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Denise Withers

dw@denisewithers.com

Bringing government science to Discovery Channel

Bringing government science to Discovery Channel

In the late 1990s, a producer hired me to do the impossible – tell stories about government science for Discovery Channel. What's so tough about that? The feds were paying, so they had final sign-off on the stories and wouldn't allow anything that might make them look

Why you need to test stories before telling them

Why you need to test stories before telling them

When you tell your story, you share your values, beliefs and goals. You say, "Look, we are connected. Let's do something together." But that can also backfire on you like it did with Nikon Europe. They recently announced five new brand ambassadors. And, as the photo

Creating record growth at the California symphony

Creating record growth at the California symphony

As the new ED of the California Symphony, Aubrey Bergauer faced a brutal challenge - turn things around financially in less than two years, or major institutional supporters would pull their funding. She knew that tinkering with the music or marketing wouldn't fix things. So she decided to

Re-inventing the holidays, for good

Re-inventing the holidays, for good

Are you reading this while stuck in some travel hell? I feel you. Like millions of others, I've lived far from my family most of my adult life. And struggle to continue to feel connected. So I go back as often as I can, and pay the price,

A 'novel' approach to social innovation

A 'novel' approach to social innovation

Innovation storytelling isn't just limited to magazines like WIRED, blogs on Medium or TikTok videos. A powerful fictional story, like the one in the award-winning novel Five Little Indians will inform and inspire changes in the way we think and act. But telling the right story at the

The 3 biggest storytelling mistakes fundraisers make

The 3 biggest storytelling mistakes fundraisers make

I remember the first time I gave someone a goat for Christmas. Not literally, of course. But I made a donation to a charity that used the money to buy a goat for a family in need overseas. And I loved doing it. The charity told me a future story

It's just TV.

It's just TV.

In the mid-1990s, I had a huge career breakthrough that almost killed me. I'd sold my first documentary to CBC and was on a tight deadline to get it done. It was late January and we'd finished shooting everything except one final interview that had to