News and Events

Choice of one 3 hour workshop session:

1.) BODY LANGUAGE POWER  1:00 - 4:00pm

with Holly Robison

Learn how to command the stage and gain self confidence without a word. The slightest adjustments will strengthen your characterization, self-image and body chemistry.   

Bio  -  Holly Robison

Holly Robison is a storyteller, musician, presenter, mentor, and - first and foremost - a wife and mother.  She has spent over fourteen years lifting audiences and individuals through story and song. As a National Speakers Association Member with a degree in theatre from Brigham Young University and years of training in communication and inspiration, Holly has the skills and charisma to entertain and guide anyone to self-confidence and success.

Holly has presented this workshop at the 2016 Sydney International Storytelling Conference, the 2016 Portland Storyteller’s Guild Workshop series and variations of it for a few other organizations. She has presented many other workshops of the Utah Storytelling Guild and other organizations. She has been a teacher and presenter for 20 years in church, school, and other organizations.  Holly resides in Cornelius, Oregon, USA.

2.) CREATING YOUR VERSION 1:00 - 4:00pm

with Jennifer Ferris and Anne Glover

Anne and Jennifer share the wealth of their knowledge and more than 60 years of combined experience in storytelling and teaching. This hands-on workshop includes a variety of activities designed to hone skills for a strong performance and connection with the audience. The session includes visualization, finding effective language, developing interesting characters, and the use of body and space to make the story larger than the words.

This is a unique opportunity to work up-close with these well-recognized performers and benefit from their complementary skill-sets. 

Why take this workshop?  To make your story be more engaging, more real, more alive!  And to see your audience lean into your story!

Bios  -  Jennifer Ferris and Anne Glover

Jennifer Ferris is as enthusiastic about the work of other storytellers as she is about her own. She has facilitated workshops for diverse groups: from Parks’ Interpreters to Montessori teachers to the BC Green Party. She gives workshops to adults, gifted children, families and international students.  Participants find that her gentle approach and enthusiasm offers a safe environment to try new ideas. 

Anne Glover’s bilingual storytelling career spans 30 years of performing, speaking and consulting.  Today, she travels the globe with her storytelling, sometimes seeing as many as 45,000 students in a year. Anne’s work is characterized by a strong audience rapport and effective embodiment of her characters. In 2016, Anne was honoured with the Storykeeper Award by Storytellers of Canada/ Conteurs du Canada.

3.) OF TRISTAN AND TAM LIN: TWO TELLERS AND THEIR SCHOLARLY WAYS  

1:00 - 4:00pm

with Ginger Mullen and Melanie Ray

The worlds of story and study often seem far apart.  The storyteller weaves words to engage the listeners, to show them images that stir the heart and mind.  The scholar reads and writes words to reflect deeply about ideas and methodologies.  But, in fact, they live easily in each other’s presence.  Ginger Mullen and Melanie Ray present their favourite stories and discuss how they researched them. Melanie offers insight about staying true to both old texts - rooting a story in its time and culture - and her own instincts for the story and a contemporary audience. Ginger addresses some uncomfortable questions and critical issues that have shaped her tales.

Bio  -  Ginger Mullen

Since 1992, Ginger Mullen’s immersion into the oral tradition has led to a unique storytelling style that blends performance and scholarship.  Having earned a Master of Arts that focused on folktales in general, and the ballad of “Tam Lin” in particular, she brings to her craft a deep and layered understanding of the stories she tells.  Currently, she juggles several roles that draw on her multi-disciplinary knowledge.  She teaches Storytelling at Mount Royal University in Calgary and University of British Columbia in Vancouver.  She presents papers about various folktales both nationally and internationally.  And she continues to tell stories and facilitate programs for schools and community organizations.

Bio – Melanie Ray

Melanie Ray brings an actor’s training to her storytelling, coupled with delight in language, old tales, in stories true and stories newly minted.  She has over 32 years of professional experience, gained mostly in Canada, but including some presentations in America and the U.K. 

Thanks to a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2005, she has been able to develop and tour the Medieval romance “Tristan and Iseult.”  She has taken this epic to many places across Canada, including Edmonton, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and Nanaimo.  In 2010 she presented it at the Beyond the Borders Storytelling Festival in Wales.  She recently co-produced the SCCC Conference in Vancouver.