The 2022 Women’s Storytelling Festival STORYTELLERS!
Sheila Arnold, Noa Baum, Margaret Burk, Mary D’Alba, Lyn Ford, Heather Forest, Bonnie Gardner, Megan Hicks, Carol Moore, Miriam Nadel, Vijai Nathan, Laura Packer, Denise Page, Jessica Robinson, Susanne Schmidt, Ria Spencer, Jude Treder-Wolff, Diana Veiga, Kim Weitkamp, Cyndi Wish, and Andrea Young!
Bios of all the storytellers below.
Sheila
Arnold
Sheila Arnold has been gifted by God with performance skills; using this talent since she was eight years old. Since 2003 she has been a full-time storyteller traveling through the United States and sharing a variety of stories, as well as doing Historic Character Presentations, Christian Monologues, coaching and workshops. She is the co-Founder of Artists Standing Strong Together (ASST).
Noa Baum
Noa Baum is an award-winning storyteller, author, coach, and public speaker presenting internationally for diverse audiences ranging from the World Bank, prestigious universities, and congregations, to festivals, government agencies, and schools.
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Noa offers a unique combination of performance art and practical workshops that focus on the power of stories to heal across the divides of identity and build bridges of peace.
Margaret Burk
Margaret Burk co-produces and co-hosts BACK ROOM STORIES in Oak Park, Il. After a career in arts administration, she returned to her love – the spoken word. She performs throughout the Chicago area and virtually on shows across the country. She is published in Chicago Storytellers from Stage to Page. Margaret is passionate about teaching Sharing Your Legacy classes – encouraging older adults to write and tell their life stories. She believes that our stories are heirlooms – gifts to future generations. It is important to pass them on.
Mary D’Alba
Mary D’Alba lives in Malden, Massachusetts, living her best life as an Artist, Psychic Medium, and Life Coach after escaping the corporate world. Her Spirituality comes through in all aspects of her work to inspire and uplift others.
Mary has been featured on Stories from the Stage and has performed stories around Massachusetts at Club Passim, Now Listen Here, Better Said Than Done, and Trident Cafe. She is also the co-host of the virtual 99 Second Story Slam with Sean Wellington.
Lyn Ford
Lynette (Lyn) Ford is an award-winning storyteller and writer, a certified laughter yoga teacher and an Ohio teaching artist. Her stories are rooted in the gifts of her Affrilachian family’s heritage. Lyn’s work has taken her to schools and conferences, to correctional facilities and women’s retreats, from her home in Ohio across the United States, to Australia and Ireland, and around the Zoomiverse to Germany, Singapore, and South Korea. Lyn is a member of the National Association of Black Storytellers’ Circle of Elders, a great-grandma, and a gargoyle collector.
Heather Forest
Heather Forest is a modern-day bard. A pioneer in the American Storytelling Renaissance, her repertoire of world tales told in a fusion of poetry, prose, and original folk music has been featured in theatres and festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad. She is an author of 17 award-winning books and recordings and holds a Ph.D. in Leadership & Change from Antioch University. She is a recipient of the Circle of Excellence Award as well as the 2021 Talking Leaves Award presented by the National Storytelling Network. She is the founder of Story Arts, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the art of storytelling and its educational applications. She is also an organic farmer.
Bonnie Gardner
Bonnie Gardner is a former journalist who changed careers to work in IT, but never lost her love of a good story. In January 2020, Bonnie performed with Better Said Than Done, her first time on stage since winning a 4-H public speaking contest as a kid. She’s performed with BSTD, the Scheherazade Project’s #101Nights series, Artists Standing Strong Together, and Stories for Healing. When she’s not at her day job, she’s helping run Big Big World Project, a non-profit supporting children in two orphanages in Vietnam.
Megan Hicks
As a self-proclaimed Teller-Without-a-Niche, Megan Hicks dives heart-first into every story she tells – fairy tale, personal story, American history, parody, ghost, & horror.
She performs throughout the United States, and internationally.
Her awards include a Parents’ Choice® Silver for the CD, “What Was Civil About That War…” which was also a 2005 Finalist for an Audies® award in the category of Best Original Work. She received the Parents’ Guide to Children’s Media Award and Storytelling World Honor for “Groundhogs Meet Grimm,” a collection of her original parodies that was also tapped for Honors by NAPPA. Her collection of fairy tales – “No Tricks. Just Magic” – received a Storytelling World Award, as did her recording “Like You’re Really There: Megan Hicks Live at Jonesborough.”
Carol Moore
Carol Moore is a storyteller and public speaking coach. She has presented at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, served as a speaker coach for TED speakers through TEDxTysons, and won the title of Moth StorySLAM Champion. She’s competed in public speaking competitions with Toastmasters International and is a member of both the NSN and the National Communication Association.
Miriam Nadel
Miriam Nadel has performed folk tales, personal stories, and original fairy tales at venues ranging from a Hollywood art gallery to the Washington Folk Festival. She is also the Virginia State Liaison to the National Storytelling Network. All of the stories she tells are true, whether or not they happened that way.
Vijai Nathan
Vijai Nathan‘s humor springs from her experiences of growing up as a “foreigner” in America- despite the fact she was born and raised here. She hilariously tells about growing up as an Indian in America, dating, cultural clashes, and the racism she dealt with as a child and now as a comedian.
You can catch her on an episode of Netflix’s “Lady Dynamite, ” starring Maria Bamford, and in the film “Meet the Patels,” an Oprah Magazine pick.
Laura Packer
Laura Packer knows that the best way to the truth is through a good story. Whether folktale or true, epic or flash, her stories captivate, enlighten, and amuse audiences. She is the author of From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great story, and has won multiple awards for her performance, coaching, and leadership. Laura has published, told, taught, ranted, raved, consulted, and considered storytelling around the world.
Denise Page
Denise Keyes Page tells stories to challenge, inspire, inform, and connect. A Connecticut native, many of Denise’s stories stem from her experience being a multi-generational African American New Englander. Her personal narrative stories are of “simply being as well as being in the skin we’re in.” She has performed for Better Said Than Done, the National Storytelling Network Conference, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, ASST, Songs and Stories, and more. Denise serves on the board of the Connecticut Storytelling Center and is the founder of Ubuntu Storytellers (US). US facilitates workshops that promote social justice.
Jessica Robinson
Jessica Robinson, Founder of Better Said Than Done, has performed at Exchange Place at the International Storytelling Festival, on PBS’s Stories from the Stage, in the National Storytelling Network’s Conference, and as a 2021 Stone Soup and Forest Storytelling Festival New Voice. Jessica is co-author of Roar: True Tales of Women Warriors. In 2022, Jessica will be featured at the Stone Soup Storytelling Festival and in 2023 she’ll be a feature storyteller at the Florida Storytelling Festival.
Susanne Schmidt
Susanne Schmidt is a comedic storyteller, producer, and teaching artist. A second-generation Italian native New Yorker, Susanne learned the transformative power of personal narrative from a long line of powerful women.
Susanne’s work has been featured on WGBH’s Stories from the Stage, National Public Radio (NPR), HBO’s Inspiration Room, and CBS Sunday Morning. She is a 2021 recipient of a Webby Award for her story House on Fire. Susanne is currently a StorySLAM Producer for The Moth and is the creative director for Say it Forward Productions.
In addition to her storytelling work, Susanne is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor.
Susanne is the drummer for the band The Brevity Thing and the mother of two amazing young men who LOVE that she talks about them on stage!
Ria Spencer
Ria Spencer is a wannabe foodie and world traveler who’s spent years singing everything from classic rock to sweet soul music for marginally sober audiences across the New York metro area. She’s also delighted to be a grown-ass woman who’s lived long enough to have some stories to tell. Ria has appeared on RISK!, Better Said Than Done, The Day I Should Have, Dead Rock Stars, and The Liar Show.
Jude Treder-Wolff
Jude Treder-Wolff is host and creator of (mostly) TRUE THINGS, a game wrapped in a storytelling show that features true stories – with a twist – that grew into a monthly cultural event at venues on Long Island and NYC and travels to communities around the country.
Jude was recently featured on the RISK! live show and podcast, PBS’s Stories from the Stage, Story District, Ex Fabula All-Star Winner, Mortified, Now You’re Talking The Armando Diaz Experience, Singling, Talk Therapy, Take Two Storytelling, Prose Of Pie, and many more.
Diana Veiga
Diana Veiga is a writer, storyteller, and comedienne who has performed throughout the DC area from the Lincoln Theatre to the DC Improv. She is the founder and curator of Telling Stories, a virtual series for African American storytellers. Diana is a Spelman woman, a DC resident, and a DC Public Library employee. She loves eating tacos, quoting Outkast lyrics, and drinking Stoli Blueberry and Sprite
Kim Weitkamp
“If we are talking Rock ‘n Roll, Tina Turner was a national treasure; Country has Dolly Parton and in the world of storytelling we have Kim Weitkamp.”
— Steve Perry, Highway 89- SiriusXM.
Kim grew up as the red-headed middle child of exhausted parents.
Kim carved out her role as the class comedian at a young age, writing plays and skits and sharing stories that exasperated her parents while thrilling her high school theater teacher.
The results of these influences show up in her work time and time again.
Cyndi Wish
Cyndi Wish was born in Virginia and grew up in New Jersey. At a young age she realized her inherent love of adventure, talent for packing, and general dislike of commitment. Cyndi has lived in Washington DC., Portland OR, San Francisco, Chicago, upstate New York, Sydney, Adelaide, Cape Cod, North Dakota, the Boston area, New Bedford, Virginia again, Baltimore, and once again resides in New Jersey. Lots of moves lead to lots of stories. She holds a Master of Visual Arts degree, works in non-profit administration, and is currently lazily training to do the Chesapeake Bay Swim, but not for a few more years.
Andrea Young
Having lived in four of the continents for over 10 years outside of North America, Andrea Young‘s global nomad experiences have taken her to more than 26 countries. There has to be a story in there somewhere, and she finds them. Andrea has been a member of Toastmasters International and has performed for Better Said Than Done and for Artists Standing Strong Together.
