LV Storytelling Guild https://lvstorytelling.org Sat, 21 Sep 2019 20:10:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.3 Ghosts and Ghouls and Tales of Terror! https://lvstorytelling.org/ghosts-and-ghouls-and-tales-of-terror/ https://lvstorytelling.org/ghosts-and-ghouls-and-tales-of-terror/#respond Sat, 21 Sep 2019 20:10:29 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=2136 Hearken all! The storytellers are on the prowl. They will haunt your local libraries and area festivals to send shivers up your spine with awful tales! Once again, the Lehigh Valley Storytellers will send out their members, alone or in pairs, to visit areas as far flung as The Emmaus Public Library in the western Lehigh Valley and Barrett Paradise Friendly Library in the Poconos amd all places in between. Check our calendar in the sidebar on the right to {Read More}

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]]> Hearken all! The storytellers are on the prowl. They will haunt your local libraries and area festivals to send shivers up your spine with awful tales!

Once again, the Lehigh Valley Storytellers will send out their members, alone or in pairs, to visit areas as far flung as The Emmaus Public Library in the western Lehigh Valley and Barrett Paradise Friendly Library in the Poconos amd all places in between. Check our calendar in the sidebar on the right to find out where our tellers will ply their haunting crafts and who will appear at each site.

Ghost stories are a time honored campfire, late night tradition. When night draws in earlier and earlier, when we find ourselves walking home under streetlamps or guided by far off porch lights, when the hair stands up on the backs of our necks – ah, that is the time to remember the wraiths that have no rest.

Charles Kiernan, president of the Guild says, “Let’s be clear. This is not story time. This is the oral tradition. These are the tales the bards told to their royal audiences, the tales the Irish Seanchaí told in the taverns, and the tales told around countless campfires.

If you have not experienced true storytelling before, here is your chance. If you have, then you know what a gift this is from the Guild and your library.”

Join us. You will be thrilled!

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/ghosts-and-ghouls-and-tales-of-terror/feed/ 0 School Days, school days, good ole golden rule days! https://lvstorytelling.org/school-days-school-days-good-ole-golden-rule-days/ https://lvstorytelling.org/school-days-school-days-good-ole-golden-rule-days/#respond Thu, 22 Aug 2019 20:28:06 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=2117 Did you keep a summer journal?  Do you have stories from the long, hot summer days?  School has started in some areas.  Let’s hope families head back with a whole portfolio of tales to share with people they have missed all summer.  If you “just stayed home”, you might need to be creative about your summer exploits.  Most teachers don’t ask kids to write about “What I Did this Summer” anymore.  You can, though!  You can go through your memory {Read More}

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]]> Did you keep a summer journal?  Do you have stories from the long, hot summer days?  School has started in some areas.  Let’s hope families head back with a whole portfolio of tales to share with people they have missed all summer.  If you “just stayed home”, you might need to be creative about your summer exploits.  Most teachers don’t ask kids to write about “What I Did this Summer” anymore.  You can, though!  You can go through your memory and create beginnings to some of the things you did -or almost did.   Let the kids fill in.

If you went someplace wonderful – a different country – a theme park – did you learn any stories?

I hope you told stories and listened to tales this past summer.  I hope your students – that might be YOU – bring good stories home from school.

Keep the stories flowing.  Listening to stories increases a young child’s imagination, vocabulary, attention span, compassion, patience and understanding of relationship dynamics.  In other words, a story a day is just plain good for you.

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/school-days-school-days-good-ole-golden-rule-days/feed/ 0 Summer Time and the Stories Come Easy https://lvstorytelling.org/summer-time-and-the-stories-come-easy/ https://lvstorytelling.org/summer-time-and-the-stories-come-easy/#respond Sat, 04 May 2019 00:11:12 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=2090 School will soon be out.  Families will pack their bags and head off to the (insert YOUR favorite vacation destination HERE).  Amusement parks will spill over with children and teens chasing down thrills as if their lives depended on it.  Municipal pools and rustic swimming holes alike will ring with the sounds of splashing and laughter.  Late night picnickers will gather around backyard fire pits to roast marshmallows and to tell stories.  You can make up your own wild backyard {Read More}

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]]> School will soon be out.  Families will pack their bags and head off to the (insert YOUR favorite vacation destination HERE).  Amusement parks will spill over with children and teens chasing down thrills as if their lives depended on it.  Municipal pools and rustic swimming holes alike will ring with the sounds of splashing and laughter.  Late night picnickers will gather around backyard fire pits to roast marshmallows and to tell stories.  You can make up your own wild backyard tales OR you can find some on the web.  I love Ultimate Camp Resource for great campfire ideas.

I got my start as a storyteller in my teens as the “first automotive entertainment system”.  When the sibs (For most of my teens I was one of 8 kids. THEN, suddenly, I was one of 9.) got bored or whiny, and we had sung every song my Mom knew…after endless games of alphabet license plates and punch buggy – someone would say “tell us a story”  and I was off.  I liked to add the places we traveled through to the stories, making up origins for the villages or definitions for their names.  Sometimes, to my younger brothers and sisters delight or discomfort, I made them characters in the stories.  Try it!

And when you are all talked out, listen to stories on audio.  The trip to Vacationland will fly by.  There is always time for a good story.

 

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/summer-time-and-the-stories-come-easy/feed/ 0 Haunted Love https://lvstorytelling.org/haunted-love/ https://lvstorytelling.org/haunted-love/#respond Wed, 30 Jan 2019 03:26:58 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=2041 Love stories are huge business. Romance novels, romantic movies, love songs – especially love songs – dominate the media. Unrequited love that spans centuries, the curtain that shifts, the spectral bride in the mirror, ah, those stories draw us in. The dangerous obsession, the lover who becomes an oppressor, these stories add the spark of fright to the mix. Many of us are haunted by “the one that got away”. Some have suffered more for love than they should have. {Read More}

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]]> Love stories are huge business. Romance novels, romantic movies, love songs – especially love songs – dominate the media. Unrequited love that spans centuries, the curtain that shifts, the spectral bride in the mirror, ah, those stories draw us in. The dangerous obsession, the lover who becomes an oppressor, these stories add the spark of fright to the mix.

Many of us are haunted by “the one that got away”. Some have suffered more for love than they should have. Separated by time, trouble, things beyond their control, lovers ache for things that might have been.  The love of some lives can become the bane of those lives existence. The heart is a fragile, unreliable organ.

Join storytellers, Larry Sceurman and Karen Maurer, as they share stories of haunted love. From the plight of a young man in search of brains, to young lovers separated over the centuries by cruelty, Sceurman and Maurer combine their voices to shock listeners with mournful tales, to make those same listeners laugh, to remind listeners of young love.

Bring YOUR true love to the Easton Area Public Library, 515 Church Street, Easton PA. 18042, on Wednesday February 13th, to celebrate romance, even bad romance. This event is free to all adults. The stories are not suitable for children. For more information, please check the events calendar on the right side of this website.

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/haunted-love/feed/ 0 Family Series returns! https://lvstorytelling.org/family-series-returns/ https://lvstorytelling.org/family-series-returns/#respond Wed, 30 Jan 2019 03:08:55 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=2039 The annual Family Storytelling Series returns to Godfrey Daniels on February 3 at 2 pm – weather permitting! Karen Maurer will tell stories that are strictly “For the Birds”. Karen brings songs, stories and even a craft to her performances. There is something for every age at the Family Storytelling Series. Ingrid Bohn is up next with Knuckleheads, Noodleheads, and Tall Tales. Listeners will feel a lot smarter after listening to the goofy antics in the tales that Ingrid spins. Ingrid {Read More}

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]]> The annual Family Storytelling Series returns to Godfrey Daniels on February 3 at 2 pm – weather permitting! Karen Maurer will tell stories that are strictly “For the Birds”. Karen brings songs, stories and even a craft to her performances. There is something for every age at the Family Storytelling Series.

Ingrid Bohn is up next with Knuckleheads, Noodleheads, and Tall Tales. Listeners will feel a lot smarter after listening to the goofy antics in the tales that Ingrid spins. Ingrid will perform on February 17th.

Judy England-McCarthy steps to the mic on March 3, with Winter Wonderland. Toasty and warm, brave the weather as Judy carries you through snow and ice.

On March 17th, expect something altogether different. Denise McCormack mines the folklore of eastern Europe and shares Medieval Tales and Slavic Sagas.

Kathy Long invites to Let Your Imagination Soar On April 4th. Kathy knows a lot about tickling the imagination!

April 14th is the last Family Series performance but certainly NOT the least.  Larry Sceurman brings Stories of Family and Friendship. What a fitting way to end the Family Storytelling Series of 2019.

All Family Storytelling Series performances start at 2 pm, at Godfrey Daniels, 7 East 4th Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015.

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/family-series-returns/feed/ 0 Holiday Tales https://lvstorytelling.org/holiday-tales/ https://lvstorytelling.org/holiday-tales/#respond Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:49:36 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=1992 Storytellers never take a holiday.  If our mouths are busy eating or singing or brushing our teeth, we are watching and listening and gathering the threads for a newly woven story.  The Winter holidays are absolutely the best time to pull together stories.  So much is going on!  We learn so much about our cultures and our families and ourselves in the way we handle all the hustle and bustle of this time of year. Keep your ears open for {Read More}

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]]> Storytellers never take a holiday.  If our mouths are busy eating or singing or brushing our teeth, we are watching and listening and gathering the threads for a newly woven story.  The Winter holidays are absolutely the best time to pull together stories.  So much is going on!  We learn so much about our cultures and our families and ourselves in the way we handle all the hustle and bustle of this time of year.

Keep your ears open for the happy things that children say.  Keep your eyes open for acts of kindness.  Keep your heart open to receive the gifts of the sights and sounds around you.  Take a walk while the snow is falling.  Suspend your disbelief.

Give gifts of memories, of your own talents, of stories.  These things are so easy to wrap and to share and they can be given over and over again.

Happy holidays to one and all.

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/holiday-tales/feed/ 0 https://lvstorytelling.org/1947-2/ https://lvstorytelling.org/1947-2/#respond Fri, 28 Sep 2018 14:26:38 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=1947 The post appeared first on LV Storytelling Guild.

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/1947-2/feed/ 0 Frightful Nights all over the Valley https://lvstorytelling.org/frightful-nights-all-over-the-valley/ https://lvstorytelling.org/frightful-nights-all-over-the-valley/#respond Tue, 28 Aug 2018 17:22:14 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=1891 Forget pumpkin spice.  The only pumpkins we’re interested in are Jack-o-Lanterns, those glowing grimaces designed to scare evil spirits on the Eve of All Saints’ Day – Hallow E’en.  The History Channel shares the story of Stingy Jack – supposedly the first maker of jack-o-lanterns.   Imagine trying to carve a face into a potato or a turnip!  Those were the very first jack-o-lanterns.  Praise be for pumpkins and their cavernous insides.  Flickering candles cast shadow faces on the walls as {Read More}

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]]> Forget pumpkin spice.  The only pumpkins we’re interested in are Jack-o-Lanterns, those glowing grimaces designed to scare evil spirits on the Eve of All Saints’ Day – Hallow E’en.  The History Channel shares the story of Stingy Jack – supposedly the first maker of jack-o-lanterns.   Imagine trying to carve a face into a potato or a turnip!  Those were the very first jack-o-lanterns.  Praise be for pumpkins and their cavernous insides.  Flickering candles cast shadow faces on the walls as people gathered around to listen to stories of ghosts and devils and skeletal fingers.  Now, THAT is a pumpkin’s true purpose, for sure.  (Also, pie but that’s later…)

Libraries all over the Lehigh Valley will host the scariest tellers available all through the month of October.  Tellers from the LVSG will visit eight libraries to chill spines, tickle funny bones, and spin webs of horror thanks to an anonymous grant.

The libraries who will host these events are:  The Parkland Community Library in South Whitehall; Mary Meuser Library in Wilson Borough; the Bethlehem Area Public Library, Main Branch; Catasauqua Public Library; the Easton Area Public Library; Whitehall Public Library; Nazareth Public Library; Emmaus Public Library.

Be WARNED!!!  The program at the Easton Area Public Library and the program at Nazareth Public Library are for GROWN-UPS ONLY.  Expect to be scared.  Other libraries will host costumed children and their parents, families, seniors, and teens.  Check our event calendar to learn more about each event.  Keep checking.  The horror may spread even wider.

MWAHAHAHAHAH!!!

 

 

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/frightful-nights-all-over-the-valley/feed/ 0 Love Stories – the Art of the One Person Show https://lvstorytelling.org/love-stories-the-art-of-the-one-person-show/ https://lvstorytelling.org/love-stories-the-art-of-the-one-person-show/#respond Thu, 16 Aug 2018 00:30:38 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=1859 Themed programs are a storyteller’s bread and butter.  Schools request stories about kindness, for example.  Churches want stories about faith.  Sometimes, the teller finds stories that fit so well together that she (or he) creates a one person offering that has to find an audience. Nationally known tellers, like Jay O’Callahan have been commissioned to create full 90 minute programs for community celebrations or notable anniversaries.  O’Callhan’s “Pouring the Sun”, a story program about growth and change in Bethlehem Steel, {Read More}

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]]> Themed programs are a storyteller’s bread and butter.  Schools request stories about kindness, for example.  Churches want stories about faith.  Sometimes, the teller finds stories that fit so well together that she (or he) creates a one person offering that has to find an audience.

Nationally known tellers, like Jay O’Callahan have been commissioned to create full 90 minute programs for community celebrations or notable anniversaries.  O’Callhan’s “Pouring the Sun”, a story program about growth and change in Bethlehem Steel, was requested by SteelStacks back when it first opened.

Robin Bady, a storyteller well-known in the New York City area, has perfected personal stories that she performs under the title of Nancy Drewinski.  Bady’s tales cover her childhood in the ’50s and the turbulence of the Cold War.

Local artist Chaz Kiernan parlayed his remarkable likeness to Mark Twain into a side line for his storytelling career. LVSG member Robin Reichert produces programs that radiate with spirituality.  Denise McCormack put together a show of stories about “love” – not romantic love, but motherly love, or the love that binds families together or rends them apart and how that love can change a woman’s life – with her show “Love Stories”.

McCormack has offered her Love Stories program as an entry in Philly’s Theater Week in February of this year, at the National Storytelling Summit in Kansas City, MO, this past July.  This September, McCormack, a member of the National Storytelling Network; president of Patchwork, Philadephia’s Storytelling Guild; and board member of both the New Jersey Storytelling Network and the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild, will offer Love Stories at three different venues.

On Saturday, September 3rd at 3 pm, Denise McCormack will share Love Stories at the Artworks Trenton in Trenton, New Jersey.

On Thursday, September 13th at 7 pm, The Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA, will host McCormack’s solo show.

Godfrey Daniels will also host Love Stories on Thursday, September 20th, at 7 pm.

Check our calendar of events for the details of McCormack’s shows and other presentations by Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild members.

 

 

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]]> https://lvstorytelling.org/love-stories-the-art-of-the-one-person-show/feed/ 0 https://lvstorytelling.org/1855-2/ https://lvstorytelling.org/1855-2/#respond Mon, 13 Aug 2018 01:36:24 +0000 https://lvstorytelling.org/?p=1855 The post appeared first on LV Storytelling Guild.

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