Citing personal commitments that will temporarily take them away from the series this season, co-founders of the storytelling program “A Winter’s Tale” announced that the show will take a break this winter.

Modeled on “The Moth” and set on winter-dark Sunday nights at The Red Door in Portsmouth, the series features a handful of local people telling stories on the night’s chosen theme. Performers often include local musicians, performers, shopkeepers, chefs and other community cultural figures.

“We have really been honored to help bring live first-person storytelling to Portsmouth. Listening together to funny, serious, fascinating and profound personal stories, while gathering together for warmth and sociability with a wide cross-section of our community, has been an deeply rewarding experience,” wrote Michelle Moon and Steve Johnson in a letter they sent to the Wire in mid-December.

“We are still committed to the concept of A Winter’s Tale as a wintertime-only storytelling series with special relevance in the cold reaches of New England. However, we have planned to put the series on hiatus for 2013,” they wrote. They expect to return in 2014.

“Allowing for a pause in the program will give us a chance to review what we’ve done and learned, and to develop an enhanced program for the future."