“What’s your story?” is the first thing you see on the home page of the Tucson Festival of Books.  Their tag line is “where words and imagination come to life”.

Arizona storytellers will be spinning their tales on Saturday and Sunday, March 13 and 14, at the Storytelling Stage providing a story sampler of multicultural tales for families to enjoy. Glenda Bonin is the coordinator and Ron Lancaster will be the Master of Ceremonies for the show.  Some of the talented performers from local storytelling  Tucson Tellers of Tales will be Ray Hyde, Gil Payette, Anne Lee and Pearl Zimmerman and lots more.

Tim Tingle, a renowned Choctaw storyteller who has performed in festivals throughout the U.S. and the world, will lead a workshop for educators on how to tell stories to children and to invite children into their own storytelling. Tim will also share how he tells historical and traditional stories, accompanying himself on the flute and singing Choctaw songs to the rhythm of a drum.  You can catch him from 2:30 to 3:30 on Sunday in the Education Building, room 333.

When I did a search on “storytelling” on the Festival website, I also came up with “Women Searching (In Storytelling)” featuring authors Meg Waite Clayton and Michelle Richmond, moderated by Laura Penny.  This event is from 2:30 to 3:30 on Saturday in the Chemistry Building, room 134.

Hundreds of authors will be on hand for readings, signings, panel discussions from 9:30 to 5:30 on both days. In addition to the author events there are nearly 200 exhibitors along the UA mall and food vendors as well.

They expect 50,000 people to this free event and all proceeds will be used to promote literacy in Southern Arizona through the Tucson Festival of Books Foundation, a 501c (3) nonprofit organization.  Last year at the inaugural event they donated $200,000 to Literacy for Life Coalition, Reading Seed and the University of Arizona. The Festival of Books is sponsored by the Arizona Daily Star and hosted and organized by The University of Arizona.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 8:44 am and is filed under Arts. Tags for this post: Glenda Bonin, Literacy for Life Coalition, Meg Waite Clayton, Michelle Richmond, Reading Seed, storytelling, Tim Tingle, Tucson Festival of Book, Tucson Tellers of Tales, University of Arizona. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.