Press Play to hear Michal Malinowski speaking on the Storytelling Museum of Poland on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

A storyteller – shaman from Altay in Siberia at the festival of Intangible Heritage organized by the Storytelling Museum.

Interview #094 Michal Malinowski for $2.23 The Storytelling Museum of Poland

Michal Malinowski writes…
The Storyteller Museum is a unique institution devoted to the collection, preservation and promotion of oral heritage from all over the world. Our mission is to save the vanishing examples of intangible treasures, acquaint new generations with the oral tradition of a variety of cultures and revive the custom of storytelling. Nonetheless, our attention is also devoted not only to tribal storytelling but also to contemporary trends in oral expression. The Museum has been the leading place in Poland to developed the storytelling revival movement. We have organized Storytelling Festivals and workshops in our location and other places in the country

The Storyteller Museum has an innovative approach to collecting and exhibiting different cultural artifacts by applying the latest achievements of digital technology. Our interests pertain not only to narrative texts but also to other indirect elements, such as gesture, movement, dance, sound, music, costume and body coverings. We have been engaged in work on various exhibitions, elaborating unexplored topics, such as African Griots: Local Knowledge -Global Polish Oral Tradition, A Panorama of European Oral Tradition, The Storyteller Museum supports all initiatives of transcribing oral traditions into tangible platforms. For such an end it has initiated a special program called Indigenous Writers, aiming to give the opportunity to tribal people to enunciate their oral art, so that it can be preserved in various forms, such as books, audio-visual recordings and museum digital displays. We are currently working on the book “Folktales from Burkina Faso”

Michal Malinowski – biography
Folklorist, writer, storyteller, computer graphic artist, born in 1966 in Warszaw, graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Lausanne – Switzerland diploma in painting and computer graphics, started his carier as multimedia artist designing animation movies in Switzerland and Japan. Simultaneously discovered his passion for writting which he has realised as animation script writter and free lance journalist for various magazines in Europe and Asia. In 1997 traveled to Papua New Guinea where discovered traditional storytellers and decided to create the new type of museum based on interactive technology presenting oral traditions and intangible heritage. In 1999 quit Japan in the goal to extend his knowledge in cultural studies and went for one year to Folklore and Mythology Department at Harvard University. After retourned to Poland and opened in 2002 the Storyteller Museum in the house he built himself.

He has contributed to the beginning of Polish storytelling revival mouvment , organizing since 2002 various storytelling events ( storytelling evenings, workshops and Festivals in the Museum venue and all over Poland). He performed his storytelling programs life on stage, libraries, schools or since December 2007 regularly on the III Chanel of the Polish National Radio. Recently performed in the storytelling festivals and events in England, Spain, France, Italy and Canada ( He can perform in Polish, French and English).

Since opening of the Museum conducts folklore collecting works in Poland or abroad. His collection of the oral tradition from the Mazovia region contributed to the creation of the book

” Bajki znad Bugu, Narwi i Wis Å‚ y” “Folktales from Bug, Narwia and Wisla rivers”.

In 2006 his contribution for the preservation and development of culture was awarded a special prize by the Polish Minister of Culture. He is a co-author with Anne Pellowski of the book “Polish Folktales and Folklore” published by the end of 2008 in the USA ( the book recived the Aesop Accolade (an honorable mention) of American Folklore Association ) In the end of 2007 received the UNESCO grant to realize the exhibition about the Heritage of Amadou Hampate Ba and West African Oral Tradition. In the exhibition he hopes to demonstrate some of the ideas of future ethnographical museum display.

Press Play to hear Esyllt Harker speak on stories out of Welsh History and land of Wales. on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #048 Esyllt Harker for $2.23 Stories out of Welsh History and Land of Wales.

On the teller...
Esyllt Harker is a versatile singer and storyteller, performing in English and/or Welsh. Her material draws primarily on her strong Welsh roots - myth, legend and history mix with gleaned fragments found in the features and memories of the land. She is noted for her easy interweaving of the Welsh and English languages, making for effortless understanding. She also moves smoothly between spoken and sung material, bringing a new - but age old - inflection to her telling. She has performed frequently at Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival, and was part of the second Rough Guide to Wales tour in 2002. She tells in theatres, festivals, museums, schools, parks, shopping precincts, living-rooms, castles, on clifftops..........
Mae Esyllt yn cynnig ei gwaith yn y Gymraeg ac yn Saesneg.

To learn more about her Website check out the Welsh Storytellers at http://www.bodyandvoice.co.uk/

Press Play to hear Tim Tingle speaking about the historical perspective of Native American storytelling. on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Tim Tingles Bio.

Tingle is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a sought-after speaker and storyteller, and an award-winning author of Native American fiction and folklore. Choctaw Chief Gregory Pyle has requested a story by Tingle previous to his Annual State of the Nation Address at the Choctaw Labor Day Gathering–a celebration that attracts over thirty thousand people– from 2002 to the present.

Walking the Choctaw Road, Tingle’s first book, was released by Cinco Puntos Press in May of 2003. A collection of stories based on interviews with tribal elders, it was Storytelling World Magazine’s Best Anthology for 2003. Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma selected WTCR as Book of the Year for 2005, as did Alaska Reads!, marking the first time in the history of the one-book-one-state movement that a single book has been selected by two states in the same year. Tingle completed a tour of eighty Oklahoma libraries in 2005, presenting stories from Walking the Choctaw Road and promoting literacy throughout the state.

In a Governor’s Commendation read before the Senate in May of 2005, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry praised Tingle for his “devotion to preserving the Choctaw heritage,” and declared May through November as Walking the Choctaw Road months in Oklahoma.

A powerful conference speaker and festival performer, Tingle was featured at the 2002 National Storytelling Festival. He delivered the keynote address at the 2006 Johnson O’Malley Conference of Oklahoma and in October will perform in Victoria, British Columbia, at The International Artists of Conscience Symposium. In March of 2003, he completed his tenth tour of Germany for the U.S Department of Defense, performing at schools for children of military personnel. He has performed as a featured storyteller in festivals covering a thirty-state area, and in 2004 was a Teller-In-Residence at the International Storytelling Center

As a storyteller, Tingle brings the lore of the Choctaw Nation to life in lively historical, personal, and traditional stories. He plays the Native American flute and often accompanies himself with an assortment of gourd rattles and drums, adding a haunting dimension to a concert. Vocable chants and hymns sung in the Choctaw language also compliment his stories.

Tingle at the Smithsonian

Tim Tingle gave his first performance at the National Museum of the American Indian on Saturday, June 23, in 2008 at the outdoor amphitheater of the Smithsonian complex. An appreciative audience, including dozens of Oklahoma Choctaws, saw Tingle sing “Shilombish Holitopa Ma,” play the native flute, and perform “Crossing Bok Chitto,” “The Choctaw Way,”and “Turtle Grew Feathers,” his latest children’s book.

WHEN TURTLE GREW FEATHERS was released by August House in February of 2007, and has received enthusiastic reviews and great responses from reading audiences. Based on the traditional Choctaw folktale of Rabbit racing Turtle, this early childhood read-aloud book features colorful, whimsical drawings by illustrator Stacey Schuett.

SPIRITS DARK AND LIGHT-Tingle’s first August House title is a collection of twenty-five supernatural and ghost stories from the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Chickasaws. “The Lady Who Changed,” a haunting Choctaw tale about a shape-shifting owl woman, was selected “Best Short Story of 2006″ by Storytelling Magazine. For educators, introductory essays include relevant historical and cultural material for each tribe represented.

CROSSING BOK CHITTO-This richly illustrated picture book from Cinco Puntos Press received enthusiastic reviews from critics nationwide, including Starred Reviews in Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and an Editor’s Choice in the New York Times. Paintings by Cherokee artist Jeanne Rorex-Bridges accent this beautiful telling of Tingle’s most requested Choctaw story. Recent awards include the 2006 Teddy Award for Best Children’s Book from the Texas Writer’s League and the Texas Institute of Letters Best Children’s Book of 2006. In winning the 2006 Oklahoma Book Award for both author and illustrator, CROSSING BOK CHITTO became the first book in the history of the award to win both categories. CBC was also selected as a 2007 ALA Notable Book. 
 
Spooky Texas Tales-Available from Texas Tech Press, STT features stories for the younger reader, all set in the bristles and briars of Lone Star state. Graveyard ghosts and creatures from swamps and river banks slink through these ten creepy tales. Highlights include, “Wiley and the Hairy Man,” “Tailybone,” and “The Golden Arm.” Accented with twenty eerie drawings, it’s a fine gift for the third through fifth grade student.

In June of 2004, Texas Ghost Stories: Fifty Favorites for the Telling, co-authored with Doc Moore, was released by Texas Tech Press. Now in its third printing, TGS was also chosen by Storytelling World as the year’s Best Anthology.

For a full list of Tim’s up coming and active schedule go to…
http://www.choctawstoryteller.com

Press Play to hear Jay O'Callahan speak about learning about Stories by telling to my Children on the Art of Storytelling with Brother Wolf.

Jay O'Callahan writes...

I'm at work right now on a story commissioned by NASA, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration to celebrate its 50th anniversary. As I create the NASA story I'm aware I'm using all of the knowledge I gained telling stories to my own children. As I told stories to my children I began using repetition, rhythm, changing my voice, using a gesture here and there and inventing situations that involved struggle or risk, When my son Ted was about nine months old I'd make up little songs and rhythms to make him smile. Just making my voice go up high and then suddenly come down delighted him.
One night Ted was sitting in a soapy bath and I read him some of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. He laughed at the sounds.

When Ted got older I read books to him like The Gingerbread Man and discovered that he loved the repetition running through the story.

Run, run fast as you can
You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man.

I began reading one of Richard Scary's book in which there was a character called Pierre the Paris Policeman. The line was, "Pierre the Paris Policeman was directing traffic one day." I would sing that line with a French accent and lift up my hand to stop an imaginary car. The voice and accent brought the character alive. That was an important discovery. And if I read it in any other way it wasn't Pierre and Ted would say, "Say it right."

After my daughter Laura Elizabeth was born I told both my children "hand stories." I'd take one of their hands, look at the palm of the hand and let a line, a bump or a curve in the hand suggest an image and I'd begin the story. It might go like this. "Once upon a time Ted saw a pink cloud resting by a tree. The cloud looked sad so Ted went over to cheer it up." I was dreaming aloud and characters and images would spring to mind. I imaged that's always happened to storytellers. I liked telling the hand stories because they were quiet and personal and my children liked being the hero and heroine. Some of those hand stories eventually turned into the Artana stories which take place in a mysterious land where two children, Edward and Elizabeth are the hero and heroine.

As I was telling to my children I learned the importance of a listener, particularly a listener with the sense of wonder and delight. My children listened me into being a storyteller.

Now as I work on this complicated story about NASA I use the knowledge I gained from my children. I ask myself this question: What is wondrous about NASA? And I'm on the alert for compelling characters and the risks they take and the struggles of their lives. I try to incorporate rhythm and repetition; I use a voice to become a character and find that a gesture helps bring the character alive.

As I shape the story and as it grows, I'm using the listeners. The listeners draw out mysteries in the story that I would have missed without them. Here I am back to the beginning.

Biography

Jay O'Callahan grew up in a section of Brookline, Massachusetts which was called "Pill Hill" because so many doctors lived there. The 32-room house and landscaped grounds were a magical atmosphere for a child's imagination to blossom. When Jay was fourteen, he started making up stories to tell to his little brother and sister to entertain them.

After graduating from Holy Cross College, a tour in the Navy took Jay to the Pacific. Returning to Massachusetts, he taught and eventually became Dean at the Wyndham School in Boston, which his parents had founded. "In the summers I'd go off to Vermont or Ireland to write. I also did a lot of acting in amateur theatre, and that's where I met a beautiful woman (Linda McManus) who later became my wife. When we had our first child, I left teaching and became the caretaker of the YWCA in Marshfield, a big old barn on a salt-water marsh. That gave me time to write and to tell stories to my children. When I decided to call myself a storyteller, it was like getting on a rocket." Within three years, Jay was telling stories in hundreds of schools and in addition he was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to create and perform Peer Gynt with the orchestra. His stories were broadcast on National Public Radio's "The Spider's Web," which brought Jay national attention.

Jay was now publicly telling stories he had created for his children. His stories were filled with rhythms, songs and characters as diverse as Herman the Worm, Petrukian, a medieval blacksmith, and the Little Dragon. Orange Cheeks, inspired by a time Jay got in trouble as a little boy, was the first of his personal stories.

One of his most popular stories, Raspberries was born when Jay's son Teddy was four. Teddy banged his shin outside their cottage and was weeping, "I broke my leg." Jay told a story full of rhythms to cheer Teddy up.

Jay was also beginning to tell stories to adults. In 1980, while on vacation in Nova Scotia, he sat on and off for a month in the kitchen of an old man and a blind woman. Out of that kitchen came the story of The Herring Shed. I realized then that part of my gift was to sit down with ordinary people where they were comfortable, listen, and later weave a story together so that others could enjoy it. The process still amazes me: one year I'm in a kitchen in Nova Scotia and a few years later, I'm performing The Herring Shed to a thousand people at Lincoln Center. Time Magazine called The Herring Shed "genius. After the Herring Shed came Jay's Pill Hill stories for which is was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. The Pill Hill stories are loosely based on his boyhood.

Storytelling has brought Jay around the earth. "The storyteller of old got on a horse. I get on a plane, parachute into a community and I'm part of its life for a while before moving on to the next one." Jay has told stories to students at Stonehendge, to adults in the heat of Niger, Africa, to theatergoers in Dublin and London and at storytelling festivals in Scotland, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. His stories have also been heard on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Jay's stories also include commissioned works like The Spirit of the Great Auk, Pouring the Sun, Edna Robinson and Father Joe.

When he isn't on the road, Jay runs a writing workshop at his home. His other interests include reading everything from Walt Whitman to Herman Melville to Flannery O'Connor to Emily Dickinson. And he enjoys listening to jazz, classical music and opera. "I love Maria Callas. Her singing touches a joy that's very deep."

Jay has just finished a political novel called Harry's Our Man, and is creating a story commissioned by NASA for its 50th anniversary.

Dale Jarvis in the Flesh.

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #064 Dale Gilbert Jarvis
	for $2.23 How to collect true scary stories for Halloween.

Dale Jarvis Writes
Near to where I live is a small lake with the delightfully ghoulish name of Deadman’s Pond. According to local legend, the pond is bottomless, and I’m sure many people know of similar stories for lakes near where they live. These lakes and ponds offer us tantalizing doorways to another realm. Peering into the reflective surface of a still body of water and wondering what lies beneath provides us with a link to the unexplained. Perhaps this is why they fascinate us. It is not so much that we think they actually are bottomless, but that part of us wishes that they might be.

So too with ghost stories. I’ve told ghost stories to literally thousands of people over the past 13 years, and they continue to be the stories most often requested when I do work with school kids. Most of the stories I tell are true, or at least were thought to be true by the people I learned them from. I love collecting true scary stories that are tied to specific places, and sharing them with people who love that delicious shiver that runs up one’s spine when they are well told.

“A teller of spine tingling tales that are so convincing, that even if you don’t believe in ghosts… you soon will!”
‑Wayne Rostad, On the Road Again

Bio of storyteller Dale Gilbert Jarvis:
Dale Gilbert Jarvis is a storyteller, professional folklorist, and writer living and working in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. Dale tells ghost stories, faerie stories, legends and traditional tales from Newfoundland, Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. Dale is the founder of the St. John’s Storytelling Circle, president of the annual St. John’s Storytelling Festival, and a member of the board of Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada.

As a storyteller, Dale has performed locally and at international festivals, but is perhaps less well known than his alter ego, the distinguished Reverend Thomas Wyckham Jarvis, Esquire. Since 1997, The Reverend has been the host and guide of the St. John’s Haunted Hike, a walking ghost tour through the haunted streets of St. John’s. Under his supervision, locals and tourists have been introduced to the vengeful lovers, murdered soldiers, and mysterious fires which await those brave enough to explore the secrets that lie in wait in St. John’s darkest corners. Mixing history, humour, true scary stories and traditional storytelling, Dale has been winning over audiences and throwing in the odd scare here and there, and has been covered by a wide variety of local, national and international media. Over the past years, the Hike has grown from a small idea to a fixture in the St. John’s tourism industry.

Dale is the author of two books of local ghost stories, “Haunted Shores: True Ghost Stories of Newfoundland and Labrador” and “Wonderful Strange: Ghosts, Fairies and Fabulous Beasts of Newfoundland and Labrador” both published by Flanker Press, and a collection of world ghost stories for young adult readers, “The Golden Leg and Other Ghostly Campfire Tales” also published by Flanker.

You can read more about Dale on his various websites at
http://www.hauntedhike.com
http://www.dalejarvis.ca
http://storytellingstjohns.blogspot.com/

Tired of the tin sound? Purchase a HQ Mp3 File of Interview #053 Sally Crandall
	for $2.23 Historical Storytelling.

Sally Crandall writes…
I enjoyed with talking with Eric about historical storytelling. When I take on the creation of an historical story, I look at it as an opportunity to go back in time and explore places and people. The first story I told was about the 1913 flood, which changed the future for Columbus and for Ohio. I was sitting in my kitchen one summer afternoon when I heard a survivor of the flood, Ida Griswold, tell her story during a radio interview. I called her up, and, even though she shouldn’t have, she let me come over and spend a day getting to know her and see the house in which she grew up and which survived the flood. She pointed out the crack in the window caused by a floating telephone pole, and told me her dad never fixed it, and she never would either.

We spoke about some of the stories I tell and about their specific uses in the classroom. A few years ago, I spent several days in Cleveland at a Kennedy Center Workshop for teaching artists. It was a valuable experience. There I began to explore the idea of using the drama idea of tableau, or frozen pictures, with students to explore the history and characters in the stories I tell. I hope listeners call in with questions and their own experiences.

Sally’s Blog
http://sallycrandall.typepad.com/

Sally’s Home Page
http://www.sallycrandall.com/