Most of the storytellers you saw on the  storytelling stage at the Festival of Books were members of the storytelling network, Tellers of Tales (TOT).  Their website explains, “Branches of TOT are located in Tucson and Phoenix.  Storytelling is alive and well in Sierra Vista and Flagstaff although there are no TOT branches.”

The Tucson group usually meets on the first Saturday of every month at the Himmel Library, 240 South Treat, at 9:15 for some socializing and 9:30 for the program.  April is an exception because they’ll be telling stories at the Mini Time Machine – Tucson Museum of Miniatures for their program.  You do not have to be a member to attend their meetings.

Tellers of Tales members regularly tell stories at libraries, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, churches  and other places where storytelling is welcomed. Members also organize and participate in many local and community events.

Their website is a resource for other Arizona and national storytelling events and activities including the South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix.

“Once upon a time…there was a traveler between worlds, a wandering-wondering minstrel, a maggid of sorts, a high-energy professional storyteller…and his name was Jordan Hill.”

That’s how you’ll be greeted when you go to Jordan’s website. Not only is he a storyteller with specialties in astronomy and Jewish stories, he’s also an educator in Jewish studies & math, plays a number of instruments in jazz, rock & klezmer bands and can do it all in 3 languages!

His versatility is showcased in the range of offerings he has listed on his website: party storytelling, storytelling workshops, custom story creation, living history, group drama activities and group musical improv (jam sessions / drum circles).  He even has a weekly Jewish storytelling segment on “Too Jewish Radio”, on KVOI AM 690.

Tucson is now the home of this world traveler. Sheila Wilensky chronicled some of his history in her April 3, 2009 article in the Arizona Jewish Post. You might have caught him telling on the storytelling stage of the Festival of Books and you’ve got some other opportunities to see him in action coming up.  He’ll be performing at the following venues:

March 27, 1 p.m. –  Water Tales at The Water Project

April 10, 2 p.m.,  Green Tales for a Blue Planet: Old Stories to Guide our New Way with the World Biosphere2

April 11, 1 p.m., Wandering Animal Tales throughout the zoo, Reid Park Zoo

April 17, 11 a.m., Animal Stories for Earth Day: Reid Park Zoo

Be sure to stop and say hi from another story lover.

Author, storyteller, poet, teacher, and Poet Laureate of Kansas, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., will be in Tucson on a book tour this weekend and you might want to hear this dynamic and creative woman.  I spoke with Caryn on the phone yesterday.  She was in a coffee shop in chilly Lawrence, KS, I was home in sunny Tucson, just one of the reasons she’s excited about visiting our town.

Caryn is the founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College. According to their website,

Transformative language arts is a new and emerging academic field focused on social and personal transformation through the power of the written, spoken, or sung word. Drawing on all of the language arts, transformative language artists bring the language arts to community-building, cultural and ecological restoration, personal development, and many other areas of individual and collective liberation.

Transformative Language Arts  include storytelling, writing, theater, spoken word  – anything with words out loud and on the page.   Caryn is also a member of the Healing Story Alliance, a special interest group of the at National Storytelling Network, the purpose of which is to “explore and promote the use of storytelling in healing”

Caryn sees storytelling as one way to bring communities together.  She told me about an experience she had organizing a political  group of very diverse people.  The way the group found what action it made sense to take was when all 60 people told each other their stories.  It was a way to understand the motives and history of each other, dispelling prejudice and making the group more cohesive.

On her website there is a reference to Tikkun Olam, a tradition in Judaism stating that the world is broken and it’s our job to help repair it. According to My Jewish Learning it has “come to connote social action and the pursuit of social justice”.  According to Caryn, the way people make lasting transformations in their lives and heal the world is through story.  If people can learn from the stories they are living they can use storytelling and writing to change their lives for the better.

You can catch Caryn at the following venues for the next 3 days:

Friday, January 15 at 7 p.m., readings from The Sky Begins at Your Feet and Landed at Silver Bells Trader at 7119 N Oracle Rd, 520/797-6852.

Saturday, January 16 at 6 p.m., following Havdallah Service, “Finding the Sky That Begins At Our Feet As We Change and Age,” reading and ceremonial writing at Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Rd., 520/327-4501.

Sunday, January 17 at 10 a.m., “Landed: Poetry, Wonder and the Power of the Word to Land Us in Our Own Hearts,” at Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Rd., 520/327-4501.

Sunday, January 17 at 2 p.m., Harvest Y Courtyard (5th Ave. and University) “Coming Home to Earth, Sky, Body and Community: A Reading with Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Special Guest Jefferson Carter” sponsored by Sky Island Alliance.