Storytelling Radio Program
KSVY-FM 91.3, Sonoma, CA
www.ksvy.org/home.htm
Sundays, 5-6 pm Pacific time (adjust for your time zone)
Live audio streaming: Go to the KSVY website above. In the upper right-hand corner, click on High or Low Speed and find yourself listening to the program in progress.
Archives: Go to the KSVY website above. Click on "Shows" in the left frame. Scroll down and click on "Story-Lovers World," then click on "Past Episodes" over my picture. Now you have your choice of all the programs available to date as archives.
Theme music: Special thanks to Petra Koch in Germany (she works with Storyteller Richard Martin), who performed the beautifully haunting alto recorder music of Como Podem from the 13th century collection Cantigas de Santa Maria (copy of Kynsecker, Mollenhauer & Co.). The different music at the end of the programs is also by Petra. Used on this program with her kind permission.
Engineer: Brodie Giles, KSVY radio station 91.3 FM
PROGRAM 26:
April 1, 2007 - Potpourri! A Little of This and A Little of That!
Featured storytellers:
Joshua Searle-White (Pennsylvania)
Petroleum Pete
Lori Ada Jaroslow (California)
A Sense of Theft
Lauren Tom (California)
The Selkie Bride
Steven Fletcher (California)
The Cedar Flute
Tom and Sandy Farley (California)
Yumi's Courage (by Wayfarer Tomm)
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Guest tellers...
• Joshua Searle-White (Pennsylvania) — Petroleum Pete
Josh is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA. He is one of those rare people who can easily switch back and forth between the world of academia and the world of the imagination.
CDs available:
Dad School
Engaging stories for all ages, by Joshua Searle-White
In performances from San Diego to Moscow and on public radio, storyteller Joshua Searle-White has entertained and delighted audiences with his vivid characters, adventurous plots, and humorous wordplay. With this CD, you can hear what really happened in the later years of Cinderella's life. You can find out how Josh was abducted by a gang of vegetables with unresolved Vitamin B complexes. And if you are brave enough, you can take the Dad School Final Exam and see how you score.
To order this CD,
http://www.acousticdrive.com/letterpoker.html
To contact Josh directly, see contact info below.
And remember -- beware of the Ketchup Monster!
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Imagine …
a high-stakes game of poker, where the betting is in letters instead of money – and once you lose a letter, you can’t use it any more …
… or a dark streambed where two trolls, Arg and Tharg, argue about who is the more victimized …
… or two Swedish spies who encounter strange people, and even stranger accents, while chasing a mysterious geographic evildoer around the world …
… or true devotion, as one friend rescues another from the desperate allure of the video game arcade …
All of this, and more, is revealed on Letter Poker, this new CD from the winner of the 2003 “Storyteller of the Year”™ competition, Joshua Searle-White. Engaging, humorous, and creative, these stories will enliven and excite people from ages 7 on up. (An extra benefit is music by Al Petteway to introduce each story.) To order this CD, click here. To learn about Josh’s other CD, “Dad School,” click here. To contact Josh directly, click here. Enjoy!
http://www.acousticdrive.com/letterpoker.html
For more information, contact Josh at:
jsearle@allegheny.edu
or by telephone at 814/332-2706
http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/j/jsearle/jswpers.html
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• Lori Ada Jaroslow (California) — A Sense of Theft
Lori's story, A Sense of Theft, is included in a CD written and co-produced by Amy Friedman, with music by Laura Hall, and titled Tell Me a Story. Lori has performed on and off-Broadway in musicals including Fiddler on the Roof and Grease. She is currently completing work as both a writer and performer on her original musical and solo show.
• Lauren Tom (California) — The Selkie Bride
Lauren's story, The Selkie Bride, is included in a CD written and co-produced by Amy Friedman, with music by Laura Hall, and titled Tell Me a Story. Lauren has starred in shows on Broadway and also films like The Joy-Luck Club. You may have even seen her in TV shows like Friends and Grace Under Fire or heard her voice on many animated films.
• Amy Friedman (California)
Biographical information on Amy Friedman
Tell Me a Story writer and co-producer Amy Friedman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, graduated from Barnard College and received an MA in Creative Writing from City College, New York, having had the great good fortune of studying with Donald Barthelme and Manuel Puig.
Amy worked in film production in New York and LA before moving to a sheep farm outside Kingston, Ontario where, for eight years, she wrote a weekly newspaper column, "Hard Lines," in addition to serving as "The Bedtime Story" writer and editor for The Kingston Whig-Standard, Canada’s oldest daily newspaper. Her memoirs, Kick the Dog and Shoot the Cat, and Nothing Sacred: a Conversation with Feminism were published by Oberon Press in Canada. In addition Amy writes fiction and personal essays and has won several writing awards and published stories and articles in magazines, newspapers and journals across the US and Canada.
Amy also is a longtime teacher. She currently teaches writing the personal essay and creative nonfiction at UCLA Extension and The Memoir at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. After writing for and performing at several spoken word venues, Amy designed and teaches a course on how to write and perform spoken word. More about Amy’s From Page to Stage can be found at http://www.frompagetostage.com
Amy lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Dennis Danziger.
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An interview with Amy at:
http://www.bookpleasures.com/
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Tell Me A Story — CD
Winner of a 2006 Parents' Choice Silver Honors Award and NAPPA 2006 Gold Medal, not your standard schmaltzy kids' stuff. These are classic multicultural tales accompanied by music ranging from jazz to classical and read by hard-hitting talent.
Amy Friedman (author) and Laura Hall (music)
Buy at:
http://www.mythsandtales.com/
http://cdbaby.com/cd/friedmanhall
Tell Me a Story
by Amy Friedman
From Bookwatch, The Midwest Book Review
A wide range of listeners of all ages will relish TELL ME A STORY: TIMELESS FOLKTALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD, read by eight talented actors and covering tales from Africa to Scotland. From an African Anansi story ANANSI AND THE TURTLE'S FEAST to the frightening THE BOATMAN'S HOWLING DAUGHTER, over seventy minutes of vivid description pack a fine gathering which will be a ‘must' for folktale collections for any age group.
Diane Donovan, Editor & Sr. Reviewer
Bookwatch/California Bookwatch
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Contact Amy at:
kellsmom@ca.rr.com
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• Steven Fletcher (California) — The Cedar Flute
Steven is an author, musician, songwriter, and software architect. However, his first and most lasting love is education. He has spent half of his life in the United States and the remainder in countries around the world. His exposure to and love for the different peoples of the world — warmly colors all his stories. They bring to life a wonderful sense of acceptance, wisdom and insight. Those who pause to read these uplifting stories will come away knowing they are not alone.
The Cedar Flute may be found in Steven's CD Ocean Dreams, which was taken from his book Still Reflections: Stories of the Heart. Look for more CDs in the future.
What's happening at Gentle Place Publishing?
• Our first work was an anthology of short stories called Still Reflections: Stories of the Heart.
• That was followed by the first in a series of talking books called Ocean Dreams. Each of these CDs contains stories read aloud with meditative music interspersed.
•
Next in line was a CD called During Thy Days. It contains a wonderful prayer, chanted with beautiful music. This was released in April 2006.
• Next was a CD on the life of Mr. Fred Mortensen as seen through the eyes of two of his children.
• Following that was Ancient Breeze, an instrumental music CD.
• A second book of short stories entitled In the Glow of Understanding was published in September 2006.
•
Other future plans are a CD of stories called Whispering Waves, slated for release in May 2007, and a book called Story Centric Education and Counseling that will aid teachers, counselors, therapists and other professionals in their respective work. Our hope is that the stories may be used to encourage and enable critical independent thinking, self-discovery, spirituality and self-discipline. This should be ready in August 2007.
What others say about Steven's work:
"We all seek insight at different times in our lives. We may be searching for ways to help our children grow to be both strong and loving. Perhaps we're facing a serious emotional or physical challenge. We might want to explore a deeper understanding of our own spirituality. And sometimes we make choices that do not serve us well and reach a point where we want to make new and different choices.
"All of us, young and old, need to be able to take time out to focus on what matters as we continue our lifelong process of discovery and growth. Rather than preach or scold, the stories in Still Reflections let you visit with people you'd like to know and perhaps learn from spending a short time in a gentle place you'd like to be part of."
–
Janey Frazier
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The Gift, a story about perseverance and success, from Still Reflections won a 2006 Storytelling World Resource Award.
This CD is available at:
http://gentleplace.com/oceandreams.html
Ocean Dreams
Audio book, 7 stories selected from Still Reflections, read aloud with original music.
Suitable for devotional gatherings, study, deepening and meditation.
Listen to Samples (MP3) http://gentleplace.com/listen.html
(74 minutes, 7 tracks) ISBN: 0-9749138-1-2
Contact:
Steven Fletcher
Gentle Place Publishing
P.O. Box 442
Big Oak Flat, CA 95305
Phone us toll free from the USA: (877) 200-0127 or from overseas 001 (209) 962-6266
Our office hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. California time.
E-mail: http://gentleplace.com/thuma.html
http://gentleplace.com/people-stevenfletcher.html
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• Tom and Sandy Farley, Redwood City, CA — Yumi's Courage (by Wayfarer Tomm)
Tom and Sandy Farley are married and are tandem storytellers.
Storytelling and Story Writing for All Ages
Tandem telling is two or more tellers sharing one story. Tom and Sandy bring together their experience with solo telling, improvisation, story theatre, and cooperative recreation, all of which they also teach.
Since 1979, they have been telling traditional and contemporary stories for schools, libraries, book stores, hospitals, churches, summer camps, fairs, Kiwanis Clubs, corporate events, birthdays, etc. Themes they like include: conflict resolution, youth empowerment, cultural diversity, disabilities, wisdom, and where stories come from.
Based in Redwood City, CA, they perform most often between San Francisco and San Jose, but they do travel beyond the Bay Area to do performances and workshops, usually for Kiwanis or Quaker related events.
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Excerpts from an interview with Tom and Sandy:
Q. Tell us about being tandem tellers.
A. (Tom) Well, it’s an interaction. It’s sharing a story. And tandem—actually, we think of it as two tellers, but it could be three. Our daughter has done tandem telling with us in a threesome at times in North Carolina. But it came for us out of story theatre, which is another form of shared story—multiple teller or performers, staging a story where you narrate your own character’s actions, a story that is passed around among actors, one for each character.
And we were doing that…with children, where we would tell them the story, they would tell it back to us, and we never used a written script, so that literacy was not an issue among the children of various ages.
A. (Sandy) And they loved doing it because they had the power to make up their own lines knowing the situation, and they just performed beautifully and there was no stumbling as you sometimes get with kids' theatre, trying to remember their lines.
A. (Tom) In fact, they would trade parts around. If someone was missing, anyone else … everyone else knew it, could cover for them. We did that kind of work recently with a sixth grade in Redwood City and on the day of the performance somebody wasn’t there and one of the others said, “Oh, so and so isn’t here…wait a minute, I know his lines,” and he ran to the other side of the stage so he could enter from the right direction and he played the other part. And we were starting to perform and it was figuring this out on the fly.
Q. Were you married when you started tandem telling?
A. (Tom) Yes.
Q. And had both of you been single tellers before?
A. (Both) No.
(Tom) I have a master’s in theatre… I did my thesis on improvisation and Quakerism. We’re both Quakers... Sandy was part of my thesis project, along with a number of other people in a performing group, and along with that we were doing improvised story as part of improvised theatre... that led from improvised story and story theatre with children to interactive storytelling or to solo telling once we got our sense of story…
Q. Does it ever cause any problems between the two of you?
A. (Both) No. No.
(Sandy) Some people wonder, you know, how we maintain a good relationship, but ego doesn’t enter into it on this. It’s a matter of we are together telling stories.
(Tom) And sometimes we’ll look at it as who’s going to tell the story and who’s going to do the interrupting. Or who's the narrator...
(Sandy) Who gets to play all the other fun parts.
Q. You work a lot with kids, don’t you? Tell me a little bit about that…
A. (Tom) Yes. I work at summer camp at the Ben Lomond Quaker Center in the Santa Cruz mountains, and that’s where I get to do solo telling because often Sandy is not available at camp... sometimes I’ve recruited other counselors or campers to tell stories with me. And those are often stories of … stories about issues dealing with truth and responsibility and making things right, environmental issues or social issues.
Q. Is it fulfilling to work with kids in that way?
A. (Tom) Yes, particularly when you tell a story and say, “Have you ever been in a situation like that?” and one of them says, “Oh, yeah, I remember when …” and so on. We tell a story that has in it the big ugly hairy yellow troll who grabs these little children who try to cross the bridge without an adult and then we talk about has anyone ever told you big ugly hairy yellow troll stories and it becomes a catch phrase that the campers can use to kind of reference, "Oh that’s a big ugly hairy yellow troll story, I don’t believe that!"
#####
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Learn more about Tom and Sandy at:
http://www.spont.com/
Our Storytelling Page introduces their tandem telling style with links to our program offerings and their two CDs of stories Words to the Wise and Words Go Questing.
Our Writing Page introduces their fiction for younger readers and families, articles, and teaching aids including Earthcare for Children, a First Day School Curriculum.
Quaker Connections
Tom and Sandy are members of Palo Alto Meeting of the Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends [Quakers].
For an informal e-mail list on Quaker topics, go to the Yahoo! Group called Dry Clean Only [because most Friends don't practice water baptism.]
They are developing a page of Quaker Youth links to Quaker meetings, schools, camps, and youth projects including a list of films on peace and war issues for family viewing.
Service Projects
AVP - the Alternatives to Violence Project is an international network of groups offering basic and advanced workshops and training for facilitators.
HIPP -Help Increase the Peace Project is the adaptation of AVP for teen and preteen groups. They are available as facilitators for workshops in HIPP, AVP, creative conflict resolution, and cooperative recreation.
Ben Lomond Quaker Center is a conference center set in 80 acres of redwood and oak forest near SantaCruz, California. The center offers workshops in Quaker process, personal growth, spiritual concerns and social action. They help with two week-long summer camps there for ages 9 to 12 and 12 to 15.
The Sleepwetting Forum is a web-site they created for family-to-family support in understanding, managing, and working to resolve sleepwetting [a.k.a. bedwetting or nocturnal enuresis] and other loss of bladder control by school-age children and teens.
misc.kids.moderated is a parenting newsgroup they helped create in 1997. For more about thebackground and goals of m.k.m and related parenting newsgroups, go to http://www.misckids.org
Kiwanis International supports service projects for youth and families in our community and around the world. They are members of the Bayshore Community Kiwanis Club of East Palo Alto.
Tom and Sandy's CDs may be ordered at:
• CD Baby
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tomsandy
• Linden Tree Children's Books and Recordings
http://lindentree.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp
• or Spontaneous Combustion
farley@spont.com
Contact Tom and Sandy at:
http://www.spont.com/
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(Page created 3/31/07)
