How long have you been a storyteller? A looooooong time—a couple of decades. I started very slowly, though. I had never heard of a storyteller. No one ever told me stories growing up. There was a lot of reading of stories and attending theater in my background, though, so those served as my foundations. I had been doing a show with songs and poems and monologues in schools when I happened to take a Read More …

What do you remember as the first stories you heard? My father told my sister and me stories for bedtime when we were growing up in Africa where we had no TV, no tape recorders, and even no radio. He made up all the stories and incorporated elements we wanted to hear about. The Pink Princess lived in a pink castle with a moat of pink lemonade. The Whoazies lived Read More …

How long have you been a storyteller? Since they were called lies. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t trying to make sense of life, and stories were my tool for that job. As I child I’d pick up snippets of conversation and I’d piece them together trying to understand their context. My compilations did not always jive with the truth as my parents and other authority figures saw Read More …

It seems like I’ve been telling stories all my life. My dad was a storyteller and I loved to listen to him tell. In ’95 I attended a seminar presented by a storyteller and realized this was something I could do so I took on the title of storyteller in 1996.  To further seal the deal, I had my first exposure to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Any Read More …

How long have you been a storyteller? My family has informed that I was always the one telling stories, creating little plays and forcing people to listen and participate. However, I consider my start when my son was born. I was a single mother, and worked hard and long hours. For a while I worked at a group home for aggressive kids, where I was onsite for 3 full days Read More …