Resources

The Center for Children's Books have put together a collection of websites, Storytelling Websites, pertinent to the art and practice of storytelling.

Storytelling, the language art that pre-dates written history, is now served by two organizations, both headquartered in Jonesborough, Tennessee where the American storytelling revival was jump-started by the first National Storytelling Festival in 1973.

The success of that first festival led to the founding of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS), which changed its name to the National Storytelling Association (NSA) in 1994.

In 1998, NSA, in an effort to better serve the needs of the diverse storytelling community, divided into two separate organizations, National Storytelling Network (NSN) and the International Storytelling Center (ISC).

Both organizations are dedicated to advancing the art of storytelling - as a performing art, teaching aid, and cultural transformation process. Both SFI and NSN jointly own the annual National Storytelling Festival, and ISC produces the event.

NSN is a member driven organization, with a Board of Directors elected by members from seven regions across America. It offers direct services, publications and educational opportunities to several thousand individuals, local storytelling guilds and associations. These services are designed to improve the quality of storytelling at all levels - in entertainment venues, in classrooms, organizations, medical fields and wherever storytelling can make a contribution to quality of life.

Here are free resources for storytelling (or story telling)—including the acclaimed series Gifts of Story—all from children's author Aaron Shepard. (For additional stories, see Aaron's Storybook.) Enjoy the magic of story!

OUR OBJECTIVES :

Promote the craft and skills of storytelling.
Offer opportunities, resources, workshops, coaching, accreditation for storytellers.
Provide a forum for storytellers to share skills.

This handbook on storytelling offers hints to anyone who is interested in telling stories. You'll have to learn for yourself what works for you. You'll need to develop your own storytelling style. These suggestions are offered as a means of beginning your journey into the wonderful world of storytelling.

Subscribe to Musings, a monthly newsletter with thoughts and ideas about the art of telling tales.

Storycraft publishing is a narrow niche independent publisher producing books, periodicals, and electronic materials for young storytellers.

The Center for Story & Symbol offers continuing education seminars on the psychology of fairy tales, mythic stories, creativity, and movies as mythic imagination. Presented at an introductory level, these courses are not just for psychotherapists. They are open to all those interested in archetypal perspectives.

The Endicott Journal of Mythic Arts - An online journal for the exploration of myth, folklore, and fairy tales, and their use in contemporary arts.

August House is an independent publisher based in Atlanta, Georgia. They have a strong focus on the storytelling aspect of reading, i.e. not only the quality of the story as literature but the story as spoken.

The August House homepage has links to their Learning Center which includes Lesson Plans for many of their books, Story Cove (a collection of animated stories), and other resources.

It is so delightful when you find someone who has written a piece on an issue which you might have been mulling over and find that they have written about it much better than you ever could have.

One of the issues motivating the establishment of Through the Magic Door has been to try and counteract the very large volume of unremittingly negative children's books that have come out in the past couple of decades. Some of these are wonderfully well written. Many have been award winners. But there are so many and they are so dark.

It makes you want to take up arms - Optimists of the World Unite!

I have just discovered an author, Barbara Feinberg, who has written a delightful piece which is an exploration of why our children are being burdened with all these negative novels. Please take a look at her article, Reflections on the "Problem Novel" which is adapted from her book, Welcome to Lizard Motel.

With her delightful essay, I can safely point to her words and restrain myself from ranting.

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean -
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

and

The limerick's callous and crude,
Its morals distressingly lewd;
It's not worth the reading
By persons of breeding -
It's designed for us vulgar and rude.