Farewell 2010!

What an extraordinary storytelling year this has been!

(And yes I know I am repeating myself from my last post - but truth is worth saying twice!)

As I write this in the last few hours of 2010, I am amazed at how many doors have opened this year, how many new friends I have made and how many soul stirring as well as absolutely hilarious stories I have heard. 

But I have been lax of late. 

I haven’t mentioned two events that meant much to me and I don’t want the old year to die without shining a spotlight on them.

The first was participating in the Lower Brandywine Storytelling Festival at the Lower Brandywine Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware on November 5^th and 6^th and the second was winning an award for this blog!

The Lower Brandywine festival was an absolute delight filled with an abundance of the best storytellers in the nation, including Willy Caflin, Milbre Burch, Bill Harley, Andy Offutt Irwin, Bil Lepp, Kim Weitkamp, Ed Stivender, Doug Elliot and Slash Coleman.  It was an honor to participate, and great fun to attend with my cousin, Vivienne Jones.

The festival was held in the sanctuary and the grounds of one of the oldest churches in the nation (founded on October 15, 1720.)  A tent with clear sides had been erected at the edge of the ancient graveyard and at night the light shone out and could be seen for miles.  National Storyteller Bil Lepp described the scene superbly when he said that the tent looked like a giant snow globe waiting for the hand of God to shake it!

It was a memorable weekend filled with laughter and wonder!

Then just a few days ago I got a chance to relive the whole event. 

Michael Wright, the director of the festival, sent me a copy of a letter that he had written to Susan O’Connor at the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  

He talks about his festival and then mentions me, saying:

“What a wonderful woman.  I could listen to her tell stories all day!  She is hysterically funny, engaging, and really bonds with those in the audience.”

To say I was a delighted was a complete understatement!  I was absolutely thrilled!

What a wonderful compliment! 

Be still my beating heart!

Shrink back my fast-growing head!

Thank you Michael!

Secondly, I received an award for this blog.  It is a Masters Award for Storytelling.  What an unexpected honor.

And I am in very august company!  Many fine storytellers and brilliant blogs were listed. 

Oh happy day!

Let me end 2010 with an extract from a poem that I love.  Called At The Gate Of The Year it was written by Marie Louise Haskins (1876-1957) and it was quoted by King George Vl in his Christmas broadcast at the beginning of the Second World War. 

It is both comforting and encouraging.

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2011 be a wonderful one, filled with love, grace, health, success and laughter!

Congratulations Connectivity Group!

The land of once-upon-a-time has surrounded me this extraordinary storytelling year!

Rediscovering many old childhood favorites, I have inhaled fairy tales and folk tales by the bookload as I climbed a steep story-world learning curve.  So it seemed perfectly natural to find that the theme of this year’s Frederick’s 72 Hour Film Fest was fairy tales and fables reinvented.

On September 30^th at a costumed launch party, forty three teams of film makers were randomly given the names of a well known fairy story or fable together with a “poisoned apple challenge” such as having to include an overturned chair or a ticking clock in their movie or having 30 seconds shaved off an already tight production time.  From that moment the teams had 72 hours to make a five minute film – 6 minutes for professional entries -  and all the creations were shown at Frederick’s Weinburg theater the following weekend.

I am delighted to tell you that the company that created my website, recorded my CD and designed my storytelling publicity material – Connectivity Group – won the best of show for the second year running – together with a slew of other awards.

Connectivity Group LLC (whose core team is brothers John and Alan Saunders and their father Bruce Saunders) were given the challenge of creating a film around the theme of Tom Thumb – be careful what you wish for – and their poisoned apple challenge was losing time.  Their entry, Wish, complete with an original music score, oozes with the creativity and professionalism that sets the company apart, and it also manages to have the dark, sinister edge of original fables.  See it here.

Congratulations to the Saunders and Connectivity Group! 

Although you were up against some excellent film makers and other spectacular entries your victory was very well deserved!

As we would say in England – home of so many fairy stories and fables…

Wish was wicked!

Remembering Chillicothe

Just before Thanksgiving I received a wonderful greeting from Mirielle McKell on Facebook wishing me joy and family delight during the upcoming festivities.

Mirielle is one of my many new storytelling blessings in this wonderful year that has been awash with stories.

She is the mother of Bill Mckell, the director of my first Storytelling Festival, the Southern Ohio Storytelling, Arts and Music Festival, held every year in Chillicothe the weekend after Labor Day.

After signing the contract in May to perform in Chillicothe September 9th -11th, I looked up the city on Mapquest and saw that it was fifteen and a half hours away. 

I’d need to get a flight.

Wonderfully organized Bill McKell sent a letter to the tellers saying that if we were flying, Columbus was the nearest airport, it was an hour away whereas the next closest was Cincinnati – two hours away.

The cheapest direct flight I could find was in to Cincinnati.  I booked my non-refundable ticket.

Then a friend phoned and asked if I was driving.  “No!”  I said.  “It is over fifteen hours away.”

“Never!” he said.

“It is!”  said I.

We both dove for our computers to get to Mapquest.

He was right.

I’d put in the wrong Chillicothe!  It turns out that there are five places called Chillicothe in the US.  The furthest away is in Texas and the closest is Ohio.  Clearly the Chillicothe I had originally looked up was in Indiana, which was indeed fifteen and a half hours away from Frederick, Maryland.  The Chillicothe in Ohio is just over six. 

Thank goodness my flight was landing near the festival!  I could have been in Texas!  Or Missouri! 

If I had known the correct distance I would have driven – but then I would have missed out on two delightful treats that happened on the way to and from the airport.

The first was meeting Bill’s sister, Nancy Mckell Gomez who picked me up from the airport. 

She has just published her first book – a sweet, inspirational story for children called Little Sylvia Seagull in which a seagull that is teased and bullied becomes a heroine when she leads her persecutors home through unexpected stormy weather.  For the whole two hours we talked publishing, books and shared our life stories.  It was instant connection – always a treat!

The meat in the sandwich was the festival itself.  Held under a tent in Yoctangee Park at the Pump House Art Gallery it was intimate, with an appreciative audience and a wonderful line up of tellers.  Knowing that it was my first storytelling festival, National Tellers Bil Lepp, Andy Offutt Irwin and Lyn Ford very graciously tucked me under their wise wings, showed me the ropes and poured out advice.  Together with fellow tellers Adele Brown and storyteller and musician Joseph Helfrich they wove powerful spells with words and music until the late summer air sizzled with creativity, inspiration and laughter.

And I was thrilled with Bill McKell’s statement about my performance:

“It was wonderful having Geraldine share her delightful tales at the Southern Ohio Storytelling Festival.  Her fascinating stories, British charm and animated wit had our audiences enthralled.  We eagerly look forward to her return.”

Is that sound I hear my head swelling?

On Sunday morning, on my way home, I was invited by Mirelle Mckell – Bill’s absolutely lovely mother - to visit her and her husband Tom's hundred and fifty year old home where she showed me their very own secret passage that has been built into the fabric of the house.  Be still my beating heart!  (One of the stories in my CD Destination?  Slammer! reveals my childhood love of secret passages…)

All the way to the airport I channeled Nancy Drew and pretended that I was tossing long titian hair,charging ahead in a blue sports car and reveling in another mystery solved!

Seeing Mirielle’s Thanksgiving greeting brought all the delicious memories back.

Happy Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas dear Mirelle – and to all the Mckells.

It is people like you who help make the storytelling world magical.

Thank you!

Jonesborough! The National Storytelling Festival

This has been a season of firsts! 

In the past months I have experienced many storytelling firsts – but the most thrilling of the lineup was going to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough Tennessee.  

This festival began in 1973 when 60 people sat on hay bales to hear Appalachian tales told from the back of a hay wagon parked beside the town courthouse. 

It was so successful it became a yearly event - and grew!

Now about 10,000 people pour into Jonesborough for three days over the first weekend of October every year to hear the best storytellers from America and around the globe tell riveting tales under huge tents that are dotted throughout this lovely town – the oldest in Tennessee.

 I first heard about the festival ten years ago. 

After completing a week long residential storytelling course in England I went to the Greenbelt Arts Festival with my friend, storyteller and cinematographer Shan Stevens. We met some tellers  from the storytelling graduate program at East Tennessee State University at Jonesborough who told us about the National Festival. 

I started salivating – I wanted to go. 

But it has taken a decade for that sown seed to sprout.

This year was harvest time – not only was I going but I knew several of the featured storytellers – which made everything even more exciting – if that were possible! 

Friends Kim Weitkamp and Suzi Whaples were featured “New Voices” – and they both did superbly. 

Each received well-deserved standing ovations at the end of their main one hour sets. I thought my heart would burst with pride on their behalf!

Friends Bil Lepp and Andy Offut Irwin also were telling – and they were as wonderful as usual. 

In his main one hour set, Bil took a break from his normal tall tales style – he is a Champion Liar – a five time winner of the West Virginia Liar's Contest – as well as an ordained Methodist Minister.  He told a true World War ll story, "The GOYA’s, 551^st Infantry Parachute Division," in the voice of Suzi Whaples' father whom he had interviewed some years before. 

Bil was utterly believable and so, in spirit, we followed the 18 year old West Virginia serviceman through boot camp, invasion of France, Battle of the Bulge and post war occupation in a tale that was humorous and harrowing and made history live. 

It was an amazing, moving, tour de force. 

Then there were more glorious, glorious words and images from superb storytellers such as 92 year old Kathryn Windham, Donald Davis, Carmen Deedy, Kevin Kling, Eth-Noh-Tech and a host of others.  On Saturday there was a fabulous midnight cabaret with Bill Harley and a group of his musician friends.  (All were new to me except for Donald Davis whom I had seen perform in Williamsburg two weeks previously.  I snagged a seat on the front row.  I was close enough to see his nose hairs!  Glory!)

The only difficulty was deciding what to see because going to hear one teller meant missing someone else.  Decisions!  Decisions!  I was in the tents first thing in the morning and had to be outed with a crowbar as the last word of the night was greeted by applause.  Oh such delicious hours!

Jonesborough is a word lover's paradise - and I am in love with words and stories!

On late Sunday afternoon, after it was all over, a friend of a friend, Sarah Keplinger Hughes, who I had met once before ten years ago, whisked me away for a delicious steak dinner (thank you Sarah!)  I ended the evening in Storyteller Connie Gill’s magnificent saltwater pool and freshwater Jacuzzi, reliving  my recent firsts and reminiscing about the weekend.

Of all the jewel like moments strung together to make a glorious storytelling necklace – one particular event stands out.

The day before the festival started I had gone to get my patch of material that serves as ticket.  When the volunteer with the kind eyes heard it was my first Jonesborough festival he said:

“Welcome Home!” 

Then he got out his wallet, took out three dollars and bought me a lanyard with a clear pouch hanging from it so that I could wear my entry patch with ease. 

It was an unforgettable gesture!

I felt I had indeed come home. 

I had found my tribe.

And when that happens, you know you’ll be back.

Blue Sky Puppet Theatre

Last week I stepped into a living fairytale.

Or that’s what it felt like when I went to a house in University Park, Maryland that resembled an illustration for a children’s story.

In my mind this is how the tale started.

"Once upon a time there was a cottage on the edge of a big city that was made out of decorated gingerbread.  It belonged to a puppet maker and his wife.  Ten years before, the puppet maker discovered he was a wonderful painter and his vibrant artwork was now displayed throughout the house. 

People were amazed when they saw the paintings because they were so beautiful!

The puppet maker had a mobile puppet theater and he went round to schools and libraries, churches and country clubs putting on shows.  His theater became so successful that he hired other people and formed teams so that he could reach more children.  He loved his job because he really enjoyed making children happy. 

In his spare time the puppet maker created a giant xylophone made out of recycled materials that sat in his garden so that the neighborhood kids could come and make music. He and his wife loved to hear the children laughing and creating new songs right outside their kitchen window…."

 Do you see what I mean?  It sounds like the beginning of fairytale – but it happens to be true.

I met Michael Cotter, puppet maker and owner of Blue Sky Puppet Theater and his wife Judith at SpeakeasyDC, the storytelling club that I love in Washington DC. 

He very kindly offered to pass on his knowledge of the business side of an arts venture both to me and to author and fellow storyteller Julie Kraut , who is also a SpeakeasyDC regular.

I had seen one of Michael’s productions on a hot July day under a tent at the back of Strathmore Mansion.  It was the “Barker of Seville”, and I had been entranced by the creativity of the show and the enchantment on the face of the children in the audience. 

So I was delighted to take up his offer of an intense learning experience at his University Park home. Over the almost three hour seminar Michael poured out the lessons and secrets he had gleaned from twenty five years of running his puppet business that has been successful enough to provide a comfortable living for his family and to put three children through college.

In a nutshell the information mirrored the story of the rich Greek farmer who on his death bed passed on the secret of his great success to his sons.  “Every day you must walk over the land because the owner’s eyes must see everything.” 

For a puppet master, and a storyteller, that translates to - balance the creative side with the business side.  If one is to thrive they both must thrive.

By the end of the session I was enormously impressed with the professionalism, precision and creativity that Michael uses in running his puppet empire.  All the shows are primarily excellent entertainment as well as being a first class educational tool. 

And  they are fun!

The company travels regularly to a two hour circumference around University Park (which is near Washington DC) and goes further on request.  So if you need a fabulous puppet show, contact Blue Sky Puppet Theater.

 I left with facts, figures and strategies swirling around my head and encouragement warming my heart. 

What a gift!

Thank you Michael for so generously passing on your knowledge!

I was proud of myself when leaving the house for two reasons.

• I successfully resisted the urge to bang on the outdoor xylophone.
• I didn’t break off a gingerbread shingle and nibble on it all the way back to Frederick.

 I’m saving both those pleasures for my next visit!