Heads or Tales

Spooky Stories

I’m getting ready for a bunch of spooky storytelling at the Columbus libraries for the summer reading program.  I’ve dug out all my spooky stuff, and have been practicing.  Here is a list of some great resources…

Frog’s Riddle and other Draw and Tell Stories by Richard Thompson.  "The Ghost On Pederson’s Farm" will be fun with younger audiences.

I heard a great recording of "The Ghost With One Black Eye" on Tell Me Again by Renee Conley.  Just Google “Tell Me Again”

 The fall issue of Storytelling World 1999 (ISSN 1092-2717) is called Telling Scary Stories.  It has some good stories, but it also has a lot of worthwhile stuff about choosing stories to tell and there is fine interview with Kathryn Windham, who is the queen of scary telling.  You can get a copy of this magazine, put out by East Tennessee State, by going to www.storytellingworld.com and requesting the issue.

 The Ghost and I: Spooky Stories for Participatory Telling by Jennifer Justice.  A good intro about choosing stories and samples of stories to choose is included.

 Friendly ears that will listen-  I have been lucky enough to have a school in the area, which allows me to come and try  out new stories.  I’m also a member of a writer’s group, and they let me come and tell new stories.  I just came back from our meeting and got lots of good information and feedback.  I used to be a member of an online writer’s group through The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  Once I started telling oral stories, my group, which had members from all over the globe, let me send files of an oral story for critique.  Finally, I had to stop because the newer members began to question the practice, but if you can’t find a nearby group, an online group might be just the thing.  Speak Easy, an open mic for storytelling, has been active in Columbus for 4 years.  New stories are always welcome. There are many open poetry mic opportunities.  Perhaps the poetry folks just need to be introduced to some good word of mouth spooky stories.  Also every state has a representative to the National Storytelling Network.  Those people have their fingers on the various local guilds and those folks welcome good spooky tales.

 Bare Bones for Storytellers – Google this great site with the words “Bare bones for storytellers” and spooky (or Halloween)  You will be rewarded with the bare bones plot of  about 50 stories, songs and poems.  Book mark it for further reference.

 Crazy Gibberish and Other Story Hour Stretchers by Naomi Baltruck—This book has some light hearted spooky stories which invite participation.  They are perfect for younger groups or just for a change of pace.

 

Speak Easy

 

This Wednesday was our last Speak Easy of the season.  Speak Easy is an open mic night held at a local restaurant, which has a good bar.  From January to May for the past four years the Storytellers of Central Ohio have been hosting a featured teller and then offering the mic up to anyone with an 8-minute story afterwards.  In the past, the final May gathering has been spare, but this month we had close to thirty people.  Eric Wolf, from Yellow Springs, was our featured teller.  He told some original fairy tales, but my favorites were the stories of him growing up with Jacob and Mama Z in New York City.  I bet there were 5 or 6 folks signed up afterwards for the open mic with stories that they wanted to share.  I really love it when someone new steps up, and that even happened. 

The restaurant where we gather has let us come rent free because we buy food and use the bar, but they are in danger of going out of business.  I’m really sorry about that on a lot of levels.  The restaurant is a fixture here in German Village…it’s an old German singing club.  Once, in this area, German singing clubs were vibrant, but since World War II, all of that German pride has been in decline.  The building is huge with a restaurant upstairs and down.  The cost of keeping it all going must be enormous.  I thanked the manager on the way out, and she said there’s a chance they’ll be open when we are ready to start again next January.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Ovenbird

German Village, where I live, is five minutes by bike from downtown Columbus. Brick streets and brick buildings and brick sidewalks are what I see from our front window. I see people with dogs on leashes, people jogging. I see people I’ll never know parking cars and pressing the little lock that beeps as they walk away.

Eight days ago I found an ovenbird lying dead in front of the wrought iron railing of the condominiums two doors down. I didn’t know it was an ovenbird at first. At first, I just passed the bird by, thinking that it was an odd sparrow. I went back, however, and touched the olive green feathers. I don’t know if all bird feathers, while they’re still on the bird, are so soft that they make you think of infinity and of love, but the feathers of that bird did. I put him in a paper lunch bag and spread him out on a piece of waxed paper on the table. That’s how I found out he was an ovenbird. I used our bird book. Years ago, I heard the “teacher, teacher, teacher” call getting louder and louder and louder when we lived near the woods. I tried all those years ago to find the singer, but the bird book said then, as it did eight days ago, that the ovenbird lives on the forest floor and is hardly ever seen.

I buried the little green bird with the rust patch on its head underneath the heavy lead chunk in our garden sheltered by the Japanese maple. The spot is near the rock where our dog is buried and the lead piece has knife gashes made by my husband’s dad as he took pieces for fishing lures. I’m glad the ovenbird is nearby.

The day after I buried the small bird, a robin built a nest in the other Japanese maple in our yard, and this morning I saw a second ovenbird striding under the maple, picking at bugs. I watched as that bird walked confidently under the new robin's nest, under the ferns, the big leaves of the hostas and around the corner of the garage to find insects in the sunflower patch.

I feel so grateful to be part of such a big miracle as an ovenbird.

Rehearsing A Story

Ashtabula Ohio is three hours from our house, straight up the highway to Lake Erie. Yesterday, I was at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School with their kindergarteners through third graders. Nelson found a warm cozy spot back stage and fell asleep. I, on the other hand, was able to spend two hours with the students. During that time, I tried a new ending on an old story. I had thought the ending through in my head, but I had not practiced it in front of anyone. When I said the new words to the children, sitting on the gym floor in front of me, I felt the thread of the story go a little loose. I saw a shift in the posture of some of the children and wondered what they were hearing, and if the picture in their imagination had become muddy.

After the performance, we decided to spend that afternoon and night enjoying the lake. We ate dinner down in the historic district at a restaurant with white tablecloths and black napkins carefully folded into the water glasses. We walked in the night before for a drink, and I saw the Egyptian lentil dish on the menu. With that dish still in mind last night, I asked Josh, the waiter, if the lentil meal was popular.

“Two or three people have ordered it. I’ve never tried it, but the chef says it has an interesting mix of flavor, ” he said.

The dish turned out to have way too much rice with way too few lentils, topped with tomato sauce, for color I think. I ate it and as I did, I wanted the chef to come out and ask me for feedback. I really wanted to tell him how to make it better. I wondered if he practiced this new meal on anyone before he stuck it on the menu or if, just like me with my story, he saw it in his head and was pretty sure it would work.

Talking About History

Last Tuesday evening I talked for an hour with Eric Wolf on his weekly web cast about historical storytelling. What a great time it was. How often does a person get a chance to talk about something they are passionate about for an hour? Not often, for me anyway. We talked about how those stories from history find us, and how research fits in. We mulled over the difficult parts of creating an historical story, and, finally, we dug into ways that historical telling fits into the curriculum along with some specific ideas and techniques. It turns out that Eric had a family member in the Civil War and has created a program around that character. It was so interesting to learn about the changes he has made to that program and why.

Preparing for that conversation caused me to revisit all the historical stories I have in my repertoire. I looked back at all the research and practiced them so that I could talk about them with Eric. I hadn't told a few of the stories for quite awhile, and they were fading from my list of tales. I forgot how much I like them.

Below is a link for that conversation. Once you’re on his site it will be difficult to leave without listening to a bunch of other storytellers…Syd Lieberman, Lyn Ford, Brother Blue, Dianne Williams, who is the co-author of The Storytelling Classroom…. just to name a few

Here's the site...Historical Storytelling With Children<