Story Night

Story Night Story Night is an open night of live storytelling where anyone can be heard by everyone. We meet the 2nd Tuesday of every month. Billings, MT | Founded 2016

Story Night was started in Billings, Montana in the fall of 2017 by Tyler Murphy, owner and artist at Montana Gallery, as a way to create a time and place "where anyone could be heard by everyone". It's not a competition, you can use notes, and everyone is welcome - but never obligated - to share. Join us the second Tuesday of every month at 7pm for a free night of live storytelling.

We'd like to pass along a few creative opportunities coming up in town, currently spotlighting poetry and the written wo...
03/11/2026

We'd like to pass along a few creative opportunities coming up in town, currently spotlighting poetry and the written word!:

• Poetry Jam at Dreyfest — Applications are open now for the 12th Annual Julia Louis Dreyfest, taking place this August in Billings! Submit your application for Poetry, Comedy, Music, Visual Art, Crafts or something else fun here by 3/14 (that's this Saturday!) https://linktr.ee/julialouisdreyfest

• Anne Holub of Rock Pigeon Vintage in Frae (and more!) is again hosting the Write-Along at the Yellowstone Art Museum twice a month. This is a free event, plus museum admission is free to Yellowstone County residents. This month the Write-Alongs are the 2nd and 4th Thursdays: March 12 (tomorrow!) & 26. Learn more here: https://www.artmuseum.org/events/kent-monkman-write-alongs-with-anne-holub/?event_rdate=20260312153000,20260312163000

• Poetry Open Mics at Kirks' Grocery — every 1st and 3rd Thursday at Kirks’. Open mic night open to artists of any skill level! $5 admission to share at the mic or to enjoy as part of the crowd. Next event: Thursday, March 19, 7 - 9pm. https://kirksgrocery.com/event/poetry-open-mic-night-13/

• Open Mic Poetry Night at This House of Books — come to share or come just to listen! All are welcome! Next event: Friday, March 20, 5:30 - 6:30pm. https://thishouseofbooks.com/upcoming-events

Please comment if you know of more similar events around town :)

It’s nearly spring! The daylight has been saved! That means, with the later sunsets, we are done with winter hours at St...
03/10/2026

It’s nearly spring! The daylight has been saved! That means, with the later sunsets, we are done with winter hours at Story Night and back to our regular event hours of 7–9PM starting tomorrow! Doors will open at 6:45 and the night will kick off at 7:00.

We hope to see you for March’s Story Night: Tuesday, March 10 at Frae Collective downtown.

If you already know you’d like to tell a story tomorrow, message the page or comment below to be added to the queue! We’ve (happily!) grown a lot in the last couple months, so this month we are giving priority to first-time storytellers — or those who haven’t told in a long long time — for the first half of the night in order to give more people a chance to share who haven’t yet.

This month, we are bringing back the theme STORY NIGHT RADIO! Share a song and the story that comes to mind whenever you...
03/08/2026

This month, we are bringing back the theme STORY NIGHT RADIO! Share a song and the story that comes to mind whenever you hear it.

We will have a speaker connected to the hosts phone, so bring a song and we’ll play a snippet to open or close your story.

If you already know you’d like to tell a story, please message us here or on Facebook. We are reserving the first half of the night for first-time tellers since we’ve been getting so busy and want anyone who hasn’t shared at a Story Night yet to get their chance!

⏰ Don’t forget: winter hours are done so we are back to our regular hours of 7–9PM! Doors open at 6:45PM.

Hope to see you there!

February Story Night: tales of a total eclipse of the heart! Here’s what the community had to say:— Robert: Reads a stor...
03/07/2026

February Story Night: tales of a total eclipse of the heart! Here’s what the community had to say:
— Robert: Reads a story written by Duane “Even though I was there with one of my closest friends I felt alone [at an HIV clinic in the 80s]”
— Matt “My son, we’re close but he’s a little more like a boy and he’s never written me a father’s day card… My kids were something amazing in my life”
— Jack “She was so lovely, I had to go to the bathroom four times at dinner, she didn’t mention it once. It was about as perfect a date as you can imagine, until my love was eclipsed by a full moon, coming out of my moon.”
— Emma “It was one of those weekends where nothing really went right but I was happy to be there. And I realized it was just real life: like that sometimes.”
— Chris “I fell in love at 18, first woman I’d ever loved. She did some bad things. She broke my heart, and it hurt, it probably still hurts.”
— Hugh “It’s not that the sun’s not shining, it’s just that something’s in the way. Sometimes, with love, you don’t know what you have til it’s gone. The second the sun gets blocked you realize how bright it was.”
— Tambre “‘Y’know it’s really hard because I’ve just been in love with her this whole time’ – it was the first time I’d said it. The whole 15 years I could never admit my queerness.
— Katie Keith “Don’t eclipse your heart with an animal at the bottom of the food chain. I’m out at the Monte instead of sleeping, protecting my three brain cells; wake up the next morning, I’m flipping through my phone, and it’s just selfies of me and the duck.”
— Leah “This dog chooses him, doesn’t choose me. She will wait up until he gets home. I have gotten to witness this total eclipse of the heart every day for the last 4 years.”
— Chloe “This poem is called ‘Love Sick’ so here’s me venting my frustrations about that.”
— Kenny “But I remember very distinctly she asked me to ‘take a leap of faith’ and then she broke up with me. So I packed me, two cats, two dogs in a U-Haul. All the stuff I own. They’re looking up at me like ‘I don’t know what’s going on’ and I’m like ‘My whole life is changing!’”

Swipe for the duck selfies from Katie’s story!

Continued in comments—

We invite everyone to join the celebration of life for Duane Nez this Sunday, February 15th at the Pub Station in downto...
02/12/2026

We invite everyone to join the celebration of life for Duane Nez this Sunday, February 15th at the Pub Station in downtown Billings 🤍 Please arrive at 1PM to gather; services will begin at 1:30PM with an opportunity for an open floor to share.

If you have photos or videos of Duane to share for a remembrance slideshow, please send them to Stephanie via text or email: 707-953-8892 or
[email protected]

Instead of flowers, please feel free to donate towards the cost of his funeral expenses and Celebration of Life event. Anything above the cost will be donated to Lockwood Veterinarian and Billings Family Service. Donations can be sent via Venmo to Robert Arstein

THEME ANNOUNCEMENT: February’s Story Night theme is “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, stories of when you have been eclipsed...
02/10/2026

THEME ANNOUNCEMENT: February’s Story Night theme is “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, stories of when you have been eclipsed by love, for good or bad or otherwise! What’s a time you were totally overcome or blinded by love, for a romantic partner, family member, animal, etc? Has it ever taken you over, and what were the consequences? Bring your stories tonight for February’s Story Night!

Tuesday, Feb 10, 6-8PM
Frae Collective, downtown Billings

(Themes are offered for catalyzing ideas and creativity, but all story topics are welcome!)

JANUARY STORY NIGHT NOTES:— Holly “I’m in Billings because it’s a bridge for me. I was in LA, left my marriage because o...
02/10/2026

JANUARY STORY NIGHT NOTES:
— Holly “I’m in Billings because it’s a bridge for me. I was in LA, left my marriage because of domestic abuse”
— Emma “And he said something to me which I’ll never forget: ‘Let’s just say I did all those things and, if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it now except move forward; and I want to move forward with you.’ And I was like ‘oh, he’s right.’
— Megan “He [dad] was 59 and in a lot of ways I felt robbed – like he’s never gonna walk me down the aisle, he’s never gonna have grandchildren… One of these beautiful things is that Chuck [step-dad] never had children so he never thought he’d ever have the opportunity to be a grandparent.”
— K-Love “She was helping him get changed and he just looked at here and said “Oh, it’s time”, so they called 911 and she helped him lay down and the birds were singing.”
— Linda “We host a lot of foreign students and it’s a long bridge but it’s really more of a roundabout. So the bridge is actually the roundabout is we’re going to Korea and will be hosted.”
— Matt “ Harry I’m pushing the button – Harry he’s about to go through the crematorium.”
— Adam “Manager taps me on the shoulder and tells me that Stephen had killed himself last night. Obviously that’s not the bridge I wanted to cross to get to adulthood.”
— Chloe “So my story is about how I built a bridge to get over my fears. I realized I could build a bridge with information so I came with tea, with receipts..”
— Gina “We became instant friends; but she had a brain tumor and the next year I got a letter that the brain tumor was back and she probably wasn’t going to make it… she didn’t have use of her left side so that summer I got to be her left side. And she’d say ‘please pray that tonight’s the night I die’ because her ambition had become no longer to be a librarian but a guardian angel. I came home with a heart bursting – I was looking for something meaningful and I had no idea.”

Continued in comments…

Mark your calendars for next months Story Night! The second Tuesday means our next storytelling event will be February 1...
01/19/2026

Mark your calendars for next months Story Night! The second Tuesday means our next storytelling event will be February 10th, still on winter hours starting at 6PM, at downtown.

February Story Nights have traditionally been about love in some form so get your gears turning on stories of connection — official theme to come in the next week !

The first Story Night of the new year is tonight! This months theme, as we cross to a fresh year, is “Bridges”. Tonight,...
01/13/2026

The first Story Night of the new year is tonight! This months theme, as we cross to a fresh year, is “Bridges”. Tonight, stories of what brought you from one place to another, connections across chasms, building bridges, crossing bridges… or burning bridges?

We hope to see you tonight to practice the art of sharing stories and - importantly - the art of listening. Message us if you think you have a story you’d like to share tonight and we’ll put your name in the queue!

Doors at 5:45PM
Event begins at 6:00PM

December’s Story Night theme was “All the Small Things” and our story sharers delivered with stories from across the boa...
01/13/2026

December’s Story Night theme was “All the Small Things” and our story sharers delivered with stories from across the board: from ladybugs to exasperating workplace rules to change connections. Continued in comments:
— Matt “So a couple of the things in this story were overlooked or unknown and became a big deal. Whoosh - all of a sudden this enormous sound comes past me and my eyes were closed but I saw red through them.”
— Annaleise (pictured) “Sharing a popsicle with an alien in the woods” (a poem she wrote while gardening at a convent)... “And I’d consider it because maybe where it’s going is where we’re all meant to be.”
— Chloe “I have learned a lot about a lot of different things, including sticking up for myself”
— Leah “So I buy, for 4 dollars and 58 cents, 1500 ladybugs on Amazon and I let them loose in my house. Remember - the small things - when you buy ladybugs they come fully fed, they are doing nothing for my plants. You have to wait for the next generation.”
— KJ “They poured water into everyone’s hands to pour on the tree like a little ritual. And they keep asking me questions to try to get me to say it’s a miracle and I’m like ‘Well, I watered it every day.’ And I’m stubborn – because my family and how I am – so once I realize they want me to say it’s a miracle for the documentary I was like ‘I’m not gonna say it.’”
— Beth “So I’m looking at the paper and I’m getting pretty drunk, drinking wine, and the phone rang and it was this man (from the elevator) in large black glasses offering me a job and I got it.”
— Johnny (pictured) “We ended up picking different farms – which should’ve been a sign – she went outside Portland, I went down south outside of Salem.”
— Becca (pictured) “We stayed at a goat farm in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. I don’t know how many of you have farmed because you felt lost but I ended up WWOOFing again – at a permaculture farm in Northern California.” … “And I’d gotten angry at all this stuff I’d accumulated. I feel like I had more going for me in this act of defiance of not having things.”

We are back for a new year of storytelling next week at Frae! Join us Tuesday at 6pm for a night of sharing and listenin...
01/09/2026

We are back for a new year of storytelling next week at Frae! Join us Tuesday at 6pm for a night of sharing and listening 💙

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116 N 29th Street Suite A
Billings, MT
59101

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