New Year, New Start - getting there

Ho ho ho

Many things have happened this year and a few challenges and changes have come and gone.

Dwali, Halloween, Hanukkah, have passed by and Christmas and Kwanzaa are fast approaching. I have moved a lot of my website, blogging and email services around after having issues and find myself dancing between the old and the new as I try out these newer services. I have performed at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN and been invited, as a result, to two other large festivals! Under the Oaken Bough was published and released by Parkhurst Brothers in April, and my Gilgamesh CD won a gold awards from Parent's Choice the same month. One of my children went off to college, the other is getting through the last year of middle school (yikes)! A lot has been happening.
I guest hosted a few podcast episodes for Rachel Ann Harding's StoryStory Podcast, a wonderful show featuring some of the best traditional storytellers in the world. I have followed Ann's work for a while and have been to her workshop on podcasts and been working on my own. Her work is top notch.
http://storystorypodcast.com/

Working on the podcast!

A number of years ago we lost Brother Blue, then Diane Wolkstein, Sid Leiberman and some other storytellers and friends I have a great deal of respect for. Thinking on these losses, I wanted to create a podcast of interviews with some of the tellers who were part of the 1970's and early 1980's storytelling revival of the traditional art form. I am not interviewing those who tell personal stories, but instead those people who tell the old folk and fairy tales, myths, legends and yes, fractured fairy tales too. I interviewed the legendary Jay O'Callahan who really tells tales he has created himself, but I see these as fairy tales of a similar vein as Hans Christian Anderson. Jay is a master storyteller, a storytellers storyteller. As I have asked "who inspired you?" of some of the guests, it is more than once people have said - Jay!
Why do this, I have been asked by a few? 'There is such a small audience who might be interested in this what's the point?' The point is, for me, these people are walking libraries of folk tales. When they are gone we might have books and CDs, obituaries, reminisces, but no real idea of who these people are, what made them tick. I wanted to talk to these people and get their story in their own words and voices. To hear them laugh, and share thoughts and memories, ideals, wishes even. I know some of these people, some better than others. Some are my friends and mentors. Others I have only talked to via email - until the privilege of talking to them for these interviews. This will be a finite series. I have a list of people I want to talk to. I have already recorded Elizabeth Ellis, the Godmother of storytelling. Laura Simms, who some have called a shaman. Jay, Donna Washington, Megan Hicks and Papa Joe Gaudet. Bobby Norfolk and Odds Bodkin have said 'yes' to being interviewed, I am talking with Jim May and Tim Jennings, Diane Edgecombe and Elisa Pearmain in hopes to get their stories. All of these folks are "famous" or at least well-known and respected deeply in the world of storytelling. My list is much longer than here.

Performing at Jonesborough

I am creating this podcast through Buzzsprout and Patreon. Keep an ear out for it and let me know what you think. It's called "Conversations with Storytellers:  Wisdom, folk and fairy tales from our elders. A meeting with professional storytellers."
In this ever changing world there is and hopefully always will be great stories told by great people. My guests are some of our pioneers.

As the year winds down, I want to thank you all your support over the years, for reading, listening, booking me, sending me ideas and requests. Thanks for following me, sending me corrections for my website (I am very thankful for that!), and being one of my fans. All is greatly appreciated.

I hope this year has been as productive and exciting for you as it has been for me. And I hope great things happen for you in 2019, when it gets here!
Peace,
Simon