In which we interrupt this mostly-horse blog for a storyteller

By my count, it's been 23 years since I took a storytelling class from

Dr Margaret Read Macdonald at the University of Washington.

Margie teaches storytelling classes all over the world.
Today, she taught a class at MY library!

In that long-ago class, she taught us to tell three stories, and at the end of the session, she said, "Now you are all storytellers.  Go out, and tell stories!"

MRM and me on-stage, 2015

Bless me, I believed her.

And I did.

And I still do.

Today, she visited my library to teach a whole new group of storytellers.  It was just as exhilarating as that day back in (gulp) 1993.  They sang.  They danced.  They laughed.  And they told stories.  Don't you wish you'd been here?

Well.

Perhaps you want to hear MRM tell stories.  A YouTube search for Margaret Read Macdonald will bring up plenty of videos of Margie in performance, and also plenty of recordings of other people telling the stories she teaches.

Perhaps you'd like to take a storytelling class from the woman we call "the storyteller's fairy godmother."  Here is a link to her schedule--please note that she has just returned from Thailand, Japan and Viet Nam, and she will be teaching in the Seattle area this Spring, with forays to Hawaii and Boston.  Looks like Korea is pencilled in for next year!

Perhaps you like books.  HERE is a good one to learn some tricks of the storytelling trade.  Most libraries will own it--if yours doesn't, ask them to purchase it or inter-library loan a copy for you!

Perhaps you like to listen while you drive.   HERE is a good recording, a song-and-story collection by MRM and musician Richard Scholtz.  

Perhaps you'd like to attend a storytelling festival.  There's a national schedule of events HERE, and the schedule is sortable by locale. There are storytelling festivals worldwide--you can google "storytelling festival + YOUR COUNTRY NAME" to get some ideas.

If you are anywhere near my Swamp this summer, the PowellsWood Storytelling Festival is a great event set in a beautiful native-planted garden, July 22nd and 23rd.  HERE ARE PICTURES from the festival and the garden.

Now:  Go out and tell stories!