Richard Stone

After a short stint as a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the mid-1970s, Richard has been exploring the realms of color and form for nearly forty years as a painter and photographer focusing on macro views of tree bark and lichen, and exploring the world of leaves through mixed-media.  

Over the past thirty-five years, Richard has pursued many other interests including creating story-based products for fun, entertainment, and real-world applications. As CEO of StoryWork International, Richard developed a wide array of story-based training programs and has worked with clients as diverse as The American Red Cross, Novant Health, the U.S. Navy, and Walt Disney Imagineering. He has also been a nationally recognized speaker on the power of story.

Previously, Richard was the StoryAnalytics Master at IDEAS, a former division of Disney where he co-developed StoryCare which is still being used in the world of nursing education to better prepare students to manage the complex human factors that can lead to patient harm. 

As the Chief Imagination Officer of the Imagine This Company, a company he founded with Rhett Banning, he guided the development of a boxed board game that taps into the joy of creating and telling stories called Pitch-A-Story. The game was released in the Summer, 2005, and won the Dr. Toy Award.

Richard has been writing fiction and non-fiction for the past forty years.  Books and other writing include Story Intelligence, co-written with Scott Livengood; The Healing Art of Storytelling; Stories: The Family Legacy; and, The Kingdom of Nowt. His screenplays include On the Spot – a feature-length Romantic Comedy co-written with Syd and Enid Jackowitz, and Sprinkles – a sitcom co-written with Syd and Enid Jackowitz. Richard is currently working on a new screenplay with Mark Simon and Ann Woolner about the Woolner brothers who were pioneers of the b-movie in the 1950s. He has also written The Maggid – a feature-length film which he has also developed into a one-man performance piece, alogn with two children books awaiting publication: It Can Be Almost Anything and The Fairytale Factory. In 2024, Richard began collaborating with Lance Toland Entertainment as the writer and creative director for the Webby-nominated historical podcast, Flames of Freedom, which tells the story of the founding of the Georgia Colony and the role that Jewish refugees fleeing the Inquisition and pogroms in Eastern Europe played in the life of the early years of the colony. It is now in its second season.

Also, in the past five years Richard developed The Central Fire. In ancient times, the Scots created community venues they called a Cèilidh (pronounced “kay-lee” in the Gaelic language). Cèilidhs were simply about visiting with and socializing with friends. Being invited to come round for a wee Cèilidh' meant stopping by for friendship, joyful sharing, and connection. They were a home away from home. The Central Fire is intended to be such a place. At a time when people all over the world are feeling more and more disconnected, sharing our stories is a tried and true “technology” that can help us reweave our place in the fabric of humanity by filling our souls with stories. More recently, he has been working with Thrive Pavillion, a virtual senior community center in Meta’s Horizon Worlds to recreate the Central Fire where seniors can participate virtually around a virtual Central Fire.

Finally, Richard is currently an adjunct professor for the School of Communications at Highpoint University.