Heather Forest

Heather Forest’s unique minstrel style of storytelling blends original music, folk guitar, poetry, prose and the sung and spoken word. She has toured her repertoire of world folktales for the past thirty years to theatres, major storytelling festivals, and conferences throughout the United States and abroad. 

Her many performance credits include The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., The National Storytelling Festival, TN, The Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland, Tales of Graz Festival, Austria, and the Glistening Waters Storytelling Festival, New Zealand. She has been a featured teller at major storytelling festivals throughout the United States, a keynote speaker at the National Storytelling Congress (USA), and has taught storytelling and communication arts seminars as a guest lecturer at universities and at the National Storytelling Institute (USA) in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Rosie Cutrer

Rosie Cutrer, a storyteller from Topeka, Kansas, has been telling stories professionally for the past fifteen  years, presenting at festivals, schools, libraries and museums.  In the past few years she has been invited to perform at: the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival,  the Kansas Storytelling Festival,The Land Run Festival in Choctaw, Oklahoma, the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska and was a featured teller at the Kearney Area Storytelling Festival in 2011. In October of 2010 she made a storytelling tour of Ireland telling in schools and libraries in County Wexford and in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. 

Mrs. Cutrer works with all ages. For younger groups she tells folktales, fairytales, ghost stories, stories based on literature, poetry, folksongs and her own original works. She is also a songwriter and accompanies herself on the banjo. Two of her storytelling CDs have won awards from the Children’s Music Web for Best Performer for both younger and older audiences. They are available for purchase online at CD Baby.com. 

Host – Isabelle Hauser

A fairy tale believer since the beginning of her time, Isabelle Hauser discovered the path of storytelling training with professional storyteller Liz Weir in Northern Ireland. When Isabelle is not telling tales or playing the harp on various stages in Switzerland and abroad, you can find her talking to the swans on the shore of her hometown lake, looking for four leaf clover, or chasing rainbows in the surrounding forests. As a storyteller and harpist, she wants to create a space for her audience to see that reality, too. Or to just provide them with a break from everyday life! Whisking people of all ages and origins to long ago and far away with music and story is her greatest passion in life.

Music by Podington Bear

Did you know the Story Story Podcast was featured Feedspots Top 30 Fairy Tale Podcasts? There are a lot of great podcasts on this list and we are thrilled to be included!

Cathryn Fairlee

Cathryn passed away in October 2019 and will be deeply missed as a friend and a storyteller. In her own words about her storytelling from an interview last year with edex live –

I started storytelling 35 years ago. I have travelled around the world gathering epics, myths, legends, histories, and folk and fairy tales from the folk. I work with other storytellers whenever I travel; even in Chennai and Kanchipuram, I’ve worked with a few of them. I have travelled and learnt about different cultures and I’ve gone back to the US to share them with others. I like the fact that one can give people therapy and teach them how to listen and enjoy the entire experience. It’s not lecturing or commanding them to agree with you. It’s about helping them enjoy and learn something.

True Thomas

True Thomas the Storyteller (aka Robert Seutter) has been storytelling for many years. He comes by it naturally. When he was in kindergarten, his teacher asked him why he put a big black blob of paint on the paper in finger painting. His reply: “It’s a cave… full of bats!”

True is an avid proponent of storytelling. He teaches the art, creates events, and has performed in a wide variety of places from campfires to battlefields. His personal storytelling philosophy is that a good storyteller should be able to tell to anyone, anywhere it’s physically possible. Anyone can and should tell stories, and to become a master of the craft can take a lifetime. He’s also a big believer in the spiritual side of storytelling. He believes in the power of stories and that the right story, in the right time and place can change the world.

Noa Baum

Noa Baum is an award-winning storyteller, educator and public speaker performing internationally with diverse audiences ranging from the World Bank and prestigious universities and congregations, to festivals, government agencies, schools, and detention centers.

Born and raised in Jerusalem Noa offers a unique combination of performance art and practical workshops that focus on the power of stories to heal across the divides of identity and build bridges for peace.

Her stories, drawn from diverse cultures, her own Jewish heritage and personal experience, highlight our similarities, celebrate our differences, and encourage curiosity, awareness, and acceptance.

Ed Stivender

Since 1977, when he left his day job as a high school teacher in Connecticut and turned to storytelling full-time, Ed has fabulated his way around the globe –appearing in schools, churches, coffeehouses and theaters, as well as at major storytelling festivals.  He has been a featured performer at the National Storytelling Festival, the Cape Clear Island International Storytelling Festival in Ireland, Graz Festival, Austria and our own Philadelphia Folk Festival. In reviews of his work, Ed Stivender has been called “the Robin Williams of storytelling” by the Miami Herald  and “a Catholic Garrison Keillor” by Kirkus Review.

Simon Brooks

Simon Brooks is an award-winning British storyteller who now lives in New London, New Hampshire, New England, New World!  He also uses his voice to bring a depth to folk and fairy tales, making them seem all the bit more real. He is also a storyteller, writer, and educator who dabbles in photography.

Order his book Under The Oaken Bough from your nearest brick and mortar bookstore, and listen to his podcast Conversations with Storytellersto hear what it is like to work as a performance storyteller, from some living legends!

Milbre Burch

A Grammy-nominated recording artist and internationally-known performer, educator, published poet and produced playwright, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word. She has been featured at events and festivals in 36 states and in fifteen European cities.

Burch is known for the versatility of her repertoire from folktales to fantasy, fiction and fairy tales to one-woman shows and original monologues. She is a recipient of the NSN ORACLE Circle of Excellence award.

Visit Milbre’s website.

Lyn Ford

A fourth-generation, nationally recognized, Affrilachian storyteller. A teaching artist with the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, and workshop facilitator with both OAAE and the Ohio State-Based Collaborative Initiative of the Kennedy Center. A Thurber House mentor. A writer, published in storytelling magazines and newsletters, as well as teachers’ enrichment books and story anthologies, and her own books. A recording artist with award-winning CDs. A Laughter Yoga Teacher and breath mechanic.  Go to my new page, Laughter, Breath, Joy!, for more information! A happy partner-in-life, mama, grandmama, great-grandmama, and good cook!


Host – Isabelle Hauser

A fairy tale believer since the beginning of her time, Isabelle Hauser discovered the path of storytelling training with professional storyteller Liz Weir in Northern Ireland. When Isabelle is not telling tales or playing the harp on various stages in Switzerland and abroad, you can find her talking to the swans on the shore of her hometown lake, looking for four leaf clover, or chasing rainbows in the surrounding forests. As a storyteller and harpist, she wants to create a space for her audience to see that reality, too. Or to just provide them with a break from everyday life! Whisking people of all ages and origins to long ago and far away with music and story is her greatest passion in life.

Music by Podington Bear

Did you know the Story Story Podcast was featured Feedspots Top 30 Fairy Tale Podcasts? There are a lot of great podcasts on this list and we are thrilled to be included!

Liz Weir

Liz Weir is a storyteller and writer from Northern Ireland. She was the first winner of the International Story Bridge Award from the National Storytelling Network, USA, which cited her “exemplary work promoting the art of storytelling”.

Liz Weir has told her stories to people of all ages on five continents. She has performed in pubs and prisons and hospital rooms. She worked on stages in the mighty Vanderbilt Hall of New York’s Grand Central Station and in the Royal Albert Hall.

Liz Weir has worked for people with very different cultural backgrounds – for children from Israel and Palestine, at universities in Germany and Wales, on TV between South-Africa and Canada. And she appeared at major events, such as the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee and the Australian National Storytelling Festival.

Her voice can be heard on CDs like “The Wailing Of The Wind”, together with the Mavron String Quartet. Liz Weir has also written more than 20 books. For instance ‘When Dad Was Away’, which is a picture-book about a child whose father is in jail. Or ‘Tales of the Road’, a children’s book about Irish Traveller life.

Laura Simms

Laura Simms is an award winning performer, writer, and educator advocating storytelling as compassionate action for personal and community transformation. She performs worldwide combining ancient myth and true life story for adult and family audiences.  She is the Artistic Director of the Hans Christian Andersen Storytelling Center in NY and the founder of The Center for Engaged Storytelling (new).   She has been  a Senior Research Fellow for the International Peace institute at Rutgers University Newark under the auspices of UNESCO.  As a spokesperson for storytelling she presents keynotes and workshops in conferences, villages, schools, universities and community events. She is a member of the Therapeutic Arts Alliance of Manhattan, and a senior teacher of Shambhala Buddhist meditation.  Laura received the Brimstone Award for Engaged Storytelling, CHOICE award for best story collection and Sesame Street’s SUNNY DAYS award for work with children worldwide. In 2011 she recieved a Life Time Achievement Award from the National Storytelling Netwrok.  She is co-faculty with Terry Tempest Williams’ at University of Utah, consults with ETSU’s CANCER STORIES project, and is spoken word consultant for Foundations, NGOS working in post disaster and conflicts. She recently appeared at the Newark Peace Summit and the Conference on World Peace and Values in Monterrey, Mexico. Her Most recent book is OUR SECRET TERRITORY: The Essence of Storytelling (Sentient Publications, June 2011).  She is completing a new work:  THE SANCTUARY OF A STORY (TBA).  Laura is the mother of best selling author Ishmael Beah.

Laura Packer

Laura Packer has been telling stories her whole life – her mother reports she was born talking. The daughter of a children’s librarian and a writer, it seems inevitable that she become a storyteller and writer herself, since her childhood was steeped in narrative. By second grade, Laura was telling stories to her classmates, creating her own magazines and writing letters to the editor of her hometown newspaper; her deep love of fairytales and mythology eventually led her to obtain a degree in Folklore and Mythology from Boston University. Imagine her surprise when she discovered, upon graduating, that there isn’t a crying need for folklorists!

Undaunted by the lack of job openings for folklorists, Laura has built a career helping people and organizations find their own story, performing original and traditional tales around the world, and creating written narrative that draws the reader into new possibilities.

Jenni Cargill-Strong 

Jenni Cargill-Strong is an enchanting award-winning Australian storyteller and Owner Operator of ‘The Story Tree Company’ and ‘Stories on Foot: Tales of Byron Bay and the Rainbow Region‘. Jenni has twenty-eight years experience as a professional storyteller, four award-winning story albums, seventeen years experience teaching storytelling and several years experience teaching online. She is Australian, and lives with her two nearly grown children in the seaside town of Ballina on the east coast, just south of Byron Bay. Discover testimonials and details of preschool and school shows on Jenni’s Performance page, see a gallery of images or watch videos.

Simon Brooks

Simon Brooks is an award-winning British storyteller who now lives in New London, New Hampshire, New England, New World!  He also uses his voice to bring a depth to folk and fairy tales, making them seem all the bit more real. He is also a storyteller, writer, and educator who dabbles in photography.

Order his book Under The Oaken Bough from your nearest brick and mortar bookstore, and listen to his podcast Conversations with Storytellersto hear what it is like to work as a performance storyteller, from some living legends!

Robin Bady

Award-winning storyteller Robin Bady performs and teaches throughout the United States, Germany, Ireland and China in theaters, cafes, schools, museums, festivals and online. She loves all stories, particularly true ghost stories told by the person who experienced the “presence”.  She frequently partners with instrument builder Skip LaPlante and violinist Concetta Abbate – their latest project is “The Rootabaga Stories” by Carl Sandburg. She is the host of the celebrated monthly storytelling series, BADYHouse Storytelling Concerts, which takes place in her home. Connect with her on Facebook!

Mo Reynolds

Mo Reynolds has been telling stories for many years, just ask her parents! She has been performing for audiences since 2016. She was a librarian for two years, delighting students weekly with folk tales, myths, stories from literature, and inspiring records from real life. She has performed in schools, festivals, backyards, and living rooms across Montana, Idaho, Washington, Utah, and all the way to Florida. After being a showcase teller for two years, she was invited to be a featured storyteller at the Florida Storytelling Festival in 2020. Mo recently earned the Diamonds in the Dust Diamond Award Scholarship in 2020 to help build her YouTube channel, where she posts storytelling episodes to spread the art to a broad audience around the world.

Joel Ben Izzy

It was back in 1983 that he graduated from Stanford with a self-designed degree in English, Creative Writing and Storytelling, and set off to travel the world, gathering and telling stories. Since then he has told stories and taught storytelling in some 36 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

With every stop on his itinerary, his repertoire of stories has grown. Some are tales from people he meets on the road, and others he finds are traditional tales from the places he’s traveled. Then there are the stories that seem to find him – and stick. These are true stories, more or less, and what he’s come to love over the years is the blend of all these stories together.

True Thomas

True Thomas the Storyteller (aka Robert Seutter) has been storytelling for many years. He comes by it naturally. When he was in kindergarten, his teacher asked him why he put a big black blob of paint on the paper in finger painting. His reply: “It’s a cave… full of bats!”

True is an avid proponent of storytelling. He teaches the art, creates events, and has performed in a wide variety of places from campfires to battlefields. His personal storytelling philosophy is that a good storyteller should be able to tell to anyone, anywhere it’s physically possible. Anyone can and should tell stories, and to become a master of the craft can take a lifetime. He’s also a big believer in the spiritual side of storytelling. He believes in the power of stories and that the right story, in the right time and place can change the world.

Norah Dooley

Norah Dooley,storyteller, critically acclaimed children’s author and educator, performs in schools, libraries, conferences and festivals. She specializes in teaching people of all ages how important their stories are and how to tell them. In 2013, Norah was a featured performer at the Exchange Place of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough,TN. She has performed at the Clearwater Festival, the Newport Folk Festival and several Cambridge Revels. Norah specializes in Irish and Italian folklore and is on the roster of Young Audiences at yamass.org. For the past 21 summers she has told stories to 1000s of children through ReadBoston.org. These past 4 years she appeared as a historical storyteller for SaveThe Harbor.org twice supported by MassHumanities.org grant. 

She teaches storytelling at Lesley University’s graduate school of Education and has taught storytelling to undergraduates at Lesley, Tufts, Boston and Suffolk Universities. Internationally she has lectured teachers of English and graduate students in Tokyo, Japan on the role of storytelling in language acquisition. In summer of 2017 she taught storytelling in Arsuha, to Tanzanian Secondary school teachers as part of the African Storytelling initiative of http://www.worlded.orgNorah has an MEd in Creative Arts and Learning and has been a full time classroom teacher and an instructor in visual and performing arts in elementary and middle schools. Her 4 published picture books are available at LernerBooks.com and all titles; Everybody Cooks Rice, Everybody Bakes Bread, Everybody Serves Soup, Everybody Brings Noodles are about her family and their former Cambridge neighbors.  Norah has 6 spoken word CDs: The Music of Angels ( 1999) Italian Folk Tales (2002) Stories from the Neighborhood  (2002) Rabbitails (2006) My Bad,Bad Dog and Other Neighbors (2006) and Irish Tales (2007) all produced by Seat of Her Pants Productions and available at CDBaby.com. Her latest book, My Bad Bad Dog (SeatofHerPants, 2016) is the first in a series of picture books about her childhood. 

Milbre Burch

A Grammy-nominated recording artist and internationally-known performer, educator, published poet and produced playwright, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word. She has been featured at events and festivals in 36 states and in fifteen European cities.

Burch is known for the versatility of her repertoire from folktales to fantasy, fiction and fairy tales to one-woman shows and original monologues. She is a recipient of the NSN ORACLE Circle of Excellence award.

Visit Milbre’s website.

The Devils Violin

The Devil’s Violin creates and performs music and storytelling shows that receive standing ovations and evoke passionate responses from its diverse audience and positive reviews from arts professionals.

DV’s unique blend of words and music has proven powerful in reaching a diverse audience aged from 12 upwards. It has charmed, chilled and thrilled audiences in urban, socially deprived and rural areas. It has been popular with both pensioners and teenagers and those who enjoy storytelling, literature and theatre and folk, world or classical music.

DV’s ongoing success and popularity is down to the individual talents and reputation of its artists; Multi award-winning Welsh storyteller Daniel Morden (winner of the Welsh Books Council Tir Na Nog award and two Welsh Assembly Government Author Advance Awards, author for Gomer Press and two outstanding musicians: violinist Oliver Wilson-Dickson  (musician in ALAWand Jamie Smith’s Mabon), and cellist Sarah Moody, composer for theatre companies such as Tobacco Factory, Bristol, Travelling Light Theatre Co and Invisible Ink (in association with Theatr Iolo) and as musician for companies such as Kneehigh and Wildworks.

Simon Brooks

Simon Brooks is an award-winning British storyteller who now lives in New London, New Hampshire, New England, New World!  He also uses his voice to bring a depth to folk and fairy tales, making them seem all the bit more real. He is also a storyteller, writer, and educator who dabbles in photography.

Order his book Under The Oaken Bough from your nearest brick and mortar bookstore, and listen to his podcast Conversations with Storytellersto hear what it is like to work as a performance storyteller, from some living legends!

Csenge Zalka

Csenge Virág Zalka is a professional storyteller and author from Hungary. She got her MA in Storytelling at East Tennessee State University, and has her PhD in Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University, OH. She performs traditional stories (folktales, myths, legends and epics) internationally in English, Spanish and Hungarian; she has been featured at festivals in the USA, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece. In 2015 she received the J. J. Reneaux Mentorship Grant from NSN to work under the guidance of Cathryn Fairlee, developing her skills in telling epics and other long traditional stories.

Get her latest book Dancing on Blades: Rare and Exquisite Folktales from the Carpathian Mountains !

Danyda Feldman

Danyda Feldman is a storyteller, NLP hypnotherapist and artist who lives in Colorado. Dany is a member of the Mile High Storyteller’s Guild, Mile High Polymer Clay Guild, and Daughters of the Dance Dance Revolution.

Host – Isabelle Hauser

A fairy tale believer since the beginning of her time, Isabelle Hauser discovered the path of storytelling training with professional storyteller Liz Weir in Northern Ireland. When Isabelle is not telling tales or playing the harp on various stages in Switzerland and abroad, you can find her talking to the swans on the shore of her hometown lake, looking for four leaf clover, or chasing rainbows in the surrounding forests. As a storyteller and harpist, she wants to create a space for her audience to see that reality, too. Or to just provide them with a break from everyday life! Whisking people of all ages and origins to long ago and far away with music and story is her greatest passion in life.

Music by Podington Bear

Did you know the Story Story Podcast was featured Feedspots Top 30 Fairy Tale Podcasts? There are a lot of great podcasts on this list and we are thrilled to be included!