By: Eric Wolf,
on 3/8/2015
Would you like to be a part of a storytelling conference call that supports you in your use of storytelling? If so, then enter your name and email address and you will receive personal invitations to participate in The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Conference call – most Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern. Name: Email: Share [...]
By: Eric Wolf,
on 10/26/2011
Press Play to hear Leeny Del Seamonds on using character voices in your storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf. Odds Bodkin’s character-voice and music-filled storytelling style has been mesmerizing listeners, young and old, for twenty-four years. The New York Times dubbed him “a consummate storyteller” while TIMEOUT New York writes, “Master Storyteller [...]
By: Eric Wolf,
on 9/28/2011
Recently I asked the question on Facebook and elsewhere are you comfortable using the word theatre to sell storytelling events? I liked Mary’s reply and I invite you to think deeply about her application of these ideas. Brother Wolf Mary Grace Ketner writes… I would not use the word “theatre” itself, but I often use [...]
By: Eric Wolf,
on 5/21/2011
by Stuart H. Nager I found out about World Storytelling Day (http://worldstorytellingday.webs.com/) on February 23, 2011, through a posting on Facebook. The global event, centered around the theme of Water, was to be on or around March 20th. I’ve been working hard as a Teaching Artist, doing my storytelling and other performance gigs here and [...]
By: Eric Wolf,
on 2/28/2011
Press Play to hear Storyteller Tim Ereneta talks about how he brought Storytelling to the Fringe on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf. Here’s the best thing about a storytelling performance in a Fringe Festival: I don’t have to wait to be discovered. I don’t have to worry about offending my host with my material. [...]
By: Eric Wolf,
on 10/29/2010
Press Play to hear Kathy Collins speak on being a Comedian who tells stories and being a storyteller who uses comedy on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.
Although I began storytelling as a teenage in high school forensics competitions, I have always felt like an imposter among “real” tellers. I consider myself an actress, one who memorizes lines and portrays characters, as opposed to a wise and wonderful wordsmith. Over years of performing, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with straying from the script and improvising, but it still seemed more like acting than telling. On Maui, I have a greater reputation as a comedienne than a storyteller.
Then I was blessed with the chance to perform this summer at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Project, where I was billed as one of several poets in the La Casita Festival. Talk about feeling out of my league… now I’m a phony poet too? It seems to me that all poets are storytellers, but not all storytellers are poets. Or are they/we?
Fortunately, this summer I also attended a storytelling festival in Canada’s Northwest Territories. At a tellers’ workshop there, I was surprised to hear the chief executive of a performing arts center mention Bill Cosby as his favorite storyteller. He went on to say that he thinks stand-up comics are the tellers of our time.
I felt liberated after that workshop. I no longer feel out of place among storytellers. Once in a while, either my alter ego Tita or I will perform a serious or poignant tale. But mostly, I now see myself as a storyteller who also happens to do stand-up and theatre. I am grateful for the privilege of getting to do what I love and love what I do for a living.
More on Kathy Collins:
Maui actress/storyteller/comedienne/dancer/radio personality Kathy Collins has been performing on stage since she was 13 and began her broadcasting career at 17. Raised on Maui, her pidgin-speaking alter ego, “Tita”, is a fixture at Oahu’s annual Talk Story Festival and a regular columnist for Maui No Ka Oi Magazine. Her first CD release, “Tita Out”, won the 2005 Hawaii Music Award for Comedy Album of the Year.
Collins performs frequently at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center, where she recently presented Kathy Collins’ Death Comedy Jam, an irreverent and poignant look at death and widowhood written after the death of her husband, Barry Shannon, with whom she co-founded non-commercial Mana’o Radio (91.5FM). Other recent performances include playing Bloody Mary in MAPA’s production of “South Pacific”, telling Pele stories in New York City at the Lincoln Center Out Of Doors Project, and a featured role in the full-length movie “Get a Jab” (premiering at the Hawaii International Film Festival in October 2010).
1 Comments on Kathy Collins – Comedian as Storyteller – Storytelling as Comedy., last added: 10/29/2010
By: Eric Wolf,
on 8/6/2010
Press Play to hear Laird Schaub speak about The Application of Story to Group Facilitation and Community Living on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf
Laird Schaub Writes...
"As a consultant, I'm often asked to work with groups that consider themselves stuck. In helping them understand how they got there and the choices they have to move through it, I always start with the stories-the way in which each person makes sense of their reality as a member of the group. Invariably, the stories don't all match. Sometimes the realities are mutually exclusive. Still, I believe them all and do my best to help everyone in the group understand how each person's actions make sense from that person's perspective. Once I've established a bridge of understanding among the various players, it's then possible to build a new story, where each person's reality is now a little bigger and can hold aspects of other's realities as well.
The key to this is to not ask a person to change their core beliefs, change their personality, or change the way they work with information. I just ask them to change their story, and then to adjust their behaviors accordingly. I ask them to make shifts that are in their interest; ones that will help them be better understood and be less triggering for others. I ask them to make changes that will help them build relationship.
Often, people in the group will be in pain. Being stuck doesn't feel good, and if you cannot see past your own story it often appears that others have taken actions that are purposefully hurtful or disrespectful. Ouch! In this sense, pain is a symptom of a problem, and very useful in helping to diagnose where the stories are not in alignment. Because you want to be treating causes and not just symptoms, it's important here to resist the impulse to alleviate the pain as your priority. It's a better strategy to view the pain as an important source of information and explore it for the purpose of surfacing the clues you'll need to build a story where everyone can feel held and respected."
Brief Bio:
Laird has lived 36 years at Sandhill Farm, an income-sharing rural community in Missouri which he helped found. He homesteads there, has raised two kids, and has developed a flair for preserving food and celebration cooking. He is also the main administrator of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, a network organization he helped create in 1986, and that serves as a clearinghouse of information about North American communities of all stripes.
In addition to being an author and public speaker about various aspects of community, he's also a meeting junkie and has parlayed his passion for good process into a consulting business on group dynamics. He's worked with about 75 different groups around the US, many of them multiple times. His specialty is up-tempo meetings that engage the full range of human input, teaching groups to work creatively with conflict, and at the same time being ruthless about about capturing as mu
By: Eric Wolf,
on 5/6/2010
Press Play to hear Brother Wolf takes questions from his audience on the Art of Storytelling Show on being a professional storyteller. This is 3 of 3 shows commemorating the 100th Anniversary episode of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show. This Episode is podcast in 128 bit rate – this higher bit rate costs more to cast online – if you enjoyed listening to the higher quality show – perhaps you would consider purchasing your next download through the website….
This picture is called a Wordie – it is picture of the words people used when they wrote their thoughts on the 2010 National Storytelling Network Oracle Award..
What People are saying about the Art of Storytelling Show…
I would like to thank the following people for contributing there time and energy to the 102ndt Anniversary Episode….
Harvey Halbrun – Show ID – http://hdhstory.net/
Steve Otto Show Introduction http://www.i-tell.net/
Ellyce Cavanough Introduction of Brother Wolf – http://www.freespiritnaturecamp.com/
Fran Stallings – Oracle Award Committee - http://www.franstallings.com/
Michael D. McCarty – Invitation to attend the National Storytelling Conference in LA in July/August in 2010 – http://www.storynet.org
Jean Luster – Art of Storytelling Ipod Testimonial – The Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers
Buck P Creacy - http://www.buckpcreacy.com/
Heather Forest – Defining Storytelling www.storyarts.org
Journey Sandeers – How do one become a professional storylteler? http://www.jostory.com/
Dale Jarvis – International Symbosym – International Perspective – When storytelling and when is it a tradition? http://www.sc-cc.com
Margret Endinburg – How do I go about telling stories for pay? http://www.kuumbastorytellers.org/MargaretEdinburgh.html
Rob Mcabe – How do I get Grant Money? –
1 Comments on Art of Storytelling 102nd Anniversary Episode., last added: 5/6/2010
By: Eric Wolf,
on 4/27/2010
Eric Wolf has been selected to receive an Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to the storytelling community by the National Storytelling Network.
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Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) will be presented with the Oracle Award in recognition of his work as producer and host of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show during the last evening of the National Storytelling Conference on July 31st, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. The National Storytelling Network (NSN) gives the Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service to individuals who contribute their time and energy in an exemplary manner on the national level. |
The National Storytelling Network is dedicated to advancing the art of storytelling – as a performing art, a literacy tool, a cultural transformation process, and more. NSN is a member-driven organization and it offers direct services, publications and educational opportunities to several thousand individuals, local storytelling guilds and associations. These services are designed to improve storytelling everywhere — in entertainment venues, in classrooms, organizations, medical fields, families, and wherever storytelling can make a contribution to quality of life.
The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show has had over 127, 000 downloads since it began podcasting in 2007. Created by Eric Wolf (Brother Wolf) in the spring of 2007, the show brings the best and brightest of the storytelling community to the world stage. 45% of listeners are from outside the United States from over 100 different countries. In the last six weeks the show has sustained over 7,000 individual downloads.
The Art of Storytelling Show is the world’s sole interview format show dedicated to exploring the art and science of storytelling in all its forms. With over a hundred interviews available for listening to online this podcast has become the premier resource for understanding and learning the art of storytelling worldwide.
To see a complete list of…
Press releases detailing the growth of the Art of Storytelling Show go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/press-release
Guests organized by topic:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/topics
NSN Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service:
http://www.storynet.org/programs/awards/distinguishedservice.html
Eric Wolf’s home page:
http://www.ericwolf.org
Contact: Karin Hensley NSN
Phone: 1-800-525-4514 ext 303
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By: Eric Wolf,
on 3/18/2010
My friend Tim Ereneta has hit upon a brilliant idea. On Youtube and elsewhere online are hundreds of really good storytelling videos already produced. He has found all those videos with their embed codes and moved them to one place. Just brilliant and just what we need. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is the place to demonstrate storytelling in all its beauty, joy and mastery.
Tim serves as the keeper of the chalice. Giving out only the finest sips of storytelling wine so that we can just enjoy the fine samples he has given us.
I am so enamored of his website I am going to link to it right here on the front page of my site and I am going to refer to it as a recommended link from here on out. He is doing a public service one that should have been provided by the National Storytelling Network or the International Storytelling Center several years ago.
By: Eric Wolf,
on 1/13/2010
Press Play to hear Jimmy Neil Smith about the future of the International Storytelling on the Art of Storytelling Center with Brother Wolf.
 Photo Curtsey of Fresh Air. |
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Jimmy Neil Smith writes...
In the early 1990s, I attended a conference of the Tennessee Arts Commission in nearby Johnson City. During the session, potter Bill Strickland spoke about the arts-based Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center in inner-city Pittsburgh—an institution, founded by Strickland, that teaches low-income, inner-city youths an employment skill.
Strickland spoke eloquently about his institution and its program. His address was stirring and powerful. Then, as a closing, Strickland said, “I challenge each of you to go home and build an institution that confirms and makes real what you know.”
Strickland’s challenge inspired me.
Less than a year later, the National Storytelling Association announced the development of what would become the International Storytelling Center—the organization’s first permanent home in 30 years and a “launching pad” for a series of national and international programs, products, and services.
It was Strickland’s challenge that would give birth to the institution that has become the International Storytelling Center. The Center campus—now composed of the elegant Mary B. Martin Storytelling Hall, Historic Center Inn, and the Storytelling Community Park—opened in June of 2002.
Through the work of ISC, we are seeking to confirm and make real what we know about storytelling—the ancient tradition that is as old as humankind yet as modern as this morning’s headlines. Now, in 2010, ISC is launching an expanded vision—a journey to a New Horizon—a better life, a better world, through the power of storytelling.
To achieve this vision, ISC is:
• Building international awareness, appreciation, and audiences for storytelling
• Teaching individuals, organizations, and communities across the globe how to tap into the power of storytelling to build a better life and a better world
• Enhancing the Center’s role in Jonesborough as the worldwide beacon for
By: Eric Wolf,
on 8/28/2009
Over the Next month I will be releasing the video version of this email course available now on the Art of Storytelling with Children Blog
I promise that I send you the seven emails about storytelling over the next ten days or so and that in addition I will send you annoucement about storytelling workshops or activities I am organizing nationally or locally - but never more then two a month if that.
Eric Wolf
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By: Eric Wolf,
on 6/17/2009
Press Play to hear Eric Wolf speak how you can support the Art of Storytelling with Children.
For Immediate Release Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Art of Storytelling with Children is an internationally recognized podcast listened to in 142 countries worldwide with over 50,000 total lifetime downloads, 13,000 distinct listeners, and 8,000+ downloads in the last thirty days. With over 88+ storytellers interviewed on the show this website is rapidly becoming the worlds première source for teaching storytelling online. Through this encyclopedia of storytelling techniques a listener can improve their communication skills and get a complete storytelling education.
Heather Forest, Elizabeth Ellis, Judith Black, Jay O’Callahan, Andy Offutt Irwin, and many other storytellers are interviewed on how to use storytelling techniques in performing for and teaching storytelling to children. The Art of Storytelling with Children has draw guests from all over the world and created an amazing storytelling education resource of storytelling techniques that is unmatched on the World Wide Web. All episodes available right now online for immediate listening and download in the commercial lower quality version for easier down load.
Individuals wishing to pre-purchase this commercial free ipod can pay $338.55 till July 27th. On July 27th the price for a preloaded ipod with 85 shows will increase too $394.65. The Apple Ipod allows listeners to scan easily to any point in each of the 85 hour long shows.
Eric Wolf is the host and producer of the Art of Storytelling with Children show witch is dedicated to supporting the teaching storytelling worldwide by providing access to storytelling techniques and a grounded storytelling education for anyone.
For More Information go to:
http://www.storytellingwithchildren.com/category/press-release/
For a Full List of Episodes go to:
http://www.storytellingwithchildren.com/past-guests/
For more Information Contact:
Eric Wolf (937) 767-8696
By: Eric Wolf,
on 5/24/2009
Press Play to hear Kim Weitkamp speak about reaching troubled youth through storytelling on the Art of Storytelling with Children.
Kim Weitkamp writes…
For 15 years I saw first hand the amazing power of story. The right story deposited at the right time is like a time release capsule. I cannot count how many times one of the teens that I was working with would come back to me, after I told them a story, and they’d say, “Hey, you know that story you told me the other day? Well, I’ve been thinking about it…”
When I would hold group discussions, a story would bring together opposing sides. When I was digging into a person’s heart, trying gently to unearth the pain that was causing them to act out in anger, a story would be the trowel. When I looked into the angry hurting eyes of teen, a story would prove to them that I understood and that I had been there too.
I loved working with at risk youth and found great satisfaction in using story to bring healing. It was a worthy calling. But, after 15 years, it wore me out physically and emotionally, so I retired. From youth work, not storytelling. You cannot retire from what you are, you can only retire from what you do. So what I was had to release itself in another form.
I pulled out journals that I had kept over the years and started going over stories that I had written for no other purpose than to make me smile. I started sharing those stories with people outside my family and friends circle. After a few years of puttering around state festivals, schools and libraries, I branched out and before I knew it I was telling full time. But inside of me there was a struggle going on.
For years, I had used my stories to help teens who were suicidal, self-mutilators, violent offenders, lost, lonely and at their breaking point. I had used my stories for a worthy cause, but now I was telling for the sheer pleasure of it. I was using my stories to entertain and to make people laugh. I was at odds with myself. How could I go from one extreme to another? Was I selling out? Was there a purpose to what I was doing? I was constantly asking myself these questions.
One evening I was telling in a tent that was draped in white lights. The night was cool and still and the audience was perfect. I was in the middle of one of my favorite stories, right at a part where I pause for effect, when I had the most beautiful experience. As my gaze swept across the crowd I could see each face individually, expectant and ready. It was like slow motion, a hard thing to explain really, but they were there…with me… in the story, not in the tent. They were waiting to turn the corner with me and see what I saw and laugh at what I laughed at and smell what I smelled and taste what I tasted. They were there with me, in my story, walking with me.
It was at that moment I knew that what I was doing was just as worthy as my previous work. No matter how long I have them, no matter how large or small the group, no matter how funny, sad, silly, or heartbreaking my story is…it’s a miracle.
Each time I tell I have the privilege of taking my listener away from this world. For a few minutes I provide a much needed break from the rent payment, from the knee pain, from unemployment, from the wayward child, from the death of a loved one. It is a form of medicine, therapy, whatever you want to call it I don’t care. I only know that it is good. And to be a storyteller is a worthy calling.
After that experience I went to Jonesborough for the first time and in the glass shop on Main Street I found an art print that brought tears to my eyes. The artist had drawn a picture of a woman and beside it had written: “In the midst of the song she heard every heartbeat and knew she was a part of something bigger.” Nough said.
Bio of Kim Weitkamp…
Written by Diane Pelegro
Kim Weitkamp used applied storytelling for over 15 years within her work with youth. She has been a guest speaker, keynote and storyteller at camps, retreats, conferences, libraries, schools, leadership summits and festivals throughout the country. After overseeing various non-profit programs in four states she retired from youth work three years ago.
At that time Kim decided to take her love of humor and storytelling to the stage, and she has been warmly received. Her impressive performance list as a newcomer includes Timpfest in Orem, Utah, the Exchange Stage in Jonesborough TN, the historic Lyric Theater in Virginia, the Northeast Storytelling Festival, the Storytelling Festival of the Carolinas, The Smoky Mountains Festival in Pigeon Forge TN, The Colonial Williamsburg Storytelling Festival and many others. She holds residencies at the Montgomery County Museum, the JuneBug Center for Storied Arts and the Lewis Miller Art Center.
She currently serves as President of the Virginia Storytelling Alliance and is the Virginia State rep for the National Youth Storytelling Showcase. She is also a commissioned performer for the Virginia Commission of the Arts. Kim has written and performed vignettes and stories for the PARfm Radio Network morning show which has a 3 state listening audience. She has penned numerous children’s stories but is most noted for her original and humorous Pitscreek Series, which has resulted in two CD projects.
Kim is the founder of the Wrinkles Project, a nationwide program that helps raise awareness of the treasure we have within our ’seasoned citizens’ and the stories that they have to share. Kim’s first CD, “This Ain’t Bull It’s Fertilizer” was her freshman release. Her new self titled CD, shows her growth as an artist and writer. The stories are solid and well written and her telling style is casual and warm. The collection is a beautiful example of storytelling at its best. Recently Kim has added the dynamic of singing original songs to her performances. They cozy right up to the story and add depth and additional appeal to her telling.
Kim’s genuine care for the audience, love of story, and natural talent has alloted her a solid position within the arena of spoken word artistry.
To Learn more about Kim’s work check out her website at http://www.justkissthefrog.com/
By: Eric Wolf,
on 4/23/2009
Press Play to hear Jay O’Callahan speak about learning about Stories by telling to my Children on the Art of Storytelling with Children.
Jay O’Callahan writes…
I’m at work right now on a story commissioned by NASA, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration to celebrate its 50th anniversary. As I create the NASA story I’m aware I’m using all of the knowledge I gained telling stories to my own children. As I told stories to my children I began using repetition, rhythm, changing my voice, using a gesture here and there and inventing situations that involved struggle or risk, When my son Ted was about nine months old I’d make up little songs and rhythms to make him smile. Just making my voice go up high and then suddenly come down delighted him.
One night Ted was sitting in a soapy bath and I read him some of James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. He laughed at the sounds.
When Ted got older I read books to him like The Gingerbread Man and discovered that he loved the repetition running through the story.
Run, run fast as you can
You can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.
I began reading one of Richard Scary’s book in which there was a character called Pierre the Paris Policeman. The line was, “Pierre the Paris Policeman was directing traffic one day.” I would sing that line with a French accent and lift up my hand to stop an imaginary car. The voice and accent brought the character alive. That was an important discovery. And if I read it in any other way it wasn’t Pierre and Ted would say, “Say it right.”
After my daughter Laura Elizabeth was born I told both my children “hand stories.” I’d take one of their hands, look at the palm of the hand and let a line, a bump or a curve in the hand suggest an image and I’d begin the story. It might go like this. “Once upon a time Ted saw a pink cloud resting by a tree. The cloud looked sad so Ted went over to cheer it up.” I was dreaming aloud and characters and images would spring to mind. I imaged that’s always happened to storytellers. I liked telling the hand stories because they were quiet and personal and my children liked being the hero and heroine. Some of those hand stories eventually turned into the Artana stories which take place in a mysterious land where two children, Edward and Elizabeth are the hero and heroine.
As I was telling to my children I learned the importance of a listener, particularly a listener with the sense of wonder and delight. My children listened me into being a storyteller.
Now as I work on this complicated story about NASA I use the knowledge I gained from my children. I ask myself this question: What is wondrous about NASA? And I’m on the alert for compelling characters and the risks they take and the struggles of their lives. I try to incorporate rhythm and repetition; I use a voice to become a character and find that a gesture helps bring the character alive.
As I shape the story and as it grows, I’m using the listeners. The listeners draw out mysteries in the story that I would have missed without them. Here I am back to the beginning.
Biography
Jay O’Callahan grew up in a section of Brookline, Massachusetts which was called “Pill Hill” because so many doctors lived there. The 32-room house and landscaped grounds were a magical atmosphere for a child’s imagination to blossom. When Jay was fourteen, he started making up stories to tell to his little brother and sister to entertain them.
After graduating from Holy Cross College, a tour in the Navy took Jay to the Pacific. Returning to Massachusetts, he taught and eventually became Dean at the Wyndham School in Boston, which his parents had founded. “In the summers I’d go off to Vermont or Ireland to write. I also did a lot of acting in amateur theatre, and that’s where I met a beautiful woman (Linda McManus) who later became my wife. When we had our first child, I left teaching and became the caretaker of the YWCA in Marshfield, a big old barn on a salt-water marsh. That gave me time to write and to tell stories to my children. When I decided to call myself a storyteller, it was like getting on a rocket.” Within three years, Jay was telling stories in hundreds of schools and in addition he was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to create and perform Peer Gynt with the orchestra. His stories were broadcast on National Public Radio’s “The Spider’s Web,” which brought Jay national attention.
Jay was now publicly telling stories he had created for his children. His stories were filled with rhythms, songs and characters as diverse as Herman the Worm, Petrukian, a medieval blacksmith, and the Little Dragon. Orange Cheeks, inspired by a time Jay got in trouble as a little boy, was the first of his personal stories.
One of his most popular stories, Raspberries was born when Jay’s son Teddy was four. Teddy banged his shin outside their cottage and was weeping, “I broke my leg.” Jay told a story full of rhythms to cheer Teddy up.
Jay was also beginning to tell stories to adults. In 1980, while on vacation in Nova Scotia, he sat on and off for a month in the kitchen of an old man and a blind woman. Out of that kitchen came the story of The Herring Shed. “I realized then that part of my gift was to sit down with ordinary people where they were comfortable, listen, and later weave a story together so that others could enjoy it. The process still amazes me: one year I’m in a kitchen in Nova Scotia and a few years later, I’m performing The Herring Shed to a thousand people at Lincoln Center.” Time Magazine called The Herring Shed “genius.”After the Herring Shed came Jay’s Pill Hill stories for which is was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. The Pill Hill stories are loosely based on his boyhood.
Storytelling has brought Jay around the earth. “The storyteller of old got on a horse. I get on a plane, parachute into a community and I’m part of its life for a while before moving on to the next one.” Jay has told stories to students at Stonehendge, to adults in the heat of Niger, Africa, to theatergoers in Dublin and London and at storytelling festivals in Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. His stories have also been heard on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. Jay’s stories also include commissioned works like The Spirit of the Great Auk, Pouring the Sun, Edna Robinson and Father Joe.
When he isn’t on the road, Jay runs a writing workshop at his home. His other interests include reading everything from Walt Whitman to Herman Melville to Flannery O’Connor to Emily Dickinson. And he enjoys listening to jazz, classical music and opera. “I love Maria Callas. Her singing touches a joy that’s very deep.”
Jay has just finished a political novel called Harry’s Our Man, and is creating a story commissioned by NASA for its 50th anniversary.
By: Eric Wolf,
on 4/17/2009
Last summer I pushed for the recording of important sessions of the National Storytelling Network’s (NSN) 2008 Conference I was recording my session on the future of storytelling online for this podcast. I figured why not do a little more? I exhausted myself and recorded the membership session and the regional NSN rep session. These recording are the property of NSN. Unluckily I work for myself like most artists and it took me two months to edit the work – then having finished it - I promptly forgot about it. Finally in November I got my copies to the NSN board. Jo Radner, the NSN board chair was very excited about getting some key sessions recorded. I got the feeling the board would have liked faster service – but you know the old saying you get what you pay for and I was free.
Others recorded the Keynotes and the Master storytellers concert. I don’t know what happened to these files. I’m sure the NSN got a copy of them somewhere. The master storytellers performance - Doc McConnell’s last performance - was almost not recorded! I saw the volunteer putting his equipment away before the performance, and when I asked why, I was told by NSN volunteers that the storytellers would never agreed to their work being recorded.
So I walked up to each storyteller and asked them for permission to record their performance “for NSN” with any other uses to be worked out later. They all said yes with a great deal of passion and Doc McConnell said we could do anything NSN wanted with his recording. I’m sure I was too pushy for bystanders
The reality is that storytelling has an advantage over other art forms, because new work is always being created. We all have material that we have not performed in years. We all have stories that were once primary to our performance, but now no longer capture our attention. What if all of that material was still available? Mostly I try to downplay storytellers’ fears by asking this one question: Reframing the whole debate… Do you want to be a part of the historical record?
That is how I would frame this debate over recording conference sessions.
Five years from now if this material is available will it still matter to you? Won’t you be on to other things? Wouldn’t it be nice to have this historical moment recorded? The question is not “Do we record our conference sessions?” The question really is ”When do we release our conference sessions? One year? Two years? Five years from now?”
The storytelling skill set is timeless – the skills and abilities we have today will not, unlike computers, internet or blogging, become old fashioned – they are ageless. I personally know that the storytelling movement has a lot to offer the world and think it’s time we stepped up to the plate to offer our skills. NSN or any other national organization could be the vehicle for that delivery. Who ever builds a content delivery system around the art of storytelling first will win that race and be the source for the international storytelling movement for the next twenty years. My website www.storytellingwithchildren.com is well on the way to being the source for all things relating to storytelling with children, but what about storytelling with seniors, in business, marketing, or any of a dozen different topics that I have not had time or resources to cover in the depth that should be covered?
NSN could be so much more then a network, using it’s conference it could bring the separate candles of the storytelling community into a bright light that would shine forth across the world.
By: Eric Wolf,
on 4/9/2009
Your Feedback is important to the future of the show.
Participate now and directly influence the Art of Storytelling with Children.
Currently survey participants responses are coming from…
(One participant may check more then one choice.)
Professional Storyteller 43%
Educator 43%
Parent 41%
Storytelling Organizer 34%
Story Admirer 34%
Audience Member 31%
Writer of Children’s Stories 23%
Semi-professional Storyteller 20%
Librarian 18%
Amateur Storyteller 16%
Storytelling Coach 16%
Faith Based Storyteller 15%
This survey is still open - take your turn to influence the future of the Art of Storytelling with Children…
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By: Eric Wolf,
on 4/1/2009
Your Feedback is important to the future of the show.
Participate now and directly influence the Art of Storytelling with Children.
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By: Eric Wolf,
on 3/13/2009
Press Play to hear Catherine Burns who is Artistic Director of The Moth speaking on diamonds in the rough, coaching new storytellers on the Art of Storytelling with Children.
The Moth is America’s #1 storytelling podcast with over 600,000 downloads a month and at least 100,000 listeners. Catherine Burns is one of the minds behind the curtain at The Moth storytelling main stage in NYC and LA.
The Moth storytelling website.
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25th Anniversary performance, Kevin Kling on the horn and
Recently I asked the question on Facebook and elsewhere are you comfortable using the word theatre to sell storytelling events? I liked Mary’s reply and I invite you to think deeply about her application of these ideas. Brother Wolf Mary Grace Ketner writes… I would not use the word “theatre” itself, but I often use [...]