And Why it Led Me to Vianarra
By Patrick Dunn
When I was a kid growing up in Maine, I loved listening to the stories adults told around the kitchen table. They’d share tales of farm life, community, and the long shadow of war — often told just out of earshot of the kids, which of course made me listen even harder.
At the time, I didn’t understand why the same stories were told over and over again, like a favorite record. Now I do. They weren’t just telling stories — they were keeping them alive.
Those moments taught me something I wouldn’t fully grasp until years later: storytelling isn’t just about remembering. It’s about belonging.
Learning from Sandy Ives
When I studied at the University of Maine, I was lucky enough to learn under Sandy Ives — a folklorist who dedicated his life to preserving the voices of ordinary Mainers.
He told stories of logging camps, of French-Canadian music, and of communities that found laughter in the hardest conditions. He made me realize that storytelling isn’t about entertainment — it’s about humanity.
Under Sandy’s mentorship, I worked on projects that recorded the voices of women who welded and worked at Bath Iron Works during World War II. Those interviews still live at the Maine Folklife Center — and I’m told they’re among the most listened to. They remind me that storytelling is a form of leadership: it gives voice, it honors truth, it preserves dignity.
The Freshman Who Met Stephen King
My first year at UMaine, a visiting professor showed up to teach freshman English for a semester.
His name was Stephen King. He was just at the very beginning of what would become one of the most remarkable careers in American literature — and he had no idea yet how big it would get. Neither did we.
He didn’t just assign writing. He talked about technique. About how a story finds its reader. About the difference between words on a page and words that live inside someone long after the page is turned. He critiqued our work directly, honestly, and with the kind of encouragement that a young writer from a small town in Maine doesn’t forget.
I never became a novelist. But I never stopped thinking about what he taught me — that the story isn’t for you. It’s for the person in the room who needs to hear it.
The Sound of Connection
Later I found another chapter of story at Le Club Calumet in Augusta. Saturday nights were filled with fiddle music, French-Canadian reel dancing, and the smell of tourtière. You didn’t have to say a word — the music was the story.
That’s when I realized stories don’t just come through words. They live in rhythm, movement, laughter, and song. They’re how people say, we’re still here.
The Parks Taught Me the Rest
Before I became a crisis leader, before I stood on stages, I was a National Park Service interpretive ranger — working across multiple parks, telling the stories of the land to whoever walked through the gate.
The job taught me something no classroom could.
Every group was different. Some days I’d look out at a crowd and see young children in the front row — eyes wide, fidgeting, three minutes from losing interest entirely. I learned to meet them where they were. To take a historical event, an object, a geological formation, and translate it into something a seven year old could feel. To put them inside the story — make them a character in it — and watch the moment their face changed from polite boredom to genuine wonder.
Other days the front row was full of experts. People who knew more about the subject than I did. The job then wasn’t to inform — it was to give them something they didn’t already have. A detail they’d never heard. A perspective that reframed everything they thought they knew.
And some days I was tired. Some days the last thing I wanted to do was perform. The parks taught me that the audience never knows what you’re carrying. You welcome them anyway. You find the story anyway. You show up for the person who drove four hours to be there — because their experience is not about your mood.
That’s not just ranger training. That’s the foundation of every keynote I’ve ever delivered. Every workshop. Every conversation across a tasting room counter.
Adapt. Welcome. Find the story that fits this room, this audience, this moment.
From the Parks to the Stage
I’ve carried those lessons through everything that followed — thirty years of leading organizations through crisis, building teams under pressure, and eventually stepping onto stages to share what all of it taught me.
Today, when I stand in front of a room, storytelling is still at the heart of everything I do. Not the same stories from my childhood — but the same essence. Truth. Connection. A sense of shared humanity.
Stories remind us who we are. They connect vision to purpose. They build empathy where data alone can’t.
What I Notice When I Walk Into a Room
That same instinct is what I carry into every hotel lobby, every tasting room, every restaurant I’ve ever walked into.
I’m not reading the menu first. I’m listening for the story.
Does this place know who it is? Does the person behind the counter know why this wine matters, why this building was built, why someone’s grandfather planted those vines on that particular hillside? Can they make me feel — even for an hour — like I belong here?
Most can’t. Not because they don’t care. But because nobody ever helped them find it.
I’ve sat in tasting rooms in Healdsburg where I was a member. The host sat us down, poured the wine, read us the label, and said enjoy. No story. No background. No reason to care about what was in the glass beyond the price.
We left the club that day and told all of our friends.
Not in the way wineries hope you tell your friends.
I’ve also sat in tasting rooms in Châteauneuf-du-Pape where a woman behind the counter knew every bottle in front of her — not the tasting notes, the story. The land. The families. The seasons that made each wine what it was. She talked to us like we were the only guests who had ever stood there.
Same industry. Same format. Completely different experience.
The difference wasn’t the wine. It wasn’t the décor. It wasn’t the price point.
It was the story.
Why I Built Vianarra
Every place has one. A history worth knowing. A passion worth sharing. A reason someone chose this land, built this room, trained these people, and opened these doors.
Most places never find it. Or find it and never tell it.
That gap — between the story a place has and the story it tells — is what I’ve spent a lifetime noticing. And it’s what I’ve decided to spend the next chapter of my life doing something about.
Vianarra is the story found along the way.
From the Latin via — the journey — and narra — to tell. It’s the name I’ve given to this work: a newsletter, a workshop, a consulting practice, and a standard for every place that’s ready to find its story and finally tell it.
Not because it’s a nice idea.
Because it’s the fastest way to build something worth remembering — and the surest way to lose everything when it’s gone.
“Stories don’t end when they’re told. They end when they’re lived.” — Sandy Ives
I think about that line often. Whether I’m behind a microphone, standing on a stage, walking into a tasting room for the first time, or sitting across from a winery owner who has never been asked to tell their story out loud.
I’m part of the same long tradition that started in a small Maine kitchen so many years ago.
That’s why I’ll always be — at my core — a storyteller.
And that’s exactly why Vianarra exists.
Vianarra is the hospitality storytelling extension of Patrick Dunn International. Every place has a Vianarra. Not every place knows how to tell it. Subscribe to the newsletter at patrickdunnintl.com