Press Play to hear this interview on the art of storytelling with Children that was recorded as a conference call on August 28th, 2007, Carolyn Franzini shares how to plan the Cave Run Storytelling festival.

Carolyn Franzini is the Director of the Cave Run Storytelling Festival one of the most successful and prestigious storytelling festivals outside of Jonesborough in the United States in this interview she discusses how to run a storytelling festival successfully and How Storytellers Become Candidates for Telling at the Festival. She has kindly allowed the use fo the following ten tips on running a storytelling festival to be included on the Art of Storytelling with Children blog.

Eric Wolf

She writes
10 Tips for Organizing a Festival.

1. Know why you want to have the storytelling festival
2. Make sure your reasons for having the storytelling festival “fit” your community, sponsor etc because you need their support
3. Make sure all persons on the storytelling festival organization committee love storytelling
4. Try to make the preparation for the Continue Reading »

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Press Play to hear this interview that was recorded on the Art of Storytelling with Children as a conference call on August 21th, 2007, Steve Otto talks about bringing Storytelling to New Communities with the Chicken Storytelling Festival.

Steve is one of those storytellers who has been around the block. Mastering his skill in storytelling over many years of dedicated work and effort as a storyteller. I found this interview about Steve’s work to bring Storytelling to new communities to be truly inspirational stuff. Storytelling can be for everyone.

Eric Wolf

Steve Otto has a degree in Speech and Dramatics, from the University of Missouri, with a specialty of Television Production. You have to realize that I got my degree when TV was in it’s infancy, and all production was done live (No video tape) and everything was done in Black and White. I worked at KOMU-TV Channel 8, in Columbia, Missouri, WPTA-TV, Channel 21, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and KETC-TV, Channel 9, in St. Louis, Missouri. I started out as a cameraman, and worked into production as a producer-director. I loved television and really enjoyed the opportunity offered to a right brain person to see images and create pictures before the camera collected them. KETC-TV was the local PBS station and things went well until they Continue Reading »

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In this interview that was recorded as a conference call at 8pm EST – August 14th, 2007, Cristin Thomas talks about her experience as Director of the Tejas Storytelling Association and chief organizer of the Texas Storytelling Festival.

We will cover the following topics - s

1. Building a festival
2. Grants
3. Sponsorships
4. Marketing
5. Strategic Planning for an Organization
6. Positioning the organization for continual growth
7. The need for clarity

Planning for the future…Looking ahead is so important. Know the road that you are traveling with clarity of your mission and knowledge of your vision. Many organizations can trap themselves in the survival of day to day. When this happens it is extremely difficult to Continue Reading »

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In this interview with the Reverend Victoria Burdick, M. Div Hospice Chaplain ~ Celebrant on August 7th, 2007, we discuss how storytelling can be used in wedding ceremonies to create the ceremony. We also discuss how storytelling is used in hospice work. The Reverend has officiated over five hundred weddings and is well sought after for her service because of her ability to represent the stories of both the bride and groom in the ceremony.

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Interviiw with Ethnohtec; with Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang recorded on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007.

What does Vision and Purpose have to do with being a storyteller? How does one find a vision and why is it important? What would a storytelling career look like if the artist in in alignment with ones purpose? On a practical side, once the storyteller has clarified their mission in life, indentified a community to serve and method of storytelling to serve them, how does one approach the nitty gritty of running a business as a storyteller?

Eth-Noh-Tec with Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo and Nancy Wang explored these issues of the professional touring storyteller during this interview. Whether you are semi professional, a novice or seasoned storyteller, come listen to the challenges of the world of storytelling. Eth-Noh-Tec, now in it’s 25th year of storytelling talks about their humble Continue Reading »

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Interview with Ellen Munds recorded on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007.

In this interview we cover how to…

1. Create your mission statement or why you want to do a festival
2. Determine your target audience
3. Details such as indoor or outdoor, specific site for an event, accessibility, design and traffic flow of the site
4. Artistic Elements
5. Marketing and Public Relations
6. Funding
7. Budget
8. Volunteers
9. Care and Feeding of the storytellers, sponsors and volunteers
10. Evaluation of your Festival.

This interview should be heard by all members of the national storytelling network who are interested in running or creating there own storytelling festival. Storytellers who are serious about working the festival circuit should consider this episode required listening.

Ellen Munds is the executive director of Storytelling Arts of Indiana and one of three co-founders. She has served as the chair of the Continue Reading »

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Interview with Eric Wolf and Steve Otto recorded on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007.

Each level of development that storytellers go through has it’s pitfalls and limitations. How can we as storytellers avoid the pitfalls that have befallen those who gone before? In this discussion Eric Wolf and Steve Otto explore how we as storytellers can go to the next level in our practice as storytellers.

From beginners to experts, performers to marketers what are the most common ways that we accept our limitations instead of challenging them? How have others successfully risen to successful practice of storytelling? These are some of the questions that we look at in this hour long episode of the Art of Storytelling with Children Podcast.

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