Mary Gay Ducey is a storyteller who performs throughout the United States, Canada, and Ireland. She has appeared several times at both the National Storytelling Festival and the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and was featured on the television program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. She is a children’s librarian at a branch of the Oakland Public Library where she is also staff trainer for volunteer story-readers placed in Oakland Head Start programs.After a childhood in segregated New Orleans, Ducey moved to Berkeley—just in time for the protest marches and sit-ins. From a childhood steeped in tradition and heritage to beginning her own family amidst the social unrest of the sixties, Ducey lived the social change which swept the country. As a storyteller, she draws from her life experiences to delight audiences with her humorous and insightful tales that mix personal and historical, literary and folk. Ducey is the former chairperson of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, the 2001 recipient of the Oracle Award for Distinguished National Service in Storytelling, and was named one of the “Outstanding Women of Berkeley” by the Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women. She has taught storytelling at the University of California, Berkeley’s Library School and at Santa Rosa Junior College and Dominican College. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Bay Area Storytelling Festival.