The Heart of Storytelling

Rachel Hedman competed in storytelling as a sophomore high schooler in 1994. Everything went wrong with her first telling, and she considered quitting. By senior year, she received 5th in State (Wisconsin) for Storytelling. Rachel launched the BYU Storytelling Club as a freshman; it earned the Service Award. She became the first recipient of the J.J. Reneaux Mentorship grant from the National Storytelling Network, training with Don Doyle. For 15 years, Rachel mentored California high school tellers and received the Arne Nixon Storytelling Award from them. She has been Youth, Educators, and Storytellers Alliance Co-Chair, National Youth Storytelling Showcase Board Member, and Utah Storytelling Guild President. Rachel received the national ORACLE Award for service and leadership in the Western Region and the Karen J. Ashton Award for storytelling service specifically in Utah. For eight years, she served the WSU Storytelling Festival, became Storyteller Chair, and started the Annual Youth Teller Reunion. Meanwhile, she completed her Storytelling Masters from East Tennessee State University. The adoption folktales thesis was defended two days before adopting two boys with her husband, Casey. They have since adopted a girl. She kickstarted Story Crossroads, a Salt Lake county storytelling festival in 2016 and continues to expand it with the dream of an Olympic-level six-day event called World Story Crossroads no later than 2030. Currently, Story Crossroads holds year-round events from live to virtual shared in the form of performances, workshops, camps, and trainings for youth to adults. Go to Story Crossroads at http://storycrossroads.org.

Louise Gwenneth Phillips is a professional storyteller, coach, consultant, teacher, researcher, author and honorary Associate Professor in the School of Education, The University of Queensland. Her research and publications focus on story(tell)ing, children’s rights and citizenship, arts and rights-based pedagogies and methodologies (see https://louptales.education/publications/).She is particularly enchanted by the lore of everyday folk which have been told from person to person across generations and millennia. To hold and embrace this wisdom, Louise crafts global folktales into hankies and scarfs, so you can keep the wisdom of the story close to you.Email: louise@louptales.education

Having told stories since 1973, storytelling has played a major part in her life and has taken Liz to five continents. Recently she attended the Marrakech International Storytelling Festival  with 100 tellers from 33 countries where she took part in the successful attempt to break the World Record for the longest continuous oral  storytelling session - 80 hours and 35 minutes.https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2025/01/165264/marrakech-breaks-guinness-world-record-for-longest-storytelling-session/As she started telling stories in Belfast during our "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, a time when violence was raging on the streets, Liz learned how important the art of storytelling can be as it can encourage people to listen to each other. Listening to stories which may be very different from our own shows respect , and respect can lead to dialogue which can often lead to the peaceful resolution of conflict.She wrote an article about it here https://storynet.org/out-of-the-tunnel-and-into-the-light-of-peace/Liz is the Storyteller in Residence for a charity which promotes storytelling throughout Northern Ireland and her current focus is on training people from both sides of the Irish Border to tell stories - see https://www.armstory.org.uk/projects/border-talk-She does a lot of intergenerational storytelling, bringing our young people and elders together to promote this invaluable intangible art.  Storytelling is a living tradition and we must inspire our young people to continue the rich tradition. It celebrates cultural diversity and hence encourages communication between people of all backgrounds.For more information, see her website:Liz Weir – Storyteller | Writer

Christina Cairns is a visual artist/writer/performer/song-writer/storyteller.  She is a member of the Great Southern Storytellers and a frequent storyteller at their monthly story gatherings. She has told many stories to appreciative audiences in Denmark over the years.She is fascinated most of all by the power of story, the tales we tell ourselves, tales handed down generation to generation, and how these layers upon layers of story change across time, and shape us and the world we live in. She is inspired especially by fairytales, folklore and mythology, and likes to look at stories from new or different points of view, exploring the what-ifs and the if-onlys.There are no boundaries between the different aspects of her work; music and songwriting influence her artwork, poetry informs theatre ideas, theatre ideas bleed into visual works, and back again.  She is also just a little obsessed with books, creating small, hand made and hand stitched illustrated booklets of poetry and storytelling.Christina writes and performs original song/storytelling shows. Her three solo shows The Wolf Bride, Fables and Treesong have featured at the Denmark Festival of Voice and Brave New Works; Windborne, a co-production with writer Linda Bradbury, was featured at the 2019 Denmark Festival of Voice, and she has most recently written and performed The Descent of Persephone at the 2025 Denmark Brave New Works Festival, in collaboration with Silvia Lehmann, another member of GSS.Christina holds a Diploma in Graphic Design and BA in Theatre and Literature. She lives with her family on the beautiful south coast of Western Australia, in Denmark, a little town that lies between forests of magnificent Karri trees and the Great Southern Ocean.To contact, please email her at greatsouthernstorytellers@gmail.com

Silvia Lehmann – Storyteller, Theatre Director, Community Facilitator Silvia holds a BA (Hons) and Graduate Diploma in Theatre Directing, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne Australia (1995). She has lived in the small coastal town of Denmark in Western Australia for 17 years and regularly runs creative writing, acting, somatic movement and storytelling workshops. Silvia has facilitated many cross-artform community performance projects, including Living Testament (2016), The Fisherman and His Wife (2018), and The Spindle of Spoken Story, a 7-month storyteller development programme devised and delivered together with Nicola-Jane le Breton (2019). Silvia was playwright for Movementworks’ adaption of The Yellow Wallpaper (2011) and playwrighting coordinator/mentor on Feet First Collective’s Medusa (2024). Over 2023 Silvia worked on a concept of adaptation of the Baroque opera The Fairy Queen for Denmark Baroque. In 2023 Silvia created Great Southern Storytellers (GSS) together with Jeff Atkinson and Christina Cairns, telling traditional, mytho-poetic tales. GSS has run monthly storytelling circles in Denmark since November 2023, and holds regular storytelling workshops for the community.To contact her, email greatsouthernstorytellers@gmail.com

British-born Claire Hennessy is co-founder/producer of Six Feet Apart Productions, producing online and in-person storytelling shows and festivals. She was a recipient of a 2024 NSN Oracle Award. She’s a GrandSlam finalist at The Moth, the National Storytelling Festival, and West Side Stories. She was a featured teller at the 2024 St Louis Storytelling Festival, the 2021 and 2024 Women’s Storytelling Festivals and the 2023 Sacramento Valley Storytelling Festival. She helps organize the Bay Area Storytelling Festival and is a Board Member of the Storytelling Association of California. She’s performed on The Risk! Podcast, Better Said Than Done, Good Liar’s Club, Moonshine Stories, among others. She is hoping to find an agent for her humorous memoir before she is too old to go on a book tour.You can find out more about Claire at: Six Feet Apart ProductionsStorytelling Association of CaliforniaThe Bonkers Brit

Jeff is a storyteller from the edge of the known world or, if you prefer, a small town on the South Coast of Western Australia called Denmark.  He  runs a monthly community storytelling circle and is involved in running rights of passage ceremonies, in men's work and gatherings at which he has been known to tell a story or two.  Jeff has a keen interest in the intersection of story, myth and ritual.Jeff spent twenty years telling small stories with finely honed words often serving questionable ends.  Hitting middle-age and embarking on the inward journey that often begins at that time of life, he has come to understand that his calling is to spread bigger, grander stories in service of the goal of re-enchanting the world by re-kindling our imaginations.You can find out more about Jeff by emailing him at greatsouthernstorytellers@gmail.com

Vanessa is “London’s resident storyteller” her trailblazing story events for adults have led to a partnership with TimeOut Magazine, a TEDx talk in Stormont NI and many TV /radio performances. She’s founder and lead storyteller of Connection With Wonder (previously London Dreamtime) programming training and projects as well as very popular live events. She’s founder of Space for Storytelling a free crowdfunded support for London’s storytelling community.You can find out more about her on Instagram

Uncle Ken Jones, NAIDOC Male Elder & Proud Boandik ElderUncle Ken is founder of Bush Adventures, a family company that takes guests on personalised tours of the Limestone Coast, telling the stories of Boandik Country. He has He has dedicated over 50 years of his life to conservation efforts , including on the state Aboriginal Heritage Committee, which oversees and advises on the preservation and protection of Aboriginal sites and remains.Pulan the Spirit Bird and the Bunyip is the story he shares.info@bushrepair.com.auwww.bushadventures.com.auFacebook: Bush Adventures

Karmit’s work history spans diverse experiences, interests and competences from the healing arts, and the arts & crafts world. Her unique skill-set provides a deep perspective for transformational work, and in working with soul searching questions. Her studies encompass human ecology and earth healing modalities as well as energy healing systems and shamanic practices. Karmit is the founder of Earth speaks, an educational initiative combining earth energy work)and creative expression. Earth Speaks offers seminars and journeys, where people explore holistic connections to the landscape, build a renewed relationship with Place and experience its sacred aspects. Participants develop sensitivity to living systems in nature – cultivating an awareness of the wild, the unseen, and the conscious aspects of the earth.Her work explores the sacred sources of story in the realms of the imagination where everything is possible. She is passionate about creating new narratives that combine ancient, nature based thinking with contemporary forms and needs. She believes the Oral Tradition acts as a healing salve; helping us to stitch together our fragmented perceptions of the world.https://www.earth-speaks.net/IG earthspeaks https://www.instagram.com/earthspeaks/?hl=en

Jennifer Ramsay is a professional storyteller. She has told stories in more than 2,000 events including several international festivals. She also trains people in the art of storytelling.Jennifer is trained in Gestalt therapy, expressive arts therapies, Psychodrama and ecotherapy.She works with story medicine in private practice and as a group facilitator working creatively with stories in unique workshops, weaving tales with Gestalt therapy, psychodrama into the seasons of the year.The heartbeat of Jennifer’s stories is the rhythms of nature as the Celtic wheel of the year turns and the lunar cycles wax and wane. She is committed to using her creativity to help with the environmental policrisis that we are facing and is part of the global network of Earth Storytellers.She has a degree in Biological Sciences and is studying the ways of the Druids. She is fluent in English and in Spanish.Jennifer offers regular courses in her online school: Dancing with Death: Storytelling, Creativity and Ritual to talk about Death and Connect with Life. The Fairy Tale Journey; a year and a day through fairy tales.You can find links to the recordings of a selection of Jennifer’s story-based creative workshops hereHow to find her: Website of Story Arte www.storyarte.com https://www.storyarte.com/ Facebook Story Arte https://www.facebook.com/storyarte/ Facebook StoryArte https://www.instagram.com/storyarte/?hl=en Facebook Story Arte Online school on Teachable https://storyarte.teachable.com/ e-mail: info@storyarte.com

Fran Stallings is a lifelong storyteller who enchants audiences with her distinctive voice and music. A recovering biology professor, as “Earthteller” she specializes in stories of plants and animals, our ecosystems and the solar system. She performs nationwide and overseas at storytelling festivals, in schools and libraries, and on Zoom.Her website is franstallings.com

In this episode, I speak with U.S. storyteller Marilyn McPhie who has travelled internationally to tell stories. We share a love of ancestry and sharing family stories and dive into a rich conversation about this. We discuss working with people with dementia, running a storytelling organisation and being online and so much more.

Rachael Harrington is a storyteller whose work has taken her around the globe, presenting imagination infused performances and workshops in arts venues, schools, community settings, and as a guest lecturer at Rutgers University. She presents workshops, stories, and talks at conferences including The National Storytelling Summit, The American Association of School Libraries Conference, New Jersey Education Association, New Jersey Association of School Libraries, and New Jersey TESOL Conference. Publications: Storytelling Magazine, School LIbrary Connection, Voices Journal. Performance Highlights: The Sugarhill Children’s Museum of Art and Storytelling, The Uptown Arts Stroll, The Story Center at Mid-Continent Public Library. Member: The National Storytelling Network, The New Jersey Storytelling Network, North East Storytellers, Clutch Full Circle, StateraArts.Her website is here

Kelli Dunham is the nonbinary ex-nun storytelling nurse comedian so common in modern Brooklyn. Kelli has appeared on Showtime and the Discovery Channel, PBS Stories From the Stage, the Moth Mainstage, NPR, nationwide at colleges, prides, fundraisers, oh so many nursing conferences and even the occasional livestock auction. Kelli's award-winning but dubiously named Second Helping: Two Dead Lovers, Dead Funny was called "a love letter to the power of community" by the Bechdel Theater, and "drop dead funny" by Go Magazine, was featured in last year's Edinburgh Fringe and is touring internationally. Kelli was one of the faces of nonbinary fashion prominently featured in the recent New York Times piece on nonbinary people in the workplace. This is true even though no one before that time (or since) has ever accused Kelli of being fashionable. Kelli is the author of seven hilarious nonfiction books about not humorous subjects including puberty, grief and death and you can hear Kelli chat with an eclectic group of guests about these very subjects as well as LGBT health, caregiving, mutual aid, and knock-knock jokes on her forthcoming podcast Second Helping. Former NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio once called Kelli a show off. To her face.You can find her website here

Talia Levy is an emerging storyteller.She is a woman who follows the flame of passion and inspiration. She is in service to life, authenticity and harmony.She is a teacher of children, a way-shower for women and a guide for those exploring deep nature connection.Her depth and breadth of experience across these fields have found their co-habitation in Storytelling.Through the art of storytelling Talia explores the deep questions of belonging, connection and longing.Storytelling has given her a way to connect to her ancestry through the untold stories of women. She hopes to support others to find belonging through uncovering stories from their own ancestry.You can find her website here

Jamie J, Executive Director of First Person Arts, is an artist/activist using storytelling to build community and catalyze dialogue around important issues, especially those issues impacting the unheard. Brunson was named a 2022 NEA/ Delaware Division of the Arts Established Artist Fellow in Literature: Playwriting. Her creative body of work includes produced plays, published poetry and stories for the stage. She has brought storytelling to audiences across multiple platforms for over a decade, including: executive producer of two documentary films, producer of 12 annual First Person Arts Festivals of memoir and documentary art, host of WHYY’s Philadelphia Revealed Podcast (July 2024); WHYY’s Commonspace Radio Hour and Podcast series (2018), and COVID Stories – A Digital Memoir (2020). She is a Creator of FPA’s Applied Storytelling division where storytelling activities are customized to build communities. She serves as board, committee or steering committee member of: Strategic Planning Committee of Philadelphia’s Dept. of Behavioral Health & Intellectual Disabilities Services Engaging Males of Color Initiative; Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and Avenue of the Arts, ArtPhilly and Stories to Grow By. She has lectured at Bryn Mawr College, University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. She is currently working on a memoir and solo show.Brunson holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and BA from Temple University.

Jim Brulé is a transformational storyteller, end-of-life doula, and educator. Drawing on a blend of cultural, spiritual, and academic experiences, he brings a unique perspective to his work with advanced degrees in Family and Systems Therapy and Artificial Intelligence. Jim’s workshops explore themes of healing, multicultural wisdom, and end-of-life support. For over a decade, he has trained spiritual storytellers from a variety of traditions. Known for his collaborative spirit, Jim has co-developed and led dozens of workshops with storytellers worldwide.You can learn more at https://TransformationalStorytelling.org/ or jimbrule@gmail.com

In June 2025, I went to the Sydney International Storytelling Conference and had an incredible time. While I was there, I chatted with a bunch of great people and this mini-episode is the result of that. Adam Booth was the keynote speaker at this event, hosted by Australian Storytellers. You can find out more about it here.

Christine Carlton is an Australian Storyteller and Educator who has performed and facilitated workshops throughout Australia, New Zealand, USA and Asia. She loves how stories challenge, heal, entertain, inform, develop and delight both the tellers and the audience. For over 40 years Christine has conducted workshops with groups of children and adults, organisations, and lectured in Story and Drama in Education at the University of Western Sydney. She also provides individual coaching and mentoring for people keen to expand their storytelling skills. Christine has been the Convenor for all of the Weaving Stories Together - Sydney International Storytelling Conferences and is President of the Australian Storytelling Guild NSWaustralianstorytellers.org.au/christine-carlton