Once Upon a Time/St. Louis Library 13th & Olive
will be hosting, in partnership with the Magic House, an inter-active
exhibit featuring seven stories: Shoemaker and Elves, Jack and Beanstalk,
Anansi and Pumpkin, Lon PoPo, Beauty & Beast, Cinderella, and Thumbelina to
open in October, see Web site www.slpl.org . Patty Carleton will be
organizing special events. Send fairy tale program proposals (ASAP) with
your price, a detailed list of stories, and available dates to
PCarleton@slpl.org.
Nov. 4 & 5 are Family Fairy Tale Festival dates.
Other possible dates, mostly evening hours--6-7 or 7-8 p.m., are
Thursday, October 5
Tuesday, October 10
Thursday, October 12 +
Thursday, October 19 +
Tuesday, October 24 +
Thursday, October 26
Thursday, November 2 +T
Thursday, November 9 +
Monday, November 13 +
Thursday, November 16
Monday, November 20
Wednesday, November 29
Thursday, December 7
Tuesday, December 11 +
Thursday, December 12
Thursday, December 19 +
Love and peace (+sunscreen & big hats),
Mary Garrett
(St. Peters, Missouri)
NSN National Storytelling Conference
July 12-15, 2007 St. Louis
www.storynet.org/Events/Conference/2007/
Pittsburgh was a wonderful opportunity to play, talk, learn and grow with
other tellers. It will be our mission to make 2007 in St. Louis even
better.
September 1 (changed to Sept. 7) deadline for workshops and regional concert
applications.
Sept. 15 for Fringe.
National Storytelling Festival
Oct 6-8, 2006 Jonesborough, TN
www.storytellingcenter.net or 1 800 952 8392
Web Site Membersı Listings/Newsletters
One of the valuable benefits of your MO-TELL membership is a free three line
listing -- name, type of stories, and contact information -- on the web site
http://www.motell.org/
Please send listings or corrections to Mary Garrett,
mgarrett@mail.win.org or 636-447-6760. Also, e-mail me if you would like
e-mails in addition to the ³hard copy² of the Register. A special thank you
goes to Donna Spaulding for handling the duplicating, folding and mailing of
the Register, a mammoth task!
Patricia McKissack Workshop "Writing for Publication"
Saturday, September 23 8 a.m.- noon at Webster University, in the Sunnen
Lounge of the University Center. Cost is a donation of $25 to the Olive
Chapel AME,
for restoration of this National Historic Register church. Details and
registration: Patricia McKissack <p1m2c3k4@aol.com>
or 636-519-0726.
The Missouri River Storytelling Festival
October 20-22 Katy Depot, Frontier Park, St. Charles.
Free Storytelling (Donations accepted) -- Elizabeth Ellis, Loren Niemi,
Larry Brown, Steve Otto, and other tellers **
Friday 10/20 7 p.m. VERY SCARY -- age 12 and older
Saturday 10/21 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. for families
Workshops --
Saturday 9 a.m. - noon ($40 payable at door)
"Who's Afraid Now?" with Elizabeth Ellis and Loren Niemi
This hands-on workshop will focus on how to tell scary stories, how to
balance creepy content with audience-pleasing wit in the telling of both
traditional and contemporary psychologically disturbing stories. This is a
three-hour-long experience for storytellers and writers at all levels with
hand-outs, individual, and group exercises.
Sunday 10/22 9 a.m.-4 p.m. ($100) Registration limited to 20 participants.
Register with Karen Potts 636-928-7984 Karen Potts<minn66@earthlink.net>)
"Telling Difficult Stories" -- The value and necessity of telling stories of
sorrow and loss, wickedness and failure, as well as those of humor and happy
endings. How to respond to discomfort and the fallibility of human life
through traditional or personal tales with different models for moving
beyond therapy or sentimentality into metaphor and meaning when choosing,,
shaping and telling difficult stories.
Tellabration: November 18, from 3-5 p.m. at Union Ave. Christian Church.
733 North Union at Enright, St. Louis, MO 63108 Tellers will be Loretta
Washington, Kathy Schottel, Carol Watkins, Shaaron Peters, Dan Romano, and
Ashley Grey. The evening will be co-hosted by MO-TELL and Gateway. In
addition, MO-TELL will be organizing an auction, and donations will be
organized by and Karen Potts and Sue Hinkel 636 271 7914 or
shinkel@mail.win.org .
State Parks
MO-TELL will be arranging tellers in the following state parks:
St. Charles First Missouri State Capital (Aug. 12) Sharon Thompson
Arrow Rock (Oct. 28, 11 a.m.) -- Sue Hinkel -- Hauntinı Missouri Stories
Hawn State Park (Sept. 16, 7 p.m.), Mary Garrett and Randy Schuppan
Graham Cave State Park
Westin Bend (Oct.)
RAPS events
For more information on the following events, please call Joyce Slater,
816-523-5038 or
slatertales@earthlink.netor Steve Otto 816 454 7262 or
i-tell@juno.com)
Show Me the Funny RAPS Workshop by Janet Filkel
September 7, 2006, 7:00 PM at Kingswood Manor, 10000 Wornall, the garden
room, Kansas City. -- adapting a story and making it funnier.
Clarksville, MO Sept. 29 - 30. Ten storytellers will be in ten schools
between Lincoln County (for example Troy) to Pike County (up to Frankford)
on the 29th. Concert 9/29 from 7-8:30 p.m. Workshop 9/30 10 a.m. - noon,
followed by a luncheon for the storytellers. The concert, workshop and
luncheon will be held at the Apple Shed on Hwy. 79 in Clarksville, MO. The
storytellers will be
staying at a motel in Bowling Green, MO. Contact Gladys Cogswell
storyteller12@Frankford.net
Chicken Festival January 19-21 in Clinton, MO.
Details to come . There will be opportunities to tell stories in the
schools on Friday, and there is a project to make a story quilt, so if so
inclined, bring a finished quilt square!
Mentor Project
Joe Wos issued a challenge to storytellers to request and/or offer
mentoring:
If you have been a storyteller for 15, 20, 30+ years, find someone to
mentor. Teach them and be open minded enough to learn from them as well.
If you have been at this for 15, 10, 5 years, find someone to mentor you
and someone for you to mentor.
If you are just starting out, find someone to mentor you and remember
what you learn and what you have taught so you can pass it on as well.
That's it. Don't charge for it, this is not a money making scheme.
E-mail, phone calls, meeting once a month. Letıs rebuild this community
through mentorship. Document the process however you want, through
video, story, performance, whatever. Share what we learn as a community.
We don't need a study or a committee to do this. Just do it. And do it
now.
What can you teach, have you organized a festival? Are you published? Are
you a librarian, teacher, performance storyteller? What can you share? Well,
go out and share it. Who wants to mentor and who wants to be mentored?
Joe Wos
joe@wosstudios.com
Jackie Baldwin has offered her Story-Lovers.com site to coordinate these
efforts.
(Send to
bubbul@vom.com)
Information needed for Mentors and Mentorees:
Location by region:
Name:
E-mail address:
Objective: Being a mentor or a mentoree or both
Years of experience as a storyteller:
Special interests in storytelling:
Special experience in storytelling:
Brief bio:
What you can offer:
What you are looking for:
From Steve Otto
i-tell@juno.com: I have worked with two tellers to "Mentor"
them into the craft. The first thing I told them was that I did NOT want
them to tell the way I told. If a teller becomes a Parrot instead of a
sponge, they will never develop into complete storytellers. A Parrot just
repeats what it has heard . . . A Sponge, if filled, absorbs everything and
spreads it around to cover everything it touches.
Resources
Web Site
Recommendation from Steve Otto: Karen Chase is the all time "Guru" of the
Internet and access to storytelling sites. Her "Storybug" web site is great
for finding almost anything relating to storytelling.
http://www.storybug.net/links.htm
CDs
"Never Lost On the Lewis & Clark Trail" by Jim Two Crows Wallen with music
by Thom Howard and artwork by Deb Wallen. This is a wonderful adventure
story, which held my most difficult class captive and awe-struck when Jim
visited last May. He also shared part of the story at the St. Louis
Festival one year. The CD is nearly as captivating as the live performance
(field-tested on my other classes with very positive response). Contact Jim
Wallen <twocrows@publicnetworking.org>
³Sisters Alland One Troll,² Mary Hamiltonıs newest CD, is a Winner of a
2006 Parentsı Choice Gold Award from the Parentsı Choice Foundation and a
2006 iParenting Media Award. Maryıs description: ³On Sisters Alland One
Trollı I tell traditional tales of active heroines. Think of them as Nancy
Drewıs long ago cousins! Stepsisterly courage and devotion are celebrated
in Kate Crackernuts.ı In Three Sisters and the Troll,ı the youngest sister
uses observation and careful planning to save her sisters and herself from
an evil troll. Eleven Cinderellası is my unique multi-cultural retelling of
the Cinderella story one journey through the plot, with portions of the
story from eleven different cultures.² (This CD also passed the test of
high school sophomores at FHN, who used the ³Eleven Cinderellas² story to
review transitions in writing -- MG). Available at www.maryhamilton.info
Books
Outfoxing Fear: Folktales From Around the World by Kathleen Ragan W.W.
Norton, New York. ISBN 0-393-06036-5 $27.95 U.S. 320 pages. $27.95
We live in frightening times, but Kathleen Raganıs newest book shows us that
humans have always lived with fear and that time-tested folktales can show
us ways to survive that fear. Her framework essays deal with the aftermath
of 9/11. Her children responded by building and wrecking twin towers of
blocks, acting out the fear until ready to move on and face life anew.
Ragan sought the comfort of old stories, where she found questions and
lessons about life and courage and friends and enemies. ³Think about these
things,ı the folktales cautioned, because the ending of your story is not a
foregone conclusion. Youıre in the middle of your tale.ı² The very first
story, "What Are You the Most Scared Of?" (from Japan), brought a chuckle,
followed by an echo of Wayne Dyer and Angela Davis -- the power of positive
(or negative) thinking . . . what we send out will return to us. These
stories show courage, generosity, hospitality, self-sacrifice, love,
qualities that can make a difference in the world. A useful map locates the
stories geographically, the sections are organized by types of fear and
courage, and the very complete index helps to find the exact story
as needed, making this a valuable resource for storytellers and teachers and
others who look to stories for comfort and aid.
Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales
from
Around the World edited by Kathleen Ragan. W.W. Norton, N.Y. ISBN
0-393-32046-4 $16.95 paperback
This is an absolutely wonderful source for stories with strong, clever
heroines, chock full of women the reader will love to meet. A brave mother
seeking to recover her child in the Scottish tale "The Stolen Bairn and the
Sidh" will win your heart and your respect, as will Burd Janet seeking to
save "Tamlane" in the English tale. "The Innkeeper's Wise Daughter" (a
Jewish-American tale) will make you smile with humor and love, and there is
more humor in "Women's Wiles" from Syria. If you wish to be frightened, read
the Iroquois story, "The Vampire Skeleton." The stories are organized by
areas of the world, with a map to help keep them straight, and are very
well-written.
Call for Tall Tales and Funny Bone Stories
Jackie Baldwin is hosting a radio program in California called Story-Lovers!
The first program on September 3rd is ³An Enchanted Garden of Seeds and
Stories Planting the seeds of stories around the world!²
9/10 ³Tales as tall as the sky You gotta be kiddin'!²
9/17 ³Tickle My Funny Bone! Double Dare Ya!²
To contribute, contact Jackie at <bubbul@vom.com>
There would be a
telephone interview and publicity on the show.
Listen on Sunday nights, 5-6 p.m. PST , at KSVY-FM 91.3. or Website:
http://www.ksvy.org
Click in the upper right-hand corner to listen live by
High Speed (DSL & above) or Low Speed (Dialup) Just account for the
difference in time zones.
Perhaps someone would like to organize a radio program here in Missouri?