About
English: Image for Storytelling project, part of the 2011 Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hey, thanks for checking us out! We are The Storycrafters, Jeri Burns and Barry Marshall, and we have been professional storytellers for longer than we want to admit. Our website will give you details about what we do – http://www.storycrafters.com. This blog will give you details about why we do what we do.
As longtime teachers, writers, and artists, we have seen firsthand the amazing effect that live stortyelling has on people. We have observed many things in our work in schools, libraries, camps, grad schools, inpatient psychiatric units, workshops, and festivals all across the US, Caribbean, and Great Britain. In addition, we read a bunch about storytelling and other related stuff. Yeah we have a lot of perspective and much to share.
We are passionate about all matters related to storytelling. And there are so many storytelling matters – like what kinds of stories to tell, who to share them with, how to tell stories – and there are so many reasons why storytelling matters – in child development, education, healing, and legal settings, to name just a few. It is our life’s work, so we naturally feel strongly and think deeply about it.
But the reason we felt compelled to start this blog now was this: we were in a school show last month where teachers didn’t understand what storytelling was. A classic. time-tested, teaching tool, and they didn’t get it. We are alarmed to think that there might be teachers out there who do not understand how important live storytelling is to their students. This led us to wonder how many others don’t understand the value of storytelling – not just to children in school, but to people and communities everywhere.
Storytelling is humanity’s heirloom. It is age old and ageless, modern and meaningful. This blog is our shout out to the world about just how much storytelling matters.
Storytelling Matters 
“Storytelling is humanity’s heirloom.”
This really captured my attention. It nails the concept!
As a high school teacher, I love the idea of storytelling, but don’t get around to it much, because there’s no specific time set aside for it in our curriculum.
(I’m trying to visit some blogs that I missed, in the “madness” of the busy A to Z challenge.)
Nice to meet you.
Writer In Transit
Thanks for the kind words and comment! I totally get your feeling about getting around to storytelling in the classroom – for many years I taught applied storytelling at university and we worked with teachers on how they could integrate it into what they already had to do, as opposed to add it to yet another of the innumerable requirements that they already had. Message me if you like and we can chat about it. I too missed bunches of blogs during the A to Z – and will be visiting more for a while more. Yours will be on today’s short list!! Nice to met you too Michelle.