by Timpanogos | Jun 21, 2019
She first discovered the power of storytelling thirty years ago, as a new mother, when her 12th grade English students begged for stories about her son as a way to get her off the topic of British literature. She continued to tell stories in her classroom until her retirement last summer, after thirty years of teaching language arts and theatre arts with the Troup County School System in LaGrange, Georgia. In addition to being her school system’s Teacher of the Year for 2000, Carol was named a top five finalist for Georgia’s 2001 Teacher of the Year. Carol has been a member of the Azalea Storytelling Festival planning committee since the festival’s inception in 1997. She has been the emcee of the Azalea Festival for the past eleven years and was a featured teller in 2015. In addition to her work at museums, schools, churches, senior centers, and libraries throughout the Southeast, Carol performed at the 2011 Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Orem, Utah. She is featured on the Donald Davis workshop video entitled “What’s Your Story?” which has been broadcast on both BYU-TV and North Carolina Public Broadcasting. More recently, Carol portrayed Captain Nancy Hill Morgan, organizer of a female Civil War militia, in a documentary called “The Nancy Hart Militia: Women of Uncommon Courage” which debuted on Georgia Public Broadcasting. For the past twenty-four years, Carol has performed as Rosie the Riveter at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia and other locations throughout the U.S.
by Timpanogos | Jun 21, 2019
An award-winning, internationally known performer and recording artist, as well as a monologist, playwright and teacher of her craft, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word. Bridging the mythic and the personal, Milbre creates original works that bring the power of story into contemporary performances of power and grace.
by Timpanogos | Jun 21, 2019
Known primarily for personal stories that make people laugh and think, award winning, internationally-known, Geraldine Buckley teaches and performs in conferences, colleges, schools, corporations, and house-concerts. She has appeared as a featured teller in festivals throughout the US, including twice at the Timpanogos Stortelling Festival, and three times at the National Storytelling Festival, in Jonesborough, TN. An ordained minister, Geraldine was the Protestant Chaplain at the largest men’s prison in Maryland, until January 2010. Since then she has conducted storytelling workshops in US prisons, and also in Rimutaka, New Zealand’s largest men’s prison, as well as in many less restrictive settings! Currently she is Hospice Chaplain at Bridging Life Hospice in Westminster, Maryland. During the Pandemic Geraldine was a Resident Chaplain at her local hospital in Frederick, Maryland. She wrote a very well received Facebook blog called “Pandemic Parables” that documented the heroism, fear and bravery that flooded the corridors of a hospital where, with few exceptions, visitors were not allowed to enter. This has been successfully performed several times as a virtual storytelling show, including at the National Storytelling Virtual Festival of 2020. It will shortly be available in book form. Geraldine is frequently heard on NPR, and Sirius radio, and is the recipient of three gold awards from Storytelling World. Find out more on her website.
by Timpanogos | Jun 21, 2019
In 1998 Carol Birch received the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award given to storytellers recognized as master tellers by their peers, setting standards for excellence, and demonstrating a commitment and dedication to the art over a significant period of time. Thirty years of experience have earned her a respected place in the forefront of the revival of platform storytelling: teaching at Southern Connecticut State University; lecturing at forty-one universities across the nation, as well as professional and corporate organizations; producing nine audio-anthologies for the National Storytelling Association; directing seventeen audio-cassettes for independent storytellers as well as August House, Lightyear Entertainment, and Weston Woods Studios; writing THE WHOLE STORY HANDBOOK: USING IMAGERY TO COMPLETE THE STORY EXPERIENCE; co-editing WHO SAYS? ESSAYS ON PIVOTAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY STORYTELLING, the first book on the aesthetics of storytelling; serving as a chairperson of the Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award; and producing three award-winning audio-cassettes of her own stories.
Media appearances include ABC’s NIGHTLINE and CBS, THIS MORNING, Channel 5 in Boston, National Public Radio, Glamour Magazine and the New York Times. She’s been a featured storyteller six times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and in videos of America’s foremost storytellers produced by the Cotsen Storytelling Project; McFeely-Rogers Foundation, The Storytelling Channel for Cable Vision’s Rainbow Programming, Hometown Entertainment, and the H. W. Wilson Company. Her storytelling includes invitational events in Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Singapore, as well as theater concerts for adults, festivals for families, and school residencies throughout the United States.
Known for a compelling blend of energy, warmth, vulnerability, and directness, Carol restores orality and spontaneity to the fixed silence of stories found in print, but as a third-grader in North Carolina pointed out: “She knows that story ’cause she was there!”
by Timpanogos | Jun 21, 2019
Cassie Howard Ashton is a mother of 5, and step mother of 5. She wears many hats, among them is storyteller and certified life & relationship coach. She loves telling stories and teaching others the value and power of their own story. Cassie enjoys helping others find and uncover the stories that help express who they are and how they feel. She believes one of the most important stories you will ever tell is the story you tell to yourself about yourself. Sometimes you may need a little help learning how to craft the story you tell to yourself and she helps people do that. How do you describe a storyteller? By the tales she tells. Cassie is a damsel, teacher, wild woman, wise woman, guide, heroine and oh so much more. She has been sharing her gifts professionally of telling and teaching since 1992. She loves teaching as much as telling maybe more. When she is not at home working with clients you may find her in a school teaching a residency or a library leading story camps. Storytelling is truly a labor of love for her.
