Mary Medlicott & Storyworks [Services] - Storyteller and Storytelling Author

Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

International Storytelling Network (RIC)

"It’s a privilege to listen to your clever story weaving and to observe your skill in handling an audience." (Listener)

"Polished, pleasurable and professional." (Audience member)

"It was everything we’d hoped for for the families and brilliant for the library staff who were able to participate." (Librarian)

"I felt like I was in the stories she told." (Pupil)

"I absolutely loved it and I would like it if you would come again." (Pupil)

"You teach us thinking." (Pupil)

"Thank you for causing me to know what is in me."

(Teacher at the Institute of Education)

"Every time I listen to you share your stories and observations I feel so refreshed."

(Nursery School Head)

"The students are absolutely buzzing after your visits."

(Lecturer)

"What I found most inspiring was that you not only showed us what is possible, but that you elicited our own creativity."

(Workshop participant)

"You have a real gift of holding up a positive and beautiful mirror to us all! "
(Storyteller)

"As always what you said was ideally suited to the occasion."

(Conference organiser)

"I may find myself cribbing a few of your ideas!" (Junior pupil)

What I can do for you

My work includes storytelling in many different forms from performance to consultancy, from work in schools and libraries and settings to speaking and writing about it. I can provide training in storytelling. I can talk about the ways in which creative writers can be helped by the techniques of oral tradition. I can help less experienced storytellers develop their confidence and their skills.

Click on the headings below to find out more. Or contact me if you are thinking of something which is not covered here and I'll tell you if I can help you with it.

Performance for adults or family audiences
Work with children and young people
Workshops, Courses and INSET for adults
Storytelling in the Community
Storytelling Consultancy

Performance for adults or family audiences

Choose from my tried and tested themes as listed below. Or let me know your needs and, if I can, I will specially design you a concert of stories tailored to your expected audience, the length of session you require and the theme you think would most appeal.

Click here for comments on my work.

A Christmas Gift,
my Christmas programme for adults and young people, offers a magical mixture of readings and tellings - A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, the hilarious Twelve Thank-You Notes of Christmas - and other heart-warming seasonal tales.

Shemi’s Tall Tales
This humorous new programme is associated with my new book, Shemi's Tall Tales. It celebrates the stories and life of Shemi Wâd, the notable 19^th century fisherman, rabbit-catcher, clock-mender and tall-tale teller from the area of Pembrokeshire where I was born and grew up.
Travels with my Welsh Aunt

Poignant and hilarious by turns, this evening concert of stories and songs is based on the life and travels of my extraordinary Welsh aunt, Aunty Mali, and the different worlds to which she introduced me.
Seeing is Believing

This variable-length collection of stories - myths, folktales, legends, true stories - is based round one of storytelling’s central questions: is it true? Once you’ve imagined it, how can it not be true?
Stories at the Year’s Turning

Specially chosen for the time before Christmas or after, here is a rich feast of stories, songs and poems designed to celebrate the dark turning towards the light.
Burying the Cat

This Brixton saga is a tribute to two extraordinary old sisters who lived in my street. Spiced with their own uniquely colourful language, it tells the tales of their everyday lives as well as some well-known and lesser-known folktales inspired by what happened to them.
My Life in Stories
During my years as a storyteller travelling round the UK and abroad to Africa, America, New Zealand and elsewhere, I’ve collected all kinds of fascinating stories from people I’ve met on the way. This programme offers a selection.

Click here to contact me for more details

Work with children and young people

I am experienced in working with children and young people throughout Nursery, Primary and Secondary Education. I work in schools, libraries. museums and galleries.

You can choose performance-based sessions where it is mainly me telling stories but with audience participation. Or you can choose workshop sessions which consist of a storytelling input from me, then a set of activities for participants to do. Activities can be designed for different emphases:

speaking and listening
storytelling leading to storywriting
listeners taking on the role of becoming the storytellers
exploring and developing particular themes (for example, space, water, local legends)
in Wales, working with Cwriciwlwm Cymreig [cliciwch yma]

Do contact me to discuss lengths and structure of sessions and also any particular theme you would like me to focus on. If you have no other theme in mind, I usually emphasise the unique features of oral tradition – that we all have stories, we swim in a sea of stories and can pass them on to others.

Training Workshops, Courses and INSET

I offer a variety of storytelling courses, workshops and INSET for adults working in education. The aim is to encourage teachers, student teachers, classroom assistants or Nursery staff to develop storytelling without the book and to consider the benefits of oral storytelling.

All courses and workshops include opportunities to hear a selection of stories and think about ways of using them creatively. The selection of stories generally includes elements of personal storytelling and story creation as well as traditional tales. As well as a variety of stories, sessions also provide the opportunity to explore effective techniques for telling and experience a variety of creative follow-up activities. They may focus, for example, on speaking and listening methods to increase children’s confidence and abilities; developing children’s imagination through strategies such as storymapping and visualisation; using oral storytelling to help develop children’s writing.

Courses and workshops vary in length and style of delivery according to the requirements of the particular school, group of schools, educational institution or local education authority. They can vary from a number of sessions over a period of weeks to half-day or whole-day sessions. There is the additional possibility of a Twilight Session following a day’s storytelling. I also provide INSET courses where staff come to observe me with a class of children, then take the work back to their own classrooms or settings.

Some of my regular short-course titles are as follows:

Storytelling in the Early Years

Here the main focus is on storytelling without the book. The course shares a range of appropriate stories, chants and rhymes as well as exploring a variety of strategies for engaging and holding children’s attention and developing children as storytellers.
Developing Children’s Speaking and Listening Through Oral Stories and Storytelling

The focus is on helping children engage with stories they’ve heard through a variety of related activities such as story-mapping, story-boarding and retelling, all of which give opportunities for children to develop their speaking and listening abilities.
Storytelling: An Art For All

The course focuses on the arts of remembering stories and preparing them for presentation. It takes a wide view of the different kinds of stories that are suitable including traditional tales, personal stories and making up new stories.
Exploring Local Legends
Every area has its local legends. These provide a great source of fascination whether for children in school or adults in community groups. The course provides help and advice in going about the gathering of stories, different ways to tell them and methods of sharing them with the wider community.

If you are thinking you would like me to help you with a storytelling course of any kind, please contact me to discuss the kind of course you are thinking about, how long you want it to be, suitable numbers of participants and your desired outcomes.

Storytelling in the Community

Community storytelling sessions give all kinds of community groups the opportunity to explore different ways of creative and collaborative working through stories. Whether it is a heritage group, a group of parents, elderly people or adults with learning disabilities, or simply members of the public interested in exploring storytelling, these workshops offer the chance to share and investigate many kinds of stories including traditional tales, personal and family stories and stories that are made up on the spot. They can be designed around particular themes (for examples, the magic of objects, journeys, gift-giving or the elements). The emphasis is on creativity and sharing.

Click here for a note on my recent work for Family Action.

Click here for my contact details so that you can book me NOW!

Storytelling Consultancy and Conference-Speaking

I am experienced in providing storytelling consultancy on the setting up of storytelling training in education and library settings and also on the organisation of storytelling events.

As a keynote speaker on storytelling, I can offer a wide range of topics including:

the art of storytelling
storytelling and creative writing,
storytelling in community and
storytelling in education.

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Please contact me for further information on any of the services and activities described above.