. This is space dedicated entirely to your story: to go deeper, answer questions, and work through whatever your particular story needs.

What you’ll have by the end of the five weeks?

One complete, true story in the form of a written draft or an audio recording.
A clear narrative spine you can return to, develop, or perform
A working sense of story structure
Practical oral storytelling tools you can use beyond this LAB
Befriending a small cohort of people who’ve been in the same work — a rare thing

What comes after?

An introduction to platforms and spaces where you can tell and share their story publicly.
Access to future LABs and similar programmes.
The opportunity to perform at future live shows, on a real stage with a real audience. When you’re ready.

This LAB is for you if

You’ve been to a storytelling night and thought, I have something like that.
You have a story you keep returning to, keep almost telling, keep not quite finishing.
You’ve processed an experience — in therapy, in journals, in conversation — but haven’t yet found its shape.
You want to write, record, or tell it on stage someday — and need a real place to begin.
You’re willing to sit with something slowly, and trust that’s more valuable than finishing it quickly.

You don’t need to be a writer. You don’t need to have performed before. You need a story you’re curious about, something that happened and that you sense means more than you’ve yet been able to articulate.

If you’ve been waiting for a space that takes that seriously — this is it.

About the Facilitator

Akshay Gajria is a storyteller and writer based in London, where he is deeply wary of the city’s extremely stubborn pigeons but consoled by the pub on every corner and the friends he made studying an MA in Creative Writing.

He works professionally as a regional producer for The Moth in London, and has told live stories on stage with True Story London, The Moth, Spark Storytelling, So This Is What Happened, and Tall Tales. His story Reject was broadcast globally on The Moth Radio Hour. His essays and short fiction appear in print and online, and he interviews authors featured in the Mechanics Institute Review, Writers Cooperative, and others.

He has spent over a decade bringing people together around story — and believes, without reservation, that the most important stories are the ones we haven’t finished understanding yet.

Logistics

Each session will take place over zoom. Resignation is required. You don’t need to bring anything other than your preferred writing tools (pen and paper is recommended).

This LAB is part of a special campaign called Stories We Never Learnt to Tell.