Adventures usually have a starting point, mine did. I was in the middle of my Theatre of the Air program at school with parents, and microphones and a buzz in the air when my principal popped in. Kimberly is a friend as well as my boss so she is always stopping in to see what is going on in my room. This time she stood at the door and beckoned me. Yes, beckoned me. She simply said, “Do you want to go to China with me?” I quickly nodded yes and then got right back to work.

Later that night I called her to ask if I had been in a daze or were we going to China. Indeed we were going with a group call Global Indiana. The trip was in March and we had much preparation to do. We were visiting a performing arts school in the southeast corner of China, and because of the work that I do, I would be telling stories and teaching American square and folk dance.

We attended meetings, I made photo albums, learned new dances and stories, gathered indigenous products such as local maple syrup, popcorn, flower seeds. Well, the list went on and on.

The week before the trip, I noticed a nagging back ache. A quick trip to the Dr. and a pocket full of muscle relaxers and I was good to go, or so I thought. The flight over was very painful and on the first day of touring I fell and finished off the disc in Beijing. The story goes on for pages at this point, the hospital, trying to get home, how I did get home, surgery and recovery.

The disappointment was huge for me. I never got to the school and had to send my gifts with Kimberly. I was able to tell stories via cell phone as they amplified my voice to the students. Of course, I could not see their faces, I had to wait for the translator, and I choked tears back the entire time.

My spring schedule was dismal. No school. No storytelling. No travel. No gardening, sweeping, bending, cooking…

Fortunately I have an optimistic spirit that rose rather quickly. I could walk, I was no longer in a wheel chair, and I had friends and family that took care of my needs night and day. I was encouraged to walk as much and as far as I would like.

As a columnist for four county newspapers in Northern Indiana I wondered how I would continue to keep my writing fresh, creative and interesting from the confines of my house and the few blocks within my recovery area. Well, the library is only three blocks away, the courthouse a few more, the local coffee shop on the way, yes, I could make this work.

I got a hold of a friend of mine, Peg Dilbone, who is our county historian as well as a great friend. She always helps me with research when I am writing community shows, and other projects. I really needed her now. I spoke with my editor and shared my thoughts with him. Lucky for me, he is a fan of my writing and thought my readers would love the change. I would research my town and share local history for the next two months, and that is what I did.

In Angola, Indiana, my town, we are currently under a revitalization plan. New brick streets, more landscaping and street lamps to bring back the old town. On the first Monday of my new writing project, the men working on the job unearthed railroad ties from the center of town. I took hold of that one gem of knowledge and my research began.

In the early days I had to walk with an old sassafras cane, not wanting a metal walker. I used that cane to walk to our Carnegie Library, our courthouse and everywhere else I needed to go. I was really working on two problems at the same time…growing stronger and learning more and more history.

I found out as much information and possible on the old railroads, which ended up as a two-part story. I researched our founding fathers Thomas Gale and William Gilmore who came to northern Indiana when all was described as a ‘thicket’ to start their Spiritualism colony. These two men eventually gave the money and the land for the square and the courthouse making Angola the county seat. I knew all the city street names already, but did not know they were named for these men and their wives.

I researched the school, the courthouse, the first general store, the old Buck Lake Ranch, my street, the McClue reserve (using his diary), the stagecoach line, and the Underground Railroad. I learned of nicknames for streets and alleys such as Pig Tail Alley in Orland. I learned and visited of the grave of a small child buried on the wagon trail one day when the towering oaks whispered stories that no one knows anymore.

One day I had a call from the caretaker of Circle Hill Cemetery. She invited out to the Gale Mausoleum one cool day in May. With my sassafras cane, I meandered down the grassy hill and into the quiet depths of history. She showed me maps and blueprints from the 1800’s and sent me home with duplicate copies and stirring thoughts in my head.

My phone lines and Internet lines have been full of folks wanting to add to my stories or wanting more information. Town’s people, who have loved the stories, stop me on the street. I have charts and maps and field notes strung across the archives of my small library.

From a ruptured disc in China to finding out who we are and how did we get here has enamored my community and me as well. It has brought us together along with the major transformation of the downtown. This research is leading to performance pieces and I see a children’s book about the Pig Tail Alley and the Underground Railroad.

In the end, it is all about story; it is just all about story.

The IHS and Storytelling Arts of Indiana recognize that the medium of storytelling engages Hoosiers in a way that textbooks and many history classes cannot. To reach as wide an audience as possible with the latest Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories creations, the IHS and Storytelling Arts make funds available each year for up to four (non-profit) institutions to off-set the costs of inviting a storyteller into their community as well as assist in the marketing of these programs. The IHS and Storytelling Arts pay half the presenter fee ($250), while the hosting institution pays the other half plus mileage expenses.

Limited funding opportunities are still available for the story “Root Doctors, Midwives, and Fried-Mouse Pie: Medicine in Early Indiana” by Sue Grizzell. It tells the fascinating story of early Hoosier medicine. Whenever ill or injured, the inhabitants of the Old Northwest Territory and early Indiana were subjected to all manner of medical treatments. Ranging from the common-sensical to the bizarre, these treatments sometimes worked but could often be fatal.

Early Hoosiers only occasionally had access to doctors. They mostly lived in isolation, faced economic uncertainty and practiced self-sufficiency as much as possible. Families learned what they could from the doctors they encountered, but, using folk remedies, ended up doing much of their own doctoring. Modern science has proven some folk remedies effective, but Hoosiers had to be tough to survive many of these so-called cures. Using materials from the IHS Collection and beyond, storyteller Sue Grizzell will share the stories of these early Hoosiers and their efforts at curing their families’ ailments.

Sue Grizzell has told stories most of her life. She is a past recipient of the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship (2001), has collaborated with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and her 2002 story “Porch Swings and Prairie Wings” is also part of the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories series. In previous incarnations she has been an actress, a carpenter and 2009 Coordinator of the IndyFringe Festival’s FringeNEXT.

Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories is co-sponsored by the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana, Inc. For more information on this program or how to bring this story to your community in 2007, contact Erin Kelley (Indiana Historical Society) at (317) 234-3161 or ekelley@indianahistory.org or Ellen Munds (Storytelling Arts of Indiana) at (317) 576-9848 or ellen@storytellingarts.org.

My initial entry into the storytelling community took place in the early 1990s when I attended a Connecticut Storytelling Festival. I was stunned by the impact of people standing on a stage stripped of scenery, wearing street clothing, yet captivating the audience with a wide variety of stories. It was as if a door had been thrown open so I might hear of the wisdom and foolishness, humor and joy of humanity.

Within a few years I was brash (and naive) enough to attempt to produce an outdoor festival in my hometown. As I scrambled for funding, I was advised to approach the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund in New Haven. Assured that my idea was interesting enough for the Fund to consider contributing, I set off to make my case. Riding up in the elevator I silently said a prayer they would understand importance of storytelling. The doors opened and on opposite wall I saw a painting of a Storyteller Doll and the quote; “The storyteller figure symbolizes the values of the Memorial Fund —educating, supporting and inspiring our children.”

It was the visual answer to my prayer.  The Fund did indeed contribute to the production of the Doggone Storytelling and after reading the history of the Fund’s creation it made sense to invite Bill Graustein, the senior trustee and son of the man who founded the Fund, to tell a story.

Bill accepted my offer and, in a demonstration of great daring, this geophysicist-turned-philanthropist told a Sunday morning audience the story of his father and a Harvard classmate, Amos White. His story was both powerful and touching but it was only later that I realized Bill had recognized the potential of storytelling to fuel genuine community change and connection.

During the past 16 years and Bill and I have forged a working relationship that I deeply value. He has used his position in the nonprofit community to provide those in agencies and organizations opportunities to learn stories to both sustain themselves and inform the world of their work.

Not the least of his projects is the creation of the Community Leadership Program, a year-long journey of discussion and study to fuel new ways of supporting healthier communities and families. Based in New Haven, CT, it has attracted, but is not limited to people working in the area, including government and secular agencies. The core value of the program is learning to tell and listen to stories as an avenue for addressing issues such as social disparity, race, and economic inequality.

This year will is the beginning of the seventh group, Cohort #7, and it will meet one afternoon each month until May of 2009. The group is small, numbering about 20 people with a variety of backgrounds, races and ages. The common theme is seeking to better know each other and share support for their organizations.

Membership is open to anyone working in nonprofit or government work, with an application process to assure a mixture of representatives. I was fortunate to be accepted as a member of Cohort #5. I was one of the few not employed by or leading a non profit agency, however, my work often brings me into that world and I was eager to lean which issues the most are challenging.

Being a part of the Cohort gave me the opportunity to hear about the stresses and successes of the agencies face. As a storyteller it was a monthly opportunity to watch individuals discover their stories and learn how they reflect their lives and the work they do in the world.

Most storytellers are born with their tongues hinged in the middle and I sometimes struggled to not use my ‘storyteller voice’ to point out metaphors, illustrations and connections. The stories were nascent, tender and tightly budded, coming from deeply rooted experiences and told by a person often astonished by the memory that suddenly clamored to be heard.

Unlike what I experienced in storytelling guilds these people were not working on material for performance or recording. It was their initial foray into a world set free of goals and results, using thoughts unleashed from careful editing. Sometimes it would be almost a fully formed story, but more often a tendril of memory needing protection and cultivation. The process was multi-layered; learning about how and why stories work, and where their own stories fit in the development of who they have become.

As the months passed, our group began to be aware that we needed to talk about issues of race. A few older African American members shared extraordinary stories of such bitterness pain and fear that they were difficult to hear. They described worlds that I had read of, seen depicted, but never knew on a personal level. The tellers and listeners alike staggered under the weight of grief, anger and a genuine bewilderment as to how change might ever be possible. Finally there was a moment when a white person gave voice to a question that had hovered over us for weeks; what did they want from us?

It felt as if the very air in the room evaporated. An African American woman stood ramrod straight and said, “We want you to know. We don’t want you to feel guilt or pity. We want you to listen and recognize that even if some things are better in lots of ways it is the same. There are so many times when a look, a change of position, a tone of voice carries a message that there is no trust, there is no respect and there is no sense of believing us fully human.”  In an instant we were collectively forced to consider just how conscious were we, really? When might we might have stepped forward to be counted but did not? It was painful and raw for everyone, but beneath the weight of the sorrow and confusion the we instinctively leaned against our shared personal stories to withstand the explosive impact of her words. For me it was a revelation, completely changing how I move through the world. My perspective has shifted and I strive to ensure the tone of my voice, my position, and my presence reflects my respect and trust because that is the right thing to do, for all of us.

Because the foundation for our Cohort was the telling of and listening to stories we were collectively able to acknowledge both our differences and our shared desire for change. We had all witnessed each other plumb the depths of personal experiences and paint pictures on personal maps where life and spirit intersected. In doing so we created the collective courage and the patience to address the issues that are most critical to the world we all strive to see become real.

It has been two years since I shared that time of stories and learning. I feel it was one of the most intense examples of story in action I have ever experienced. Our connections endure tangibly and spiritually. The work the CLP supports is a genuine illustration of how stories and their capacity to support change and understanding.

For twenty years my career was in geophysical research – I was trying to understand better how the physical world worked. I’d collect samples of dirt (I’ve dug holes in 44 states) and airborne dust, analyze them for things most people have never heard of, and try create pictures in my mind of how invisibly small bits of dust would move through the atmosphere across thousands of miles and come back to earth a state, or a continent, away from where they originated. These mental pictures, in turn, helped create a clearer understanding of how both natural materials and pollutants are carried by the wind and affect our environment and our lives.

Fifteen years ago when I was in my forties, a surprising amount of money came, without much warning, to a charitable foundation that my Dad had started and named in memory of his brother. I was also named after my uncle, so this change in the Memorial Fund’s assets felt like a responsibility and an opportunity. I had the chance to figure out what charitable work the Memorial Fund could take up that would be a fitting memorial to Dad and his siblings, all of whom came of age at the turn of the last century when the world was a different place. I also had the chance to imagine something that would make me really want to get out of bed every morning.

I talked with many different people to plan the work of the foundation. They shared not only their professional opinions and judgments, but also often shared part of the story of their careers. Some of those stories laid next to my memories of the stories Dad had told about the time when he was young. To my surprise, those two sets of stories started talking to one another. I started to see the images in the familiar family stories very differently than I had as a child. I had remembered them as Dad’s explanation of how things were, but I now saw them as examples how my Dad came to see the world, and its possibilities, as he did. I used to treat the stories like enduring scientific facts, but now their meaning seemed to keep changing. One of the stories, in particular, wouldn’t lie still. I felt as if it was tugging at my sleeve, telling me it wasn’t finished and asking me to look at it again.

One day I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when a stranger called.
“Hi. My name is Catherine Conant. . . I’m producing a storytelling festival. Would you like to be a teller?”

“I don’t know anything about telling. I haven’t been on a stage since the eighth grade Christmas Pageant.”

“I can coach you.”

I felt Dad’s story tug at my sleeve again and said, “Yes.” Over the next month working with Catherine, it became clear that, although my ‘data set’ of ‘what happened’ was unique, the process of making meaning of it, and seeing how it might fit with many different patterns of people’s experience, was universal. Once Catherine showed me how to look for stories among my own memories, I began to listen more closely for other’s stories. Working with organizations – with people and their stories – took more and more of my attention. Within a couple years, it became clear that a shift in career had snuck up on me and that it was time to quit my job as a research scientist.

As I worked with many New Haven nonprofit organizations in and their leaders over the next half dozen years I became more and more confused. I carried an expectation from doing science that I could put little bits of information together to form a picture of a whole. I found that was much more difficult for me to do when the starting materials were abstract mission statements and program descriptions than when they had been rocks that I could touch or dirt I could dig in. I could not see the vision of the future. My confusion grew until I had to do something about it.

I drew up a list of twenty people I respected, from all across the nonprofit sector – agency executives, community volunteers, foundation staff officers, individual donors – invited them each to share a meal and asked each of them the same two questions: What is your vision for what you want to accomplish? What gets in your way?

I heard over and over in these conversations that people wanted to work in cooperation with others for the common good of the community – to be a part of something larger and more significant than themselves, but that they found that was difficult in the culture of their town.

In many different ways people also said that they often felt a disconnection between their values and their work; that they wanted to find a way to express that which was most important to them more fully in their jobs. It sounded like they were looking for an opportunity, away from the press of daily responsibilities, to renegotiate the connection between their hearts and their heads; between their sense of self and the role that they played in their jobs.

I was surprised by how much yearning I heard in these conversations – these were all people whom I looked to as leaders. I expected a series of more practically oriented responses – more about the things the people did, wanted to do, or didn’t do – but I heard people talking about their being, rather than their doing. It was also clear that the yearnings were more than desires for personal fulfillment. It was as if people were saying, “Working alone I can’t create the future I want for our community.”

These themes came up so often that the question “How could we work together better?” felt urgent. I started a workshop series, calling it the Community Leadership Program, CLP for short, to see if we could find an answer to that question. I brought in some skilled colleagues to help lead the workshops, but I also took a part in leading them, because I felt that I had to be part of living into that question.

CLP is now in its seventh year and more than 130 people have taken part; the energy and interest in the program seem to still be growing. Story and listening for story have been a central part of the program since it started and we’ve learned much along the way.
A third broadly held yearning has become clear: to have a courageous and creative conversation across various boundaries of difference, including race and class. Story can shape how we, as a community, hold this conversation and the stories that come from this conversation will, in turn, shape the future of our community.

New Haven is a diverse community; people with many different life experiences make up the city. The conceptual words we use to describe our experience are based on our memories of what we saw and felt. The same conceptual words can evoke very different experiences for different people. If we gather and talk in abstract terms misunderstanding can quietly open the door and join us before we recognize it. Once misunderstanding has opened the door, mistrust can sneak in behind it. Fear, guilt and anger wait outside in the shadows.

We’ve found that when we start a gathering with story and describing the things we’ve seen, the conversation follows a different path and different guests arrive: respect, curiosity and hope.

As part of a weekend retreat at the beginning of CLP we ask participants, in pairs, to take turns describing to each other a place they remember fondly from childhood and some of the things that happened there.

We then ask what it was like to take a turn listening to other’s memories. Here are some of the responses:

•  I got a vivid picture. It was fun. We explored similar memories. I was fighting the urge to take over with my story.
• It was rare to feel open to a story of a live human being.
• I could feel the warmth, exhaustion, calmness of evening and the loss of the passing of summer.
• I liked seeing the smile as my partner went into another world.
• I made my mind blank, then my partner’s words filled it with color and smells.
• I was taken by the similarities and wanted to make a connection.

We asked people what it was like to share their memories:

• I didn’t think I had much to say – I was surprised by the generosity of the listener.
• I connected with layers of experience I’d not thought of. A real picture appeared in my mind.
• It is such a gift to have somebody listen.
• I thought I’d need a lot of words, but when I looked at her face, I saw I didn’t need them.
• I was worried that it wasn’t significant, but we found commonalities in the details.
• I began to stammer when I recognized class disparities – for the first time I recognized them in my own story.

It is as if the attention, respect, and appreciation that the partners silently convey as they listen invites the tellers to go beyond their familiar recollections and helps give them the courage to keep looking when they reach the edge of what is familiar and comfortable.

Salman Rushdie spoke to the relation of story, community and leadership, in a speech he gave at Columbia University after being in hiding for three years, “Maybe they’ll agree, too, that the row over ‘The Satanic Verses’ was at bottom an argument about who should have power over the grand narrative, the Story of Islam, and that that power must belong equally to everyone. That even if my novel were incompetent, its attempt to retell the story would still be important. That if I’ve failed, others must succeed, because those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.”

Leadership is, in large part, about thinking new thoughts – imagining a future day that is unlike the past or present – conveying a picture of that new day to others, and persuading and inspiring others to live into that vision.

The story that dominates our lives is often difficult to see – if we are immersed in it, it is hard to imagine other possibilities. How would a fish describe water? Both in facilitating CLP and in retelling my Dad’s stories, I’ve see how sharing stories can enable us to understand the past more fully and imagine a different and better future. My strong sense is that the power of story to change our vision grows as the diversity of experience of those in the story circle increases.

Storytelling is a fine, old tradition and for some a profession. When I was still new to the world of professional storytelling I was in graduate school in Madison Wisconsin. I was studying to be a children’s librarian and met other people who were seriously interested in storytelling as an art form, not just a way to hold people’s attention while you got them interested in books. Professional storytellers and other people interested in storytelling in the Madison area had formed a guild that met once month at someone’s house. During the meetings we got to practice stories we were polishing for public performance. We discussed the business aspects of storytelling. We collaborated on storytelling programs at large public events in and around our fair city.

The meetings were a wonderful forum in which to work on our craft. The comments we got from our fellow tellers were designed to help us improve. We were often inspired to find new material to work on at each monthly meeting. We shared public domain resources for traditional folk tales and other copyright free story materials. And best of all we wove a very strong sense of community among our peers.

When I moved to Indianapolis in 1984 there was NO storytelling guild! I asked around the public library about a guild and met Sandra Harris, another children’s librarian and professional storyteller. We both saw a need for a guild and combined our efforts. By 1985 our Hoosier Storytelling Guild was meeting at someone’s home once a month to work on our craft. Most of us were librarians, teachers and performance artists.

Within three years we had met Ellen Munds, Bob Sander and Nancy Barton who were not only serious about storytelling but were prepared to write grants in order to fund an annual storytelling festival in Indianapolis. We happily added our modest membership to what became Stories, Inc. and the rest is history (see earlier blog).

Today Storytelling Arts of Indiana does so much more than our early guild ever did to promote storytelling. We truly are fortunate to have such an organization at a time when the Arts need all the support they can get.

ONCE AGAIN you may attend meetings of fellow storytellers to work on your craft for FREE. Second Sunday Storytellers meets at public libraries from 2 – 4pm on, you guessed it, the Second Sunday of each month. Please spread the word to people you know who would be interested in working on their storytelling skills. Join Sandra Harris and me for the return of a fine, old tradition. For more details

It seems so simple: We sit in a circle and tell stories from our own lives. So how can it be that after every meeting of the As I Recall Storytelling Guild, I am awe-struck. Awe-struck and deeply satisfied, as if I’d just been sitting in my long-departed mama’s kitchen in Tennessee, eating her cornbread, dripping with butter?

I’ve been facilitating this guild for many years now. We meet the third Wednesday of every month at 2 p.m. at the Glendale Public Library. A few of us have told stories professionally, a few have taken a course in storytelling from Bob Sander, a few just listen, a few have come to listen and find a story alive in them that just must be told. There is no membership fee, no requirements, and anyone who shows up is welcome to tell a story.
  
My role is to welcome everyone and get the introductions started. Then I state the guidelines. 1) Stories must be from our own experience. 2) Once a story is told, listeners are welcome to respond with what we liked about the story or the telling. 3) Following the affirmations, the teller may ask for constructive feedback if he or she wishes. I then ask who came with a story to tell, and the fun begins!

Some stories are long, and from long ago. Some are short, simple and from last week! Some are funny, some heartbreaking, and many are both. We seem to have learned from one another how to tell difficult stories with humor and grace. Some are about being present at historical events, and some are about small, intimate moments. As the minutes tick by, the stories and the listening seem to deepen, and by the end, we all seem a little amazed by the spell that has been cast in our midst. Don’t ask me how it happens! I just know that it does and that I feel privileged to be holding the space for stories to happen.

So join us if you can! One of our regular attendees takes the day off from his job to attend. Shy people are especially welcome. We need listeners as much as we need tellers. That’s the third Wednesday of every month, 2 p.m., at the Glendale Public Library. We’ll be watching for you.

Frank and Katrina Basile have done a tremendous service in offering the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship. I was fortunate enough to be one of this year’s fellowship recipients, along with Josefa Crowe. I’ve been telling stories for the past four years at Riley Children’s Hospital and have done some telling at schools and churches. I’ve told a few short personal stories to adults, but preparing a 45-minute personal story for adults was like nothing I’d ever done before.

I found both the creative process and the performance to be exhilarating. Because the story I proposed was based on personal experience — my dogs — I didn’t need to travel or research outside of my home. But I did need concentrated time to craft the story, so I used the fellowship to spend a long weekend at a monastery where I had hours of silence for creative invention.

After crafting the story, I began working on its “telling.” It took nearly two months of rehearsal and refinement to get the story performance-ready. Knowing that I intended my story to be humorous yet poignant, I was wracked with anxiety by the fear that the audience might not find my dogs as funny as I did. Thanks to the good wisdom of some fellow storytellers, I found some willing rehearsal audiences who gave me the assurance that the story was, indeed, funny, but they also gave some valuable feedback about the narrative.

The night of the premiere, November 14, was a highlight in my life. To our surprise, at least 250 people were in attendance. Josefa opened the evening with her fascinating and powerful stories of her experience growing up in Germany under the Nazi regime. So impressed by her telling and her experiences, the audience rose to their feet at her conclusion. Then, I told my story of three poodles and their ignorant owners (my husband and me). I was delighted to hear the audience’s laughter and to learn that even a few tears were shed at the end.

The evening was rich in story for all involved, and we are indebted to Frank and Katrina Basile for making it all happen. I’m confident that my work as a storyteller will forever have changed because of the Emerging Stories Fellowship.

Over the years, I recorded people telling random family stories at reunions and special events. But when my mom grew ill with cancer, I sat down with both parents to deliberately record our family oral history. Mom knew she didn’t have much time and told her stories with the care of someone who is wrapping special presents to be opened at a much later date. It was not a sad process. She knew that my infant daughter Madeline would some day be old enough to appreciate hearing her grandmother’s voice.

For about 20 years after Mom died, I continued to record Dad’s stories. He never tired of telling about his childhood in Brooklyn, his experiences in World War II and his life with Mom. His repeated telling of some of these stories was evidence of how important they were to him. I didn’t mind. Listening was a way of showing that I cared about him.

I transferred the recordings to CDs and made copies for all of the families. In 2005, about a year before my dad died, my nephew Ben Stallings transcribed several hours of recordings. I edited the transcriptions into one large searchable MS Word document complete with a table of contents and references to the CDs and track numbers.

Both of my parents are gone now. But I can sit down and listen to them tell their stories. I hear my father’s deep voice talk about the heat of the South Pacific. I hear my mother’s gentle Midwestern accent as she tells about climbing an apple tree instead of taking her piano lesson. I am there with them. Their stories are alive for me, my children and generations to follow.

There is no doubt in my mind that recording family stories is important for preserving family history. But it is also an act of love when you sit down with someone you care about, turn on the recorder and really listen to them.

For more information on how to record family oral histories:
http://franstallings.com/Genealogy/Oguss/RecordingFamily.pdf

Ken Oguss
Professional Storyteller
Third Floor Recordings
TVOA@AOL.COM

As I listened to the performance of The Flame of Love: The Legend of Tristan and Iseult by Patrick Ball and the Medieval Beasts I felt as if I was experiencing a magic as close to time travel as is humanly possible. The Frank and Katrina Basile Theater might as well have been a medieval hall, for we were in the presence of a bard with a long, complex, and lavish story to tell. And with him were minstrels whose harps, psaltery, flutes, drums, and singing (in a variety of medieval languages) kept me entranced.

For many years, I have attended concerts of early music performers at the Early Music Festival put on by Indianapolis’s Festival Music Society. And as a member of Storytelling Arts from its beginning, I have attended numerous storytelling performances and festivals as well. As I listened to Patrick Ball and the Medieval Beasts, I felt a simple delight to have the two art forms brought together as they were meant to be. The old story and the music from the days when the story was first told were reunited at last.

I hope that this trio of performers is able to find many opportunities to perform The Flame of Love – and that they continue to work together for years to come so that they can bring to life other epic tales as well. I am glad to know that Shira Kammen and Tim Rayborn of the Medieval Beasts will be returning to Indianapolis next summer for the Early Music Festival to perform with the group Canconier on Fri, Jul 23. I am especially grateful to Storytelling Arts for bringing Patrick Ball and the Medieval Beasts’ performance of Tristan and Iseult to Indianapolis. The performance brought together story and music and united them as sweetly as two lovers, who for one afternoon, shared a timeless embrace.

Written by Liza Hyatt

lizah2@lizahyatt.com

www.lizahyatt.com

The month that I retired, I talked with Ellen and learned about the opportunity to take some free storytelling classes in preparation for telling stories to children at Riley Hospital. What a gift that has been to me. A chance to share stories that I love with sick kids who I hope will be caught up in them as well. And a real bonus in telling with another storyteller, learning and appreciating new styles and fresh stories, and sharing sources and just tidbits of our lives. We select one Wed evening a month, come and pick up our list of kids, and visit their rooms to give our invitations. “Hi! Is this _(name)_? We’re storytellers and we’d love to share a story with you.”

All this has been a delight, but the experience of storytelling in a hospital room has been a revelation to me. I expected sick children, and they are, and some turn-downs, and there are plenty of those, too. But I have discovered a few important things: that a story can be appreciated even when there is little physical response, that a child who feels too poorly to respond may still remember the story and retell it to family and enjoy it when s/he is feeling better, that the brothers and sisters and parents and Grandpas and Grandmas may need that story and that distraction as much as the child who is the patient, that we can all get through a story despite nurses checking vital signs and aides bringing in food and visitors popping in. (We’re done for, however, if the Magic Castle shows up. There’s no competing with that magic – and we’re happy for that!)

What do we “get” from our storytelling at Riley? Well, we get to share a good story and enjoy the telling of it. We get to bring some smiles, some heartfelt thank you’ s from family. We have a wonderful circle of storytelling friends. We have the hope always that we have eased for a few minutes a painful time for a child. And occasionally we have the heady thrill of hearing “Can you tell me another one”.

Storyteller Sue Lynch
sosterhaus4433@sbcglobal.net