Before the old year slips away to the strains of Auld Lang Syne and a burst of fireworks let me mull on the memories of the last few months.

This Summer I did much work creating and polishing stories for my new CD, “Devils on Horseback and Other Odd Journeys,” with it's tag line "Hilarious, True, Inadvertent Adventures,"which was recorded in two performances at The Frederick Cultural Arts Center in Frederick, Maryland.  (Available from the store section of this web site.  Click here.)

Of course besides the stories, a CD project comes with a myriad of decisions about art, design, packaging…  So I was thrilled when finally box upon box of the finished product were delivered by a lovely young UPS man with bright red hair.  He told me that he lives with his mother and has a Doberman Pinscher mix who loves English accents.  Apparently when he and his Mum are out of the house the dog listens to the audio books of the Harry Potter adventures – otherwise he gets too lonely. 

I am delighted to tell you that the very first copy of my new CD went to a literary loving dog so that he can learn English accent diversity!

I am also delighted to tell you that the dog has perfect manners.  I received this email from the puppy, whose name is Doszer.

“I asked my Mom to type this for me as paws and keyboards do not mix well.  I wanted to say thank you for the CD!  I love it!  I am not sure how Daddy talked you into giving a CD to a dog, but I greatly appreciate it! 

I get nervous when Mom and Dad go out. So it is nice having someone tell me stories.  Mom likes to listen to books on CD while she does stuff around the house and discovered that I enjoy them too.  Her story friends keep me company when she and Dad cannot be home with me.  Thank you for becoming my new friend!  …Oh and thank you for being nice to your UPS man.  You made his day and mine too!

Thank you again!

Puppy Kisses,

Doszer Ziliox"

Be still my beating heart!  I am thrilled to have such a polite, canine fan.  Woof!

In September I was invited back to tell at the Southern Ohio Festival in Chillicothe, Ohio – one of my favorite festivals.  Donald Davis, Carmen Deedy, Bil Lepp, Sheila Arnold, Octavia Sexton and Kevin Coleman were also on the lineup.  It was a glorious mix of tellers who melded together perfectly. The weekend was memorable for deep conversations, shared ideas, friendship and laugher.  And the stories were superb - the late summer Ohio air was alive with the magic of words.

I hadn’t met Carmen before and joined the long line of people who have fallen in love with her!  It was mutual.  We became instant friends!

I am so enjoying this storytelling journey - especially the fascinating, generous, big-hearted people I am meeting upon the way. 

In October I was thrilled to win the first Storytelling Slam competition at the 40^th Anniversary of the National Storytelling Festival at Jonesborough, Tennessee.  The story was called “Hitchhiking” and it is a five minute extract from a longer story of the same name on my latest CD.

 Not long after my return I went to my brother’s house in Washington DC for a family celebration.  Damian, my brother, insisted I told the winning story.  When I finished he presented me with an award.  An eye!  (Perfect for the story.)  Apparently the saleslady told him it was soap – but he said that he was going to tell me it was a gobstopper (candy).  She said: ‘Surely you wouldn’t do that to your sister!”  He said: “Oh yes I would.”  And he did!  The rotter!

 Winning the slam had wonderful repercussions.   Liz Miller, librarian and storytelling impresario was in the audience, visiting from New Zealand.  She loved that story and the stories on my other two CD’s. 

The outcome? 

Liz invited me to tell stories, together with Storyteller and Musician Bill Harley (who has just been nominated for his third Grammy), at the Invercargill Arts Festival in New Zealand next May!  The ticket has already been bought and paid for thanks to a grant organized by Liz.  I have always wanted to visit New Zealand and I’m absolutely thrilled!  Other opportunities are popping up in that scenically-stunning nation and I will be telling and travelling for the whole month of May.  Hallelluia!

Lastly, I finally broke my prison fast.  I officially left the prison where I worked as Chaplain at the end of January 2010 but the last time I went in to a correctional facility was three years ago on the day before Christmas Eve. 

This Christmas Eve, exactly three years later, I went in to the Frederick County Detention Center to tell stories as part of the female inmate’s Christmas party.  I had the most wonderful time and I loved seeing all the girls laughing. I’ll be back.  The program director and the inmates want me to do a full storytelling concert – and I will be very happy to do so.

It has been a good year, and I have great excitement stirring in my spirit for all that lies ahead in the coming twelve months.

May it be a wonderful new season for everyone who is reading this post, full of grace, favor, wisdom, health, provision, love and abundant laughter. 

Go God! 

What a delicious  story-filled long weekend!

A few months ago friend and Storyteller Andy Offutt Irwin told me that he would be in town doing a house concert at Laura Hagmann’s house in Silver Spring, Maryland (one of my favourite storytelling venues) and a set with the two-time Grammy award winning musical duo Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer at the Washington Folk Festival. 

He asked if I would arrange a couple of events that we could do together to round out his stay. 

Some years ago I was an events director for Jackie Cooper PR - at the time the largest independent PR agency in London – and I was delighted to put my old skills to use.

I swung into action.

The result was two wonderfully fun evenings. 

On Thursday May 31^st Andy and I did a storytelling workshop entitled “Humor and the Narrative Arc” for Speakeasy DC held at the Hamiltonian Art Gallery on trendy U street in Washington DC.  What a delightful quirky space!  That night it was packed with talented participants – all eager to learn- who ended up telling their own amazing stories.  The room reverberated with wild tales, excitement and laughter.  SpeakeasyDC’s executive director, Amy Saidman, wrote that she was really pleased with the result and declared the evening to be a success. Yea!

The second event was an anthology storytelling show “Drunk Nuns, Sober Spirits and other Storytelling Misadventures held on Saturday June 2^nd at the Frederick Cultural Arts Center. 

The show got excellent pre-publicity from the Frederick News Post and the Gazette and we had a lovely, enthusiastic crowd including one woman, Meredith Miller, new to storytelling, who later wrote:

 “I absolutely LOVED the show tonight! It was amazing - captivating - hysterical - and tender. I think I experienced every range of emotion possible in those few hours.  I was so swept away with the canvas portrait of stories that were shared ... you literally *took* me there with you to those points in time. What an incredible, joyous ride. Thank you SO much for inviting me.

Cannot wait until the next time!”

Another person hooked on storytelling. 

Halleluiah!

 One of the delights in this storytelling journey is the people you meet along the way – and I had a wonderful time getting to know Cathy Fink over three days as we spend time together at the workshop, the excellent house concert the following day (where I met Marcy – albeit briefly -  for the first time) and at the Drunk Nuns show.  Cathy and Marcy are virtually neighbors and so I look forward to sharing more laughter with them in the days ahead.

On Sunday I performed at the 32^nd annual Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park on the Storytelling Stage.  My eccentric great aunt, princesses bruised by hidden peas and ferocious tigers eventually tamed, all lived - and were received with great enthusiasm by the audience!

I finished the day off with a carousel ride.  Built in 1921, the award winning Glen Echo Carousel is a work of art.  The galloping horses and jungle animals, the beautifully painted pastoral scenes and the Wurlitzer organ were a perfect backdrop to mull over the storytelling excitement of the previous few days.

The horse looked a little wild eyed by the time I disembarked - but I was ecstatic!

Where has the time gone to?

So may wonderful things have been happening over the last few months and I haven’t been recording them here – so before clear memories disappear like morning fog let me give a scanty review of some of the highlights since I last wrote.

The jewel in last year’s crown was being one of the six tellers from around the nation who were selected to perform on the Exchange place stage at the National Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  I was thrilled to participate with Storytellers, Adam Booth, Pippa White, Diane Edgecomb, Gwen Rainer, and Kirk Waller on that coveted stage and was delighted when Lauren LaRocca of The Frederick News Post wrote an excellent article as a result of the news.  Lauren LaRocca is now the Features Editor at the paper.  Yea! Congratulations Lauren!

While still in Jonesborough I really enjoyed doing a house concert with my friend, Speaker and Storyteller Bob Tryanski at the home of John and Joyce Johnson as a fund raiser for Ivory Park in South Africa – a project run by Bob and his wife Hannah.  The concert benefited two causes close to my heart, feeding children through actual food as well as literature. The event was on the front of the Greensville Sun the next morning written by a journalist called Kristen Buckles - it was easy to remember her name! 

 Then it was off to the other side of the country to perform at the Fredonia Opera House in Fredonia, NY – which was built in 1891.  I thoroughly enjoyed working with the Executive Director Rick Davis who said about me in a follow up letter “..I am hearing nothing but glowing reviews from patrons.  People not only found your tales funny, but enlightening as well… after all who else can offer such insight into life “in the slammer?”

It always amazes me how my years behind the razor wire have come in so useful after my “release!”

In November I had a wonderful time being one of the featured tellers at the Lower Brandywine Storytelling Festival headed up by the incredible Michael Wright.  The lineup included Bil Lepp, Andy Offutt Irwin, Bill Harley, Willie Claflin, and  Kim Weitkamp.  And it was a special joy to preach at the first morning service at the beautiful Lower Brandywine church the next day.  That festival and church hold a special place in my heart.

Adam Booth and I were bookends on the Exchange Place Stage - he went first I went last - and we were reunited - and kept that order - when we did a house concert together in January at Laura Hagmann's home in Silver Spring, Maryland - one of my favorite venues for storytelling. 

I am a huge fan of the Washington DC based true storytelling phenomenon SpeakeasyDC and In February I had great fun being part of the SpeakeasyDC “Sucker For Love” show directed by the enormously talented Stephanie Garibaldi and Meredith Maslich.  And I was doubly delighted that National Storyteller Michael Parent whose work I admire was in the audience on a trip away from his home in Maine to visit his DC Metro area based adult children.  He told me how much he liked my stories and that I was a storyteller “extraordinaire!”  What a kind man he is and so wonderfully generous with his praise – now I have to try and shrink my head back to its normal size!

I met him again, and many other fine tellers, when I was teaching a workshop and performing in the evening Olio at the LANES (League for Advancement of North Eastern Storytelling) Sharing the Fire Conference in Albany in March.  I was Facebook friends with many people there – but was meeting them in the flesh for the first time at the conference.  It is always an odd feeling to already know so much about people’s lives at the first real hello!

Spring brought a delightful honor.  My CD “Destination? Slammer!” was awarded a Storytelling World Gold award for best CD recording (category six in this link.) I felt like I had won an Oscar for best movie I was so thrilled!  The whipped cream and cherry on that already fabulous brownie was the invitation to write a 3000 word article on The Power of Story (focusing on my use of storytelling as a bridge within the prison system) which appeared in the April/May edition of the Storytelling Magazine.

Around the same time I travelled to Laurinburg, S. Carolina for the Southern Carolina Storytelling Festival.  Oh what a delight!  Southern hospitality at its finest mixed in with incredible stories.  Donald Davis, Gene Tagaban, Doug Elliott and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo of Eth-noh-Tech were the fabulous feature tellers and Sheila Arnold and I were the Regional tellers – and what a fine teller my new friend Sheila is.  Following in the footseps of the late Jackie Torrence Sheila wooed and won the audience.  It really was a memorable weekend.

In April, together with Storyteller Anthony Burcher, I was a Regional Teller at a lovely festival - Storyteller Alan Hoal's Sounds of the Mountains Festival held at Camp Bethel in  Fincastle, Virginia.  National Public Radio station WVTF did a preview of the event - and they used my voice (extracted from my website) as the top and tail of the piece for their Evening Edition program.  Listeners had a British storytelling sandwich for supper that night!  As soon as I walked in the door at Camp Bethel I discovered that I had been selected to be a featured teller at next years festival.  I was thrilled!

May has brought the OOOPs Storytelling Festival (Ohio Order for the Preservation of Storytelling) in Mont Vernon Ohio featuring the grande dame of storytelling, Elizabeth Ellis,  where I was invited to debut my new workshop “Rocking the Flock with Story” which leans heavily on lessons I learned about telling stories behind the razor wire in a prison church setting – I was delighted that it got excellent reviews. 

Then it was on to perform stories for a ballroom filled with British born women and anglophiles at the Daughters of the British Empire (DEB) conference in Annapolis, Maryland.  Now that was a real thrill!  When I mentioned loving the author Enid Blyton as a child the room cheered!  She had clearly also been on all of their childhood reading lists!

Thank you to all the audiences, tellers and new friends I have met over the last few months.  It is because of you that I am having such a wonderful time along the storytelling road.

Abundant blessings to you all!