Featured Storytellers
MaryAnn Blue
Maryann Blue had a "wide screen childhood", growing up in Tulsa at her father's drive-in movie theater. She fell in love with the silver screen, but she also fell in love with Mexico, its language and its customs and its stories. She has been telling bilingual stories throughout Texas for more than two decades. She was a featured teller at the Texas Storytelling Festival in 1997 and has been featured at the George West Storyfest, and the University of Texas at San Antonio's Storytelling Festival. She has appeared on PBS television's "Barney and Friends". A sought after presenter of workshops on storytelling and language learning, she has been a presenter for teachers and librarians at numerous professional conferences in the United States and Central America. Recently she was the keynote speaker at Our Lady of the Lake University's Woolfolk Conference.
MaryAnn has served on the Board of Directors of the Tejas Storytelling Association and as the Artistic Director of the Texas Storytelling Festival. She currently teaches Spanish at Saint Mary's Hall in San Antonio, where she also coaches youth storytellers. She has the remarkable distinction of having students chosen to be Torchbearers at the national storytelling competition for youth tellers on three separate occasions.
Patrick Ball
Patrick Ball was born and raised in California and gave little thought to such things as where his ancestors came from. He went to school and supposed, when he thought about it at all, that he would one day be a lawyer, like his father. But he studied music and over the years developed a nodding acquaintance with the piano and the guitar. At university he continued his flirtatious relationship with music by playing the tin whistle, principally to annoy his roommate. But he found he was irresistibly drawn to words, to the music of words, to writers who made words sing, to writers from Ireland. Then, when he began to study history, he found it was the lyrical, turbulent history of Ireland that engaged him. When Patrick's father died, all thoughts of law school died with him. He made his way to Ireland and fell in love with the eloquence and fire of the Irish oral tradition. He also fell in love with the Celtic harp. He came to know that marvelous unity of Irish words, music and history that would become his passion and, eventually, his livelihood.
Patrick returned to California, was awarded a Master's Degree in History by Dominican College, and discovered jobs in the field of Irish scholarship were not to be had for love nor money. He ended up at Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where he lived for two years and worked as a groundsman. There he encountered a branch of that living oral tradition that had captivated him in Ireland. Among the Appalachian storytellers, his love of the spoken word was rekindled. He returned to Ireland and listened, then made his way back to California, determined to put his scholarship, his love of words and his neglected musicianship to some use, to carve out for himself an occupation from the things that he loved. He sought out a maker of the rare wire-strung Celtic harp and taught himself to play.
He now tours extensively throughout the United States and Canada, is considered one of the premier Celtic harpers and spoken word artist in the world. Patrick presents The Flame of Love, a spoken word and Early Music retelling of the greatest of medieval legends, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.
Kevin Kling
Kevin Kling is a regular commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered. All things considered, Kevin is an amazing individual. He is a well-known playwright whose work has been performed around the world. A repeated favorite at the National Storytelling Festival, the humor and tenderness of his stories leave listeners unable to catch their breath. He has been a recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the McKnight, Bush and Jerome Foundations.
Born with a congenital birth defect—his left arm is about three-quarters the size of his right arm, and his left hand has no wrist or thumb. In Kevin’s words,” I used to read Highlights Magazine while waiting for my brother or I to be stitched up in the emergency room. My favorite was Goofus and Gallant. I always identified with Goofus, but I realized we are all made up of a lttle of each-both Goofus and Gallant.
About six years ago my Goofus got on his motorcycle. Gallant put on his helmet. At an intersection a car pulled in front of me and before I or Goofus or Gallant could touch the brakes, I crashed.” The result was the loss of the use of what he always considered his “good” arm. Most people would respond to this with bitterness. Not Kevin. He can best be described as a ray of Light wearing tennis shoes.
Kim Lehman
Kim Lehman grew up in rural Pennsylvania, in a Mennonite home, with an Old Order Amish grandmother. Perhaps that is why there is a gentle spirituality that runs through her whimsical storytelling. She says the teaching she did in the Appalachian Mountains gave her a life-long interest in folk traditions such as storytelling, oral histories, wood carving, herbal remedies and beekeeping. She now lives in Austin with her husband, her pets, 150 musical insturments, lots of art from found objects, 400 hats and 80,000 honeybees. She is on the roster of Touring Artists for the Texas Commission on the Arts and is a popular workshop leader for library systems and educators.
Kim is also the Founder and Coordinator of the Kids and Bees Program at the American Beekeeping Federation Conventions. She has produced both family cookbooks and CDs of family history. She also produced the oral history stories about the Texas Storytelling Festival that were shown at the 25th Anniversary of the Texas Storytelling Festival.