Once a storyteller, always a storyteller: making Capital yarns ‘pozible’

Posted on 16 September, 2014

Many of us have fond memories of being put to sleep as young children by the voices of our parents, grandparents, uncles or aunties, as they read stories from Beatrix Potter, Lord of the Rings, or simply made things up as they went along.

Bedtime story duties for Capital Yarns’ Sean Costello often required him to weave a story for his children before they would drift off to sleep each night. But his stories were not your traditional Once Upon a Time but rather tales inspired by three items given to him by his children to weave into the story.

This everyday fatherly responsibility has now, however, evolved into a fully-fledged reality.

Since January, Sean has been responding to requests to create stories online, through his website, Capital Yarns. People are invited to supply Sean with three items of inspiration, and in turn he creates a bespoke short story reflecting the material he has been given. Like any creative author, he tries to find out as much about the person he is writing for as possible, so that the story he creates is relevant to them personally and a read they would find interesting. His stories are as different as the people he writes for with a style that varies from melancholic to comedic – in a ‘dad joke’ fashion – and quite often satirical. He has also played with the internet as a medium so be sure to look out for one of his stories with its final lines written in code.

In his words, it has been a ‘test it and see process’. At first, having dabbled ‘in a quiet way’ in creative writing his whole life, Sean decided to establish the Capital Yarns online to test the waters, and to gauge any interest in his project. Now, Sean writes one story a week and as a result of the accumulation of requests for stories and for those same stories to be published in print, he has established a Pozible crowd-funded project to publish 200 copies of a collection of his stories. From shoe-less zombies to chilli, punnets of blueberries to coffee culture, the items that feature in Sean’s stories are as crazy, colourful and creative as the imagination allows.

You only have to read Beware of Hairy Canberrans to see what I mean.

Sean has set the goal of $4,600 and is halfway to reaching his target but has just 35 days left to raise the remaining amount. Anyone can donate as much or as little as they like through Pozible. The more money you give, the more significant the prize. Those donating in the highest bracket of $500, however, are guaranteed to have their bespoke short story featured in the printed book.

For Sean, what appeals to him most about the project is the public accountability; committing to someone over the Internet and through social media. This crowd-funded project is also another facet of Sean’s grassroots engagement with the Canberra community. The publication of the book, says Sean, is simply a response to the nudge from the community for something they could read by the pool in summer, instead of sitting behind a screen. And in turn, the community has stepped up to support Sean ‘in a really positive way’.

Sean describes the project has having become somewhat of a ‘collective endeavour’ – his wife has managing some of the public relations, friends have offered to proofread, and photographers have offered to give him their images to include in the volume. As a result, the stories Sean has written, and is continuing to write, reflect Canberra’s diversity particularly the unknown and less-known parts of Canberra.

Born and bred in Canberra, Sean moved away to Edinburgh where he lived for a couple of years and since moving back to Canberra has found it a changed place. In his stories, Sean evokes the old and the new, developing a patchwork of Canberra’s collective memory and consciousness stretching from the skate rink in Woden in the 1980s to the now closed Starlight Drive-In and to the Kambah Pools of today.

His stories reflect the change that Canberra has undergone, becoming comfortable in its identity as a city and in its future. Sean is not the only one to observe with delight the innovation which has Canberra bursting at the seams; an ‘innovative push happening across the city’. There is a commonality between Sean’s crowd-sourced project, the crowd-funded Chop Shop, and the Handmade markets, for example— they are all supported, created and encouraged by Canberrans—and hence Sean’s work is both a celebration and a product of the power of the Canberra community.

Throughout our conversation, Sean expressed many times how overwhelmed he has been by the support he has received and the hands that have been extended to help him achieve his goals. What started as a bedtime story, is now becoming a book – all it needs is a little magic to help take it from a pumpkin to a carriage.

Be part of the story and donate to the Capital Yarns Pozible Project here.