NEWS!
A Few Stories for the Road – With all the Hosts!
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!
Traditional Storyteller and Musician, Rachel Ann Harding is passionate about telling the most beautiful folk, myth, and traditional tales.
Rachel Ann weaves story and song together to create unique and entertaining storytelling events, keynotes and workshops that display the relevance of storytelling in our lives. She believes that fairytales are not just for children and mesmerizes audiences with old tales woven into new adventures. As the producer of the Story Story Podcast she brings traditional stories to people around the world who also are in love with fairytales.
Rachel Ann Harding began singing and playing a variety of instruments in her early twenties, crafting lyrics laced with tenderness and humor. She blends harmonies on the ukulele and looper to create melodies that connect to the heart and the ear. Her music has been called, “delightful, folksy, avant garde.”
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.
Birds of a Feather
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.
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!
Extraordinary Encounters
Shiloh Ott
My name is Shiloh Ott and I’m 14 years old. I have a dog and a bunny and I love spending time with them. I love to do any type of craft although my favorite crafts are knitting and sewing. I love to sing and dance at any time. I am dyslexic and dysgraphic but that doesn’t stop me from writing! I first started writing stories a little under a year ago because I had always loved fairy tales but I felt like the traditional ones were just not what I wanted to hear any more. I was inspired by the traditional fairy tales so I recreated them into something new. I hope you like the stories!
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.
Issun Boshi (with host Isabelle Hauser)
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!
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.
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Taller Tales (with host Simon Brooks)
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.
Specializes in creating original stories and competing in tall tale storytelling competitions. I have been telling original tall tales for over 20 years competing in contests in multiple states online and in person. I have won the Kansas Storytelling Festival Tall Tale contest winning the competition 3 times and been named a Master Storyteller and have been retired from the competition. I have told in swapping grounds from Utah’s Timpanogos Storytelling festival to Tennessee’s National Storytelling Festival.
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!
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Princesses!
Joanne Piazzi
Joanne Piazzi has been telling stories professionally since 1996. She has an MA in the Creative Arts in Education from Lesley University. Joanne is a member of the Seacoast Storytellers (NH) and LANES. The material she uses in her performances is often original, sometimes traditional, and always fun. She is available to perform anywhere that someone wants to hear a good story. Joanne also leads workshops for educators and children. Creating stories for special occasions is a specialty.
“I live in my head. A lot. I make stuff up, I borrow from old tales, I reinterpret new stories. As a storyteller, I’m a tour guide to that space in my brain. I work without a script, without costumes, without props. When I’m doing it right, listeners laugh, smile, sigh and breathe together, connected in the space of stories. I perform at schools, libraries, festivals, special events, and in my own backyard, literally. My mouthy hand puppets come along to shows for young children. I tell more grownup stories to, well, grownups and older kids. We play together. Apart from being the oldest educational method in the world, storytelling is just plain fun.”
Join Priscilla Howe for online story time or join her Patreon to get stories directly from her!!
Bouquet of Stories VI (with host Isabelle Hauser)
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.
Fran Stallings is an American storyteller for people of all ages. She has performed at national and international storytelling festivals, in schools and libraries, and on the radio. She performs primarily folktales from around the world. She has produced several audio recordings and books of stories. She conducts workshops, residencies, and festival performances throughout the United States and overseas.
Stallings’s storytelling style is noted for its ability to entrance listeners, a phenomenon she wrote about for The National Storytelling Journal. She teaches educators to use stories in the classroom to hold students’ attention while conveying lessons.
Elisa began her storytelling career by working for ten years as a Storyteller in Residence in the Boston Public Schools. There she came to appreciate and tell stories from the many diverse cultures that the children represented. Other early storytelling experiences included collecting stories from Vietnam Veterans and sharing them with high school, college and adults in a program called, The Defoliated Heart. She also led groups of women to share and learn from their stories together. These experiences helped to inspire her belief in the power of stories to heal.
Recently her most popular storytelling programs in the schools are on character education and bullying prevention through story. She received a grant in 2002 to study character education through story from the National Storytelling Network.
She is a currently a board member of The Healing Story Alliance www.healingstory.org and is an active member of The League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling (LANES), and past Board member. You can learn more about LANES and the storytelling conference at www.lanes.org
Lev Ropes “Grandbear the Storyteller”
Grandbear (Lev Ropes), tells a variety of stories for adults and kids about people and animals (Coyote shows up a lot) who live in the West, including his cousin’s Montana Ranch. His stories range from fact to fantasy, and from humorous to heart warming.
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.
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Long Ago…(with host Simon Brooks)
As a professional storyteller, Julie presents storytelling performances for all ages and group sizes. She offers workshops for educators and their students.
Julie works with groups of students to help them tell stories of their own. She can be hired as an artist-in-residence.
One of her newest workshops is “Storytelling as a Pathway to Writing,” which teaches educators how to use storytelling to enhance their students’ writing, as well as giving teachers a break from grading so many writing projects. This workshop can be adapted for students, as well as for writers.
Julie is able to help educators in the field of Early Childhood Education utilize storytelling in their classrooms through a workshop on “Storytelling in Early Childhood Education.”
Julie’s story repertoire includes folktales from around the world, family and personal stories, and literary tales. She can adapt a program to fit your needs.
She is traveled to China and gathered stories , which you can hear on this episode.
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.
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!
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Shake it Off!
Donna L. Washington is a professional storyteller, actress, and author. She started performing at age six. She has adapted folktales into two full-length stage productions at Chicago’s Upstage Downstage Theater and performed at numerous storytelling festivals. She is the author of “The Story of Kwanzaa, and she received a Parents’ Choice Award for her recording “Live and Learn: The Exploding Frog and Other Stories.
Donna has performed at thousands of schools & libraries and numerous storytelling festivals throughout the country.
She also offers workshops in storytelling, writing, education, and creative drama for librarians and educators as well.
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.
