Brenda Wong Aoki is a storyteller, anthologized playwright, producer, artistic director, and performer. Her song/dance/dramas are drawn from her family’s 121-year history in San Francisco and the Bay Area, Kabuki legends, ghost stories, and her personal experience. Known for her agility across disciplines, she creates monodramas rooted in traditional storytelling, dance movement, and music. Her sensei is Living Treasure, Nomura Mansaku, a Kyogen master; she also studied Noh with Nomura Shiro, who is a Cultural Intangible Property. It is extremely rare for a woman (and especially an American woman) to get to study with masters like these; ironically, it is because she is an American that she was able to work with artists of this caliber. Her other teachers/coaches/mentors include stage director, choreographer, performer, and former director of Theatre of Yugen, Yuriko Doi, and longtime director and coach, Jael Weisman of Dell’Arte Players and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
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.
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.
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.
Valentina Ortiz is a storyteller, musician, writer, recording artist, teacher and humanitarian. She considers herself a citizen of the world, as she tells her stories in English, Spanish or French. Valentina is the magic of Mexican traditions, with their music, native languages and stories. She is also the flavors of the Caribbean drums; she is the union of the different cultures from the tropics to the mountains. She speaks words of hope, of song and music, of strong women, of responsibility towards Mother Nature and community. She is well known for promoting collaborative projects that pursue the healing of social issues through storytelling specifically and art in general, as she is the founder and director of the nonprofit association Zazanilli Cuentos.
Shonaleigh has performed in venues from church halls to London’s Albert Hall, from forests to the Barbican, and at festivals in the U.K., on the Continent, USA and New Zealand. She also does a great deal of work in schools and among community groups, helping people, particularly teenagers and the immigrant community, find their voice. Shonaleigh was the UK’s Deputy National Storytelling Laureate from 2010-12, has completed commissions for the British Library, the British Museum and Hay-on-Wye Literature Festival, and is a regular contributor to BBC arts programs. Her 2012 appointment as Artistic Director of Phrase Arts, where she helped promote storytelling within communities, has led to her work with the European Court of Human Rights. She was Teller In Residence at the International Storytelling Center in Tennessee. Shonaleigh is now based at the 
A Grammy-nominated recording artist; an internationally known, Oracle-award-winning storyteller; a published poet and writer, and a sought-after storytelling coach and teaching artist, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word!
Janice M. Del Negro, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.
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.
Storyteller Megan Hicks has a way with words.
