Confab Storylab

Want to become a fantastic storyteller?

Discover the power of storytelling to enhance the effectiveness of your communications, to amplify your capacity to persuade, influence, and inspire others.

Confab StoryLab offers a variety of storytelling workshops and individual coaching sessions throughout the year.

 

1:1 coaching sessions, 6-week group workshops or weekend intensives, we have something for everyone.

 
 

1:1 coaching for business storytelling

Elevate your storytelling skills with our personalised coaching. A great story serves as a touchstone – both an entry point for your audience, and something to help you stand out in their memory. Whether sharing an impactful idea or structuring presentations for crucial meetings, we’ll help you express yourself in ways that capture attention, inspire action, and connect authentically with your audiences. 

Services we offer:
    • Public speaking: Amplify your leadership and influence change by elevating your speeches with powerful storytelling techniques
    • High impact presentations: Integrate neuroscience-based storytelling techniques to give presentations with a lasting impact
    • Business pitches: Captivate potential investors and excite stakeholders through persuasive and well-crafted proposals
Ask about our 1:1 coaching services

Storytelling workshops 

StoryLab offers in-person workshops for organisations and individuals in Montreal and Victoria, as well as online workshops for storytellers around the world. Dive deeper into the art of storytelling, while building a community, as you learn to shape and share your story with peers. 

Upcoming workshop!
Our winter 2025 session will begin in February. It will be a 6-week course where you’ll learn the fundamentals of storytelling and how to apply them into crafting and delivering memorable narratives, be it on a stage or in a presentation. Here are the details:
  • When: Mondays, from 7-9pm from February 10- March 17, 2025 
  • Where: IN PERSON at the MAI (3680 Rue Jeanne-Mance)
  • Instructors: Matt Goldberg, Confab Host & Artistic Director + Smriti Bansal, Confab Story Coach & Producer 
  • Update: We’re putting registration on hold while we confirm how many more participants we can add! Thanks for your enthusiasm! E-mail matt@confabulation.ca to get on the list for updates if you’re interested in this upcoming session!
 
Registration

What You’ll Learn

Through our 1:1 coaching, one-day sessions, masterclasses, or workshop series, you’ll learn how to:
  • Find your story
  • Write, edit, and structure your story
  • Offer and integrate feedback
  • Present in front of live and virtual audiences
  • Use storytelling techniques to better share ideas

Whether it’s on a stage,

in a job interview,

in a meeting room,

or at a networking event,

we’re going to help you

tell your story.

 
 

Meet our storytellers

Tap into the wealth of experience from our storytelling experts. They're here to accelerate your training, provide you with practical tips and tools you can apply to everything you learn.

Smriti Bansal

Smriti Bansal is a Montreal-based content-marketer and story coach who specialises in the art of business storytelling. She's worked with leaders in organisations including Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Braindate by e180, Fringe Festival, Creative Mornings and Grove Atlantic, helping them find their story, deliver memorable presentations, and forge deeper connections with their audiences.

Deb Vanslet

is a Montreal storyteller, writer and media artist. She has been telling stories at Confabulation since 2010, and has told stories at Yarn, Vancouver Story Slam, and Stories from the Stage at WGBH studios in Boston. In 2015, she won the 3Macs Carte Blanche QWF prize for her short story Self-Serve, and Ghost Station was published in the Queer Perspectives edition of The Malahat Review. Deb won the QWF Ian Ferrier Spoken Word prize in 2023.

Francesca Esguerra

is a writer, producer, drama therapist, and patron of many pets. She has been a part of the Confabulation team since 2019 and her true storytelling show Two Lives, premiered last summer at the Montreal St-Ambroise Fringe festival.

Michele Luchs

Michele Luchs is a Montreal-based storyteller and story coach who specialises in storytelling for non-profits and the education milieu. She has shared stories at Confabulation, This Really Happened, Yarn, The Mosquito Slam, Vancouver’s The Flame and Record Club, and is three-time winner of the Vancouver Story Slam. She has helped teachers, professors, scientists, librarians, and other professionals find their story, and use storytelling to better collaborate with others, present to diverse audiences, and develop stronger teams. 

Matt Goldberg

Matt Goldberg is the founder and artistic director of Confabulation. Through Confabulation, he has taught storytelling and coached stories and pitches for students, professionals, artists and amateurs for a range of ages and backgrounds, and for all kinds of purposes. Matt is a Montreal-based comedian, writer, actor and storyteller. He is also a founder member of Uncalled For — an award-winning Canadian sketch and improv comedy troupe, based in Montreal and Toronto. He hosts the Confabulation podcast, and has performed at Fringe Festivals and storytelling shows across Canada, as well as at special events with Centre Phi, CBC Books and Just for Laughs. Matt teaches English literature and storytelling at Vanier College, in Montreal.

Loved by Storytellers Around the World​

“Singing in the shower is great fun, but storytelling needs an audience! Joining a group workshop at Confabulation gives you both the audience and the expertise of a team of leaders. You will effortlessly, okay there's some work, go from an anecdote to a compelling story in your own unique voice. With support, encouragement and respectful feedback every step of the way.”
Claire Sherwood
csherwoodzines.com
“I had been thinking about storytelling for some time. Three years ago I saw a live performance of Confabulation. I found the performance very interesting and the fact that it was about real life events made them very touching. After that performance I joined a few Confabulation workshops and learnt a great deal about storytelling. Performing for Confabulation has given me a new career opportunity and has encouraged me to become a storyteller myself.”​
Roksana Bahramitash
bahramitash.ca