A woman with outstretched arms on a stage

Get Your Tickets for The Moth Mainstage in Atlanta Coming November 30

Credit: Photographed by Laura Partain

Meg Bowles is the kind of person you want to sit next to at a dinner party.

As a senior director and co-host of the Peabody Award winning The Moth Radio Hour and director for The Moth Mainstage, there’s no doubt she could keep a good conversation flowing with stories.

From her experience of casting storytellers for The Moth Mainstage, including a NASA astronaut who commanded the first shuttle mission after the loss of Challenger, to a doctor who saved Mother Teresa’s life, Meg has helped create a special connection between storytellers and audience members since volunteering in the late ‘90s to help Moth founder George Dawes Green set up events in New York.

“I’m always so amazed after 20-odd years to walk into a theater where the only thing on stage is a microphone, and it’s full of people whose only

Meg Bowles

Moth senior director and co-host Meg Bowles

expectation is to hear a story,” said Meg. “That’s moving to me, and it makes me love my job.”

As Meg relates, George had previously lived on St. Simons Island, and he would often sit on the front porch with his friends telling stories.

“When he moved to New York, he missed that, so he wanted to bring this Southern tradition of telling stories and listening to each other there,” said Meg. “The idea for the title came from the moths he used to see flying around the porch light back on St. Simons Island.”

On November 30, The Moth Mainstage is coming to Atlanta, and audience members will get the chance to experience the unique connection with the featured storytellers that Meg has helped to foster.

“I always tell storytellers I work with that it’s not a performance,” said Meg. “It’s sharing. You want a person to forget that they are sitting with 900 or a thousand other people. You want them to feel like you’re talking just to them.  When someone performs, everybody critiques them, but when somebody shares, you lean in and cheer them on.” 

Over the years, Meg says she believes people have come to trust the Moth to deliver good stories and attending one of The Moth Mainstage events can introduce audiences to new perspectives.

“I think the beauty of The Moth Mainstage is that you get to hear from someone that you would never get to meet,” said Meg. “Suddenly there’s an understanding for someone’s life choices or situation that you didn’t think about before, and there’s a shift in your opinion.”

For information on how to get tickets for The Moth Mainstage at Atlanta’s Center Stage Theater on Thursday, November 30, visit gpb.org/moth.

Tune in for The Moth Radio Hour Saturdays at 5 a.m. and Sundays at 11 a.m. on GPB Atlanta 88.5. You can also listen to the program at these times and Fridays at 7 p.m. on GPB's statewide radio network.