Esther Martinez, Tewa Storyteller, Rest in Peace

Esther Martinez, also known as P'oe Tswa (Blue Water), was a storyteller and linguist of the Tewa language spoken in the Pueblos of New Mexico. At 94 years old, she just received the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement. Driving back home from the ceremony in Washington DC, she was killed in a car accident last Saturday by a suspected drunk driver.

You can hear audio recordings of her stories at the NEA web site here.

Washington Post obituary here.

Crackle Mountain

Crackle Mountain is a new blog from Australian storyteller Florence Forrest.

It features her re-tellings of Asian folktales, gorgeously illustrated with images of Asisan artwork. Florence cites her sources for both the stories and the artwork, and fills us in on some folklore to help give the stories some context.

I hope she keeps it up!

Stories for Storytellers: SOS - Searching Out Stories

I realized that Jackie Baldwin's Searching Out Stories web site is also hard to find, if you're not in the know. So I'll add my review here.

SOS - Searching Out Stories has stories for storytellers.

If you are a storyteller who needs a story-- and if you're a teacher, a minister, a camp counselor, a librarian, a toastmaster, a parent, or anyone who needs a story-- this web site is an excellent resource.

This unique, comprehensive archive has been growing for the past eight years. It contains references to hundreds of categories and thousands of stories, suggested by professional storytellers, librarians and teachers from all around the world through the Storytell listserv at Texas Women's University and independent research. You'll find full stories, abridged stories, book references, and descriptions of actual experiences and helpfpul hints in telling these tales at an event or using them in the classroom or at home with your own children or grandchildren.

Jackie has added a Google search interface to the site as well, so you can find just the stories you need, whether you're looking for stories about tigers or mosquitos, or need stories about truth, or strength, or marriage, or if you need help finding tales from a particular culture.

Now, you won't find the entire story usually... you'll often just get the "bare bones" - but if you're a storyteller, you can flesh it out. And the book references are helpful (in combination with your local library). Some of the categories are thin, but the site is a continuing work in progress.

In 2006, Jackie Baldwin was awarded the National Storytelling Network's Distinguished National Service Award for her work in maintaining the site.

Stories for storytelling

Best Online Resource for Storytellers: Storytell

When you ask around the U.S. storytelling community about the best online resources, the answer you get most often is Storytell (Although Jackie Baldwin's SOS "Save Our Stories" quickly gaining in reputation).

The surprising thing is that is you were to Google "storytelling" or "storytelling resources" or "storytelling community" you won't find it in the first five pages. I suppose that's because it is usually linked to under it's own name, "Storytell" with the description "a forum for discussion about storytelling."

If you Google "Storytell," of course, its home page comes up first... but how many new storytelling fans are going to Google that word if they've never heard of it?

One reason Google overlooks it: it's not a Web page. Storytell is an email list, started in 1995, and hosted by Texas Women's University.

All persons interested in storytelling are invited to participate: professional storytellers, amateur storytellers, people concerned with the rich history of storytelling, people who enjoy listening to stories, and those who speculate about the place of storytelling in the 21st century. The list reflects viewpoints from around the world of issues and topics concerning the storytelling community. STORYTELL serves as a source of information on conferences, workshops and events as well as a place to ask (and answer) questions about the origins and variations of stories, the business of storytelling, or organization of storytelling events.

With more than 500 members on the list, it's a great way to get advice from storytellers, producers, and listeners in the field.

My advice: if you sign on to the list, choose digest format for a while. That will limit your emails to one a day. The list can generate two or three or four dozen postings a day.

It has an an archive, which, sadly, is not accessible via the Web. You have to use the list's majordomo commands, which means the primary means of searching is by date... not by keyword or author.

Still, if you have a storytelling question, there are usually lots of people who will respond and point you to web resources, books, or even local and regional contacts.

And, let's see if a link here will help boost its Google rank:

Learn about storytelling: Storytell.

Storytell, the best online resource about storytelling

Storytelling on YouTube

According to today's Guardian, YouTube is sending out 100 million videos a day to Web viewers. Fully 3.9% of everything zipping around the Web are videos from YouTube, making it the most popular site on the internet.

I'm not a fan of internet video. It's too small, and too blurry. And storytelling doesn't translate well to video in the first place.

But storyteller Tim Ereneta has created a place on YouTube to showcase The Ancient Art of Storytelling. He's found folktales, footage of traditional tellers in Asia, a few contemporary practicing storytellers, and some spooky stories from around the campfire.

Some of the campfire stories are really dark.

Not scary and morbid dark: I mean literally, it's like watching black rectangle for three minutes.

Podcast: Activated Storytellers

The Activated Storytellers are a family of performers who have been on the road practically forever telling stories through drama.

Now they've got a podcast! In addition to stories, you get to hear the backstage news. Great audio quality. Nice to hear the interplay of different voices among the family. And their stories have that same quality of Old Time Radio. This would be a good resource for schools, both those that have booked the Activated Storytellers, and those that haven't.

Youth Storytelling

tyler&chris1.jpg, originally uploaded by storycast.

Someone, presumably Elizabeth Rose, has posted photos at Flickr from the 2006 National Youth Storytelling Showcase in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. You can see the next generation of storytellers here, at the storycast photo page.