
Jennifer Armstrong has spent her life writing, singing and making music with fiddle, bagpipe, banjo and words. She is a storyteller, singer, instrumentalist, poet and published author with humor, warmth and grace. She works as an artist-in-residence in folk arts, storytelling and writing as well as a private teacher and a performer across the country. Jennifer was a featured teller at the National Storytelling Festival in 1998 and 2010, has been heard on NPR and has music recordings and published books to her credit.
Jane Ogburn Dorfman tells tales of dutiful daughters and wise women, faithful sons and wicked kings, of magic skipping ropes and Irish heroes, of the angel Elijah and the fools of Chelm, of tricky animals and clever kids. She tells personal stories about her New Orleans childhood and her Maryland neighbors, her favorite being “Daddy’s on the Roof and He’s Got the Ax.”
She tells stories for children and adults at festivals and in libraries and in the schools. She loves stories that carry the listener away. The world has an amazing heritage of stories and she wants to pass them on.
Jane has performed at the Hans Christian Andersen Statue in Central Park. She has told at Speak! a storytelling series in Shepardstown WVa, The Stone Soup Festival in S.C., and the Rose Valley storytelling series in Media, PA. She’s shared personal stories at ‘Better Said than Done’ in VA.
She has crafted a program of lesser known Arabian Nights stories as part of a grant, Muslim Journeys, at Montgomery College, and performed them at the NSN Conference Fringe in 2016.
She has told at the Smithsonian Institution and on television Channel 32’s holiday storytelling program and on ‘Stories in Focus” local television. She is a repeat teller at the Washington Folk Festival and Voices-in-the-Glen Festival and to storytelling classes at The University of Maryland and Catholic University. She’s told stories at the Virginia Celtic Festival, Rockville Festival of the Arts, The Elva Van Winkle Memorial Storytelling Festival and others. She has also conducted a workshop on how to get started storytelling for the Maryland Library Association.
Guest Host – Simon Brooks
Simon Brooks is an award-winning British storyteller living in America – actually, New London, New Hampshire, New England, New World! He also uses his voice to record audio books. He is also a poet, writer, photographer, and educator.
Order his new book Under The Oaken Bough and listen to his new podcast Conversations with Storytellers to hear what it is like to perform storytelling for a living from some living legends!


Alton performs at storytelling festivals internationally, sharing stories and legends from Hawaii and spreading aloha. He also tells stories from the Hawaiian Monarchy and the Plantation Days as well as Asian folk tales from all around the Pacific Rim. Alton is also passionate about sharing stories of the Japanese American Experience of WWII. In 2005, Alton was awarded the first J.J. Reneaux Emerging Artist Award by the National Storytelling Network. He has performed at the Congress of Asian Storytellers in Singapore, the International Gimme Story Storytelling Festival in the Cayman Islands, as well as venues in India, China, and Okinawa. He has also performed at the Talk Story Festival, the Bay Area Storytelling Festival, the Four Corners Storytelling Festival, the Oklahoma City Storytelling Festival, and has been a New Voice Teller at the National Storytelling Festival.

Danyda Feldman is a
Spurred on by his performance in a production of the musical play, “Hans Christian Andersen” in 1981, Harvey became a professional singer/storyteller as an addition to his teaching career. He has performed in numerous schools, libraries and festivals throughout Long Island. Harvey retired from teaching in 2006 after 33 years to devote more time to his storytelling passion. In addition to performing, he conducts workshops on storytelling in the classroom and digital storytelling for teachers.
The stories Richard Martin tells are the folk tales which have been told for hundreds, indeed thousands, of years. With over 300 stories in his repertoire, they reflect the full range of human experience: the comic, the bawdy, the profound, the divine. Far from being for little children (although he does tell for children, too), these powerful and deep tales offer unforgettable listening for adults. If you like theatre, you’ll definitely love storytelling. It combines the intensity of a play by a solo performer with the intimacy of a one-to-one conversation. Richard tells stories throughout Europe and as far away as India, Singapore, Hong Kong and America – in theatres, universities, schools, for corporate events or private parties. He usually tells in English, although having lived in Germany since 1976, he is sometimes asked to tell in German.
Stuart Stotts is an award winning singer, author, storyteller. Stuart has worked as a full-time performer since 1986, and he gives over 200 shows a year for kids, families and adults around the Midwest, and sometimes farther. He’s a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops for teachers, parents and librarians, and he is a Kennedy Center teaching artist. He has released several award-winning recordings, and is also the author six books, including The Bookcase Ghost: A collection of Wisconsin ghost stories., Books in a Box: Lutie Stearns and the Traveling Libraries of Wisconsin, We Shall Overcome: A Song That Changed the World, and Curly Lambeau: Building the Green Bay Packers. Stuart lives in Deforest, Wi.

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!
Whether she is performing, teaching, facilitating or consulting, Cindy Rivka Marshall is guided by her value of respect for all.
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.
Clare is a storyteller. She travels the world and tells stories. From mainstages of theatres to medieval roundtowers Clare has told tales for all ages in more than 20 countries. Her work includes the political folkloric work such as her Syrian piece “The King of Lies” to playful pieces like UniVerse which explores where quantum physics, philosophy and mythology meet. She performs in English. She occasionally performs in Spanish when asked. Clare’s wide repertoire of stories includes traditional folklore to ancient mythology, to reportage to historical tales. Clare also performs at festivals, art centres, universities, public and private events, conferences and schools. She is a storyteller, performer, writer, dramaturg, curiosist, teacher, consultant, wanderer, wonderer and maker.


Denise Bennett tells stories, sings and plays the harp for audiences of pre-schoolers to centenarians.