March is here and with it the beginning of Women’s History Month. And here in our sphere the start of the month means we’re just a couple weeks away from the fifth annual Women’s Storytelling Festival!
The Festival will bring together twenty-one of the country’s most outstanding female storytellers. You can read all of their bios here. In the run-up to the start of this momentous gathering, we’ll also be publishing a series of posts to get a little insight into the amazing women who will grace our stages in Fairfax, VA and on Zoom.
I asked each of our tellers two questions:
Question 1: What sort of stories do you usually tell, and for what audiences?
Question 2: What can you tell us about what you’ll be presenting at the festival?
Here’s what our first batch of tellers had to say…
Rosemary Cipriano
1. I tell stories that my middle school self would die of embarrassment at. My stories are of course deeply personal, but I love to take a relatively challenging or intense experience and find the humor in it. Storytelling is partially my therapy – and that has been therapist approved.
2. I will be telling a story about a recent experience where I found myself – a 30 year old woman – walking in the shoes of someone twice my age for nearly a year. As they say, life comes at you fast, and it certainly did for me.
__________________________________________________________________
Jane Dorfman
1. I tell a lot of Celtic stories, I tell folk and fairy tales, and some literary stories. Since telling Northern Ireland I am always looking for stories from America to share over there. I also do personal stories and ones I just make up. One of these I’ve gotten published. I have lost several Liar’s Contests. I tell mostly for adults at this point, but occasionally with pleasure for kids in a school or library setting.
2. I am telling as Calamity Jane. She is a character I am fascinated with and have done a lot of research on. The facts are hard to pull out, Jane was known to be a fabricator of stories, didn’t seem to let the truth stand in the way of a good story –my kind of person. And the dime novel writers of her day made up all kinds of stories christening her The Heroine of Whoop-Up.
Bonnie Gardner
1. I almost always tell true, personal stories — humorous or more serious — that I’ve developed for a mature audience. As a former journalist, I wrote about other people, but in storytelling I turn the spotlight on my own experiences.
2. I’m going to be sharing a spooky story at the festival. It also happens to be a true story. It still gives me chills, so I hope it does the same for the audience.
Andrea Kamens
1. I tell for all ages, from babes in arms to honored elders. I specialize in telling tales inclusive of kids and adults with special needs and who are neurodivergent. My stories are original, traditional, first-person, Jewish folk and sacred, and a weaving of genres, told in-person and online.
2. I’ll be presenting a traditional-ish tale, going into the classic Russian forest, deep and dark and full of teeth. And I won’t quite be myself in the telling.
Aimee Snow
1. I usually tell stories from my journey to parenthood or my insane former job….to anyone who will listen.
2. It involves 2 different bodily fluids but it’s not gross.
Check back shortly for our next installment of answers!
In the meantime – GET YOUR TICKETS! You don’t want to miss this festival.
