Press Play to hear Eric Wolf speak how you can support the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Pre-loaded Apple Ipod with 100 episodes For more details on the Ipod Click Here. Order now for $438.00.

For Immediate Release Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf is an internationally recognized podcast listened to in 142 countries worldwide with over 50,000 total lifetime downloads, 13,000 distinct listeners, and 8,000+ downloads in the last thirty days. With over 88+ storytellers interviewed on the show this website is rapidly becoming the worlds premiare source for teaching storytelling online. Through this encyclopedia of storytelling techniques a listener can improve their communication skills and get a complete storytelling education.

Heather Forest, Elizabeth Ellis, Judith Black, Jay O’Callahan, Andy Offutt Irwin, and many other storytellers are interviewed on how to use storytelling techniques in performing for and teaching storytelling to children. The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf has draw guests from all over the world and created an amazing storytelling education resource of storytelling techniques that is unmatched on the World Wide Web. All episodes available right now online for immediate listening and download in the commercial lower quality version for easier down load.

Individuals wishing to pre-purchase this commercial free ipod can pay $338.55 till July 27th. On July 27th the price for a preloaded ipod with 85 shows will increase too $394.65. The Apple Ipod allows listeners to scan easily to any point in each of the 85 hour long shows.

Eric Wolf is the host and producer of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf show witch is dedicated to supporting the teaching storytelling worldwide by providing access to storytelling techniques and a grounded storytelling education for anyone.

For More Information go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/press-release/

For a Full List of Episodes go to:
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/past-guests/

For more Information Contact:
Eric Wolf (937) 767-8696

Press Play to hear Jackson Gillman speak on refining your performance using outside critique on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Jackson Gillman Bio.
"Stand-Up Chameleon" Jackson Gillman magically transforms himself into a wide array of eccentric characters through his many talents as mime, actor, songsmith and storyteller. As adept with children as he is with adults, his interactive performances are seasoned with skillful dialect, song, dance, mime and sign language. Shining through Jackson's wit and extraordinary versatility is his bemused, warm-hearted honesty. Jackson's humor evolves from finding that which is funny in human beings trying to be human and often tripping over their own being in the attempt.

Jackson has thrice been a featured performer at the National Storytelling in Tennessee, and has performed at festivals and schools throughout the country. For twenty years Jackson hosted a summer concert series of comedy, music and New Vaudeville on Mount Desert Island. Presenting a new thematic program each year, he set up comedy/music shop every summer and toured the rest of the year. Year-round he now brings his unique brand of one-man theater to diverse audiences across the nation. Whether performing on concert stages, at colleges, business functions, festivals, school assemblies or libraries, Jackson Gillman delights his audiences with his inventions while touching them with his personal warmth.

A Little Bit of Background please...

My theatrical career began unexpectedly, taking me far afield from my agricultural pursuits and my various migratory New England jobs as a maple sugarer, cider maker, and landscaper/arborist. After graduating in 1978 from the College of the Atlantic with a degree in Human Ecology -- very useful for a theatrical performer, by the way -- I decided to do something completely different for one summer.

What started as a lark -- spending a summer at the Deck House Cabaret as a singing waiter -- grew into devotion as I discovered the ease and joy I found in performing. In subsequent summers, I returned to the Deck House Cabaret, and I soon took a leading role in the musical ensemble's choreography and direction. I also developed a solo act that became a nightly feature. I went on to study many forms of dance and music, take workshops with mime mentors Tony Montanara and Benny Reehl, toured with a children's theatre company, and I established a solo performing career.

My original environmental background finds its way into some of my shows, and my repertoire has expanded to more than twenty different programs, with topics ranging from health and substance abuse awareness, to a variety of thematic musical reviews. Some of my show titles include: Disorderly Conduct, A Dad's Eye View, The Perfect High, A Fool For Love, and Newagelessness. About half of my programs are family oriented, including: Riot in the Garden, BUGS!, Autumn Wonders, and The Magic of Rudyard Kipling. While I'm generally known for my comedy and interactive performances, a more serious side is reflected in programs such as Hard Knocks and The Man who Planted Hope.

What perhaps distinguishes me most from other storytellers is my use of movement in telling. My background in mime and dance is apparent in most of my work, especially Levity in Motion and The Dancing Man. One of my many workshops, Storyscaping, has been very helpful to other professional storytellers in the effective use of movement, space, and visual composition.

Another dimension is added to my work in the four full-length programs that I perform with sign language interpretation. Playing the male lead opposite a deaf actress in Children of a Lesser God (voted Best Theatre in Maine, 1986), reinforced my love of signing. The exposure to that visual language significantly benefits all of my storytelling. Whether I actually am sign-interpreting or not, I approach my craft with what I feel is the core of good storytelling -- to assist the creation and transfer of clear images and emotions.

While most of my work is solo, I regularly welcome the opportunity to collaborate, with musical partners, and with my favorite storytelling colleagues. I believe that when I am fortunate enough to share the
stage with friends such as Michael Parent and Judith Black, the audience reaps the benefit of our synergy. But even when I am performing solo, the stage is peopled with many surprise guests. Many altered egos find outlet in my assortment of eccentric stage personae.

I'm a twenty-five year veteran of the New England Touring Artists Program and also served on the theatre advisory panel for the Maine Arts Commission. I have been a keynote presenter at many conferences and festivals, and featured at the National Storytelling Festival. I hosted a summer concert series for fifteen years on Mt. Desert Island. In some ways, I am a migrant worker, packing up my old kit bag to perform at schools, libraries, conferences, and festivals throughout the country.

And I really do believe that humor can enliven and enlighten any group, meeting, or gathering, and mine is based on a foundation of beneficence, hope, and a belief in the enduring power of the human spirit. Talk with me, and together we can develop a performance program that will be perfect for your next conference, meeting, banquet, or special event.
for more info Check out http://www.jacksongillman.com

Press Play to hear Bil Lepp who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on How to Lie and not get Caught on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Bio:
Bil Lepp is a nationally renowned storyteller and five time champion of the West Virginia Liars’ Contest. His outrageous, humorous tall-tales and witty stories have earned the appreciation of listeners of all ages and from all walks of life. From elementary school to veterans’ homes, from churches to colleges, from festivals to formal dinners. Though a champion liar, his hilarious, insightful stories often contain morsels of truth which shed light on subjects such as politics, religion, death, relationships, and human nature. An award winning storyteller, author, and recording artist, Lepp’s release, The Teacher in the Patriotic Bathing Suit, received the Parent’s Choice Approved award, and Mayhem Dressed as an Eight Point Buck won a 2008 NAPPA Honors award. Lepp has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and at major storytelling and corporate events across the country. Says Bill, Everywhere I slept, I’ve lied. Bill is the author of four books and eight audio collections, and lives in Charleston, WV with his wife and two children.

To hear about Bil Lepp’s latest exploits goto his website at…
http://www.leppstorytelling.com

Press Play to hear Loren Niemi who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on Honoring Elders and Apprentices on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Loren Niemi writes...
I've been a storyteller for 30 plus years and yet in so many ways I feel like a beginner learning how to do now, what I learned how to do then. It is "LOL" a very "Zen and now" approach to storytelling: beginner's mind.

At this point in time, I understand clearly and fondly what a gift I received when I came to storytelling. The gift of generous mentors - specifically, Ken Feit and Rueven Gold - who took a "Zen and now" approach offering friendship, access, who posed and (sometimes) answered questions, encouraged and gave permission for me to find and develop my own voice rather than adopt theirs. They welcomed me wherever they were telling and often made space for me to tell a story at those gatherings.

They were prolific in suggesting, cajoling, handing me books and lists of books to read that would ground me in the storytelling traditions. It is one of the laments I have about a significant portion of those coming into storytelling now, that they do not read (or feel they have to read) widely and deeply. My mentors understood the value of reading anthropology, mythology, theater, folklore collections as well as the importance of listening to stories and storytellers of all kinds from many traditions to enrich our understanding of the power of this art and the breadth of its reach across cultures.

They are dead now, but the stories I heard them tell still resonate for me. What they taught directly and indirectly has served me well over these many years. Many of the tellers (Marshall Dodge, Ray Hicks, Gamble Rogers, Jackie Torrence, Duncan Willimson) who were here at the beginning of the American Storytelling Revival are dead now but I was fortunate to have heard them and cherish the fact of it.

As the generation that is the root of our storytelling culture pass, I also understand that I have been at this long enough to be able to mentor others. I welcome the opportunity. It is consistent with the tradition of storytelling apprenticeship. It is both a responsibility and a pleasure to nourish "tongues of fire." It is not a matter of ego or authority, but an understanding that if storytelling is to flourish I have a vested interest in passing on to those who would take it, the gift of craft and knowing.

Inevitably I will pass. But stories, perhaps even some of mine, will abide and I would hope that as I have honored my elders I will have shared the joy and terror which is storytelling with my apprentices.

Loren Niemi Bio

"I began as a child fibber
but soon discovered that I was less interested
in telling lies than I was in improving the truth."

Storytelling is also the only sensible explanation Loren Niemi can offer for forty plus years as a community organizer and public policy consultant, trainer and Lobbyist working with non-profit groups to articulate their dreams, shape their messages, and resolve their conflicts.

Loren has also spent thirty as a professional storyteller, creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories to audiences of all ages in urban and rural settings. He has served as the Humanities Scholar in Residence for Northern Minnesota, the ringmaster and tour manager of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theatre's Circle of Water Circus, and is one third of BAD JAZZ, a performance art trio with Michael Sommers and Kevin Kling, experimenting with theatrical and storytelling forms. His work has been called "post-modern," "on the cutting edge of storytelling," "with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry." It is, as storyteller, Kate Lutz said, "a sensibility that owes more to the New Yorker than to the Old Farmer's Almanac."

He is the co-author, with Elizabeth Ellis, of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, from August House Publishers and the author of The Book of Plots, on the uses of narratives in creating oral and written stories, published by Llumina Press.

Loren has a BA (Philosophy and Studio Arts) from St. Mary's College (Winona, MN) and a MA in Liberal Studies (concentration: American Culture) from Hamline University (St. Paul, MN). He teaches Storytelling in the Communications Department of Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN) as well as providing organizational and corporate message framing, storytelling branding and community building workshops around the country.

Loren was one of the founders of the Northlands Storytelling Network, a five state storytelling education and advocacy organization, and spent four years as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the National Storytelling Network, the 3000 plus member advocate and promoter of America's storytelling revival. He was the 2005 recipient of the Oracle award for national leadership and service.

Press play to hear Elizabeth Ellis who was interviewed by Eric Wolf on the relationship between Storytelling and the Development of Ethical Behavior on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf on Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 8pm.

Elizabeth Ellis Writes…
If I had a nickel for every time someone (attorney, state trooper, loan officer, IRS agent) has made fun of me because I told ‘em I am a storyteller, I could take us all out to dinner. At a nice place. With tablecloths. Because often the public perception of storytelling is that it is fluff and foolishness.
Well, we storytellers know better, and we have survived an entire movement of Back to the Basics and Almighty State Testing. What the left brain-ers don’t realize is there is another entire level of education far more basic to being human than the 3 R’s will ever be.
The most basic things about being human come from the right side of the brain, not the left. Chief among them is the ability to make ethical decisions. I am not talking about following the rules. Remember that the Nazis were great rule followers. Ethical decision-making requires the ability to imagine the effect of my behavior on your life. Without an active imagination, a child is an ethical cripple. The new study about the state of ethics of America’s youth just out from the Josephson Institute (http://josephsoninstitute.org/ for the full details of the survey) has many people in our culture asking themselves, “How did we get on this handcar? And where are we headed?
Hearing stories told leads to the development of empathy. And empathy is essential for all ethical decision making. I have been talking about this for more than thirty years. Recently other folks have begun to say the same thing. I am pleased by that, ’cause I’m not gonna live forever. Check out P.J. Manney’s article “Empathy in the Time of Technology” in the September, 2008 Journal of Evolution and Technology. (http://jetpress.org/v19/manney.htm if you want to read the entire article, especially the interesting part about the development of “mirror neurons”.)
Please join me for a discussion of how storytelling contributes to the development of ethical behavior on this Pod-cast, but also in your guilds and story circles and list serves. In a time of national financial hardship, it behooves us as tellers to be able to challenge people’s thinking about the importance of story and it’s role in right brain development. Storytelling is neither fluff nor foolishness. It is how we change the world “one listener at a time.”
Oh, and by the way, if you happen to be a attorney, state trooper, loan officer or IRS agent or some other form of left brain-er, it is the key to learning to “think outside the box”, which is imperative if America is to remain an economic power. (Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind: How Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Riverhead Books, 2006.); but, that’s another story.

A Short Biography
Designated an American Masterpiece Touring Artist by the NEA, Elizabeth Ellis grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. A children’s librarian at Dallas Public Library before becoming a professional storyteller, the “Divine Miss E” is a versatile, riveting teller of Appalachian and Texas tales and stories of heroic American women, though her personal stories are arguably her best. Invariably hilarious and poignant, she is a repeated favorite at the National Storytelling Festival. Selected a Listener’s Choice at the 30th Anniversary of the National Storytelling Festival, she is a recipient of the John Henry Faulk Award from the Texas Storytelling Association and the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Network. She has mesmerized nearly a million children in her thirty-year career as a professional storyteller.
Elizabeth is also well known for her workshops, which offer training for beginning and seasoned storytellers. Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, which she co-authored with Loren Niemi has been described by NAPRA ReView as a “great leap forward in the literature of how to put stories together with art and truth”. It received a Storytelling World Award.
Jay O’Callahan says, “Elizabeth Ellis’s voice sounds like chocolate tastes.” Her stories are just as addictive as chocolate. A mother and grandmother, she makes her home in Dallas. www.elizabethellis.com

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #068 Dylan Pritchett
	for $2.23 What Makes a Great Storyteller?

Bio
Dylan Pritchett is a native of Williamsburg, Virginia. Since 1990, Mr. Pritchett has been a full-time storyteller, taking his African and African-American folk tales averaging over a hundred schools annually throughout the country. He enjoys an twelve-year, professional association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he performs and leads workshops for teachers on using storytelling in the classroom. Drawing on his experience in historical research, he has created two classroom presentations; “Scraps of History,” which uses real documents from the 18th and 19th centuries to weave African-American history into the fabric of the American past and “Bringing History to Life” which teaches students how to research, write and tell heir own personal and unique family stories.

Also, in conjunction with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Kennedy Center, and The Satellite Education Resource Consortium in Columbia, South Carolina, he developed a five-week course teaching middle school students how to write and present stories of women and children, black and white, that lived during the Civil War era. Students are lead step-by-step through the creative process using primary and secondary documents to help the students conceptualize, write, learn and tell their individual story. Dylan offers a 3- or 5-day residency variation of this course in teaching students how to research, write, and tell their own personal family story about their Grand or Great-Grandparents!!! Teachers love it because of it’s integration across the educational objectives in various curriculums, oral presentation emphasis, enhancement of the student’s personal growth and the added merger with the arts!!

Dylan’s work extends beyond the classroom to museums, arts centers, historical sites, television and recordings. In addition to recording several albums of folk tales, he has created the voices of many historical characters on museum recordings and exhibits. One of his favorite assignments is researching and presenting real life characters from our nation’s past for such prominent institutions as the Smithsonian Museum, Colonial Williamsburg. Anacostia Museum, Monticello, Gunston Hall, Meadow Farms Museum, Valentine Museum, National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, Museum of the Confederacy, and a host of others.

Dylan, (pronounced DIE-lan), is honored to presently serve as President of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. and it’s mission, and continuous purpose, of passing on the African oral tradition to future generations! He is also proud of his award winning children’s picture book The First Music published by August House.

More on this Dylan Pritchett the storyteller at http://www.yourfavoritestorytellers.org/dylan.html

Eric James Wolf, professional storyteller and host of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show, is available for print, radio and television interviews to defend the use of the scary Halloween stories in the oral tradition with children.

Scary Halloween stories and ghost stories for children have taken the place of ritual trials of adulthood for teenagers, according to Mr. Wolf. They also serve as a means for adults to warn children away from dangerous places or behavior. Ghost stories and scary Halloween stories in the oral tradition can be age appropriate and satisfying for families. Currently on his the Art of Storytelling shows website he has five interviews available for easy download about the art of telling scary Halloween stories.

Eric Wolf does not condone or support horror or the graphic use of violence. “It is possible, however, by carefully working within the confines of scary Halloween stories and ghost stories for children, to leave our audience psychologically stronger and more emotionally capable of dealing with their fears or the shock of real world disasters,” Mr. Wolf says.

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Storyteller Eric James Wolf has performed nationally at such venues as the American Museum of Natural History; Bank Street School for Children; Barnard College; Blue Theater – Toronto, Canada; Columbia University; The Fund for the City of New York; Kings Island Amusement Park; New York City Clearwater Festival; New Jersey Liberty Science Center; and The International Performing Artists for Youth.

He is the host and producer of the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf, a one hour interview format show. Mr. Wolf has M.S. in Education from Lesley University.

Eric Wolf’s Websitehttp://www.ericwolf.org

The Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf Show
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com

A list of five episodes on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf with storytellers speaking on how to use scary storytelling with kids.
http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/category/scary-storytelling/

To schedule an interview, call:
(937) 767-8696

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Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #059 Jim May
	for $2.23 Storytelling in Classrooms.

Jim May Writes…
I tell stories to children because I learned many years ago that nothing in my ten years of experience as a classroom teacher held my elementary student’s attention like a story.

For some twenty-three years now, I have made my living as a professional, full time storyteller. That storytelling produces a singular, intensely vital experience in my listener’s imagination continues to be reinforced nearly every day of my professional storytelling life.

I remember a particular occasion telling stories to an auditorium full of primary-aged students (grades k-2). After the program was finished, the students filed past the front of the stage where I was standing and greeting a few as they passed. One second grade boy walking by, looked at me over his should and shouted in mid step: “Thanks for the movies!”

I am reasonably sure that he was responding very literally, simply and profoundly to the mechanism in the brain (the cortex where complex thought functions) that produces images in response to oral language. Joseph Chilton Pierce and others have theorized that the brain is activated by oral language in a manner that causes neural brain cells and neural pathways to be stimulated (and even to grow, creating new, neural pathways, etc) in a way that is not possible when image and language are artificially coupled as in television, dvds, computer screens, in which case the most creative part of the brain shuts down because the image is ready made, not personal, original or connected to the viewer’s personal, internal, neural life.

Levels of listener/viewer involvement can be observed if one contrasts the facial attitude of someone listening to a story as opposed to someone watching tv. The “TV face” is more likely to be glazed over. The listener — or someone using American Sign Language (ASL), since signs are also not literal — is having an active experience with the story, is, in fact a co-creator of the narrative

Some of the questions we answered included.
1. What are the implications of this insight for school curriculum?
2. For the relationship between parents and children, teachers and children, children and their peers?
3. Is storytelling different than reading aloud which also allows the listener to produce the images in response to language?
4. Is the brain growing differently (or less) in our media driven world?

More about Jim May
Jim May is an Emmy Award-winning storyteller and writer, and a former elementary and college teacher who had performed live for over one million school children and families in the Chicago area over the last 20 years.

His children’s picture book, THE BOO BABY GIRL MEETS THE GHOST OF MABLE’S GABLE (Brotherstone, 1992) is in it’s second printing and is a favorite of teachers, librarians and parents across Chicago Land, many of whom find that their students and children demand that the book be reread to them over and over again — ESPECIALLY DURING THE HALLOWEEN SEASON.

His collection of stories, THE FARM ON NIPPERSINK CREEK, won a best book award from the Public Librarian Association and was praised by Publishers Weekly: “…like Garrison Keillor, May describes life as he knows it…like soothing…elegaic bedtime stories;” Booklist: “…these well spun tales will delight readers;” and the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Deftly combines a child’s sense of awe and freedom with an adult’s awareness of life’s stickier complexities.”

Jim has appeared at Millennium Park, The Art Institute, Brookfield Zoo, on the Roy Leonard and Studs Terkel Radio Shows and numerous times on WTTW, channel 11 in Chicago. His touring schedule has included venues in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Mexico and Canada.

He was inducted into the National Storytelling “Circle of Excellence” (Hall of Fame) in the year 2000.