Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

Posts Tagged ‘Sally Tonge’

Storytelling Starters ~ What’s In a Blog?

Saturday, October 29th, 2016

Ships 1This week,  a query arrived from a storytelling friend (Hilary, this is you!). Among her storytelling stuff, she’d come across some clipped-together folded and cut papers. What could they be? She remembered they were connected with a story I’d once told her students. Something about a sea-captain? Could I remind her of it?

Now when it comes to blogging, I am a veritable infant. I love writing this blog, I know how to put in my pictures and I know how to post the blog each Saturday. Beyond that, I don’t know very much at all except I do also know how to look up stuff I’ve posted in this blog in the past. So I thought I’d pass on that information to anyone reading this now. If nothing else, it could be a useful reminder that you can use this blog as a kind of archive.

Storyworks Blog References

So. Look at the Search boxes on the top left of the blog. In the box marked Storyworks Blog References, put in a word or perhaps two that relate to a subject you might be interested in. Maybe you want to check up on a story you faintly remember reading here in the past. Maybe you’re interested in finding a new story on a particular theme – apples or ghosts or soul or wild man. If it’s something that’s been in this blog, the title and date of the relevant posting (or several)  will come up on your screen when you’ve entered the word. Press on whichever one you want to check out and hey presto. (more…)

Storytelling Starters ~ So many stories

Saturday, July 26th, 2014

Sometimes it proves very difficult to hold together the different levels of story that come your way in this hard world.

Festival at the Edge (more…)

Storytelling Starters ~ Make it!

Saturday, July 5th, 2014

It’s summer-time and time for fun. Last week it was The Flea’s Adventure. This week, it’s The Captain’s T-shirt, another ‘doing’ story that children adore and for which I have to thank brilliant storyteller, Sally Tonge, who first showed me how to do it. Plus, thanks to another great storyteller, Karen Tovell, today’s delights include The Magic Jumping Flea Trick, an excellent device to intrigue and enrapture children which she sent in during the week in response to last week’s story.  (more…)

Storytelling Starters ~ Mouth No. 3

Saturday, September 1st, 2012

Last week I promised details of how to vote for the shortlisted candidates (including me!) for the new BASE awards. But there’s no sign yet of the new BASE website with the details. Hopefully it’ll be up by next week, so I’ll come back to the subject then.

Meantime back to Mouth – and Mouth is, of course, central to oral tradition. The phrase By Word of Mouth even won me a bottle of champagne when I came up with it as the possible title for the TV series on storytelling that I proposed and devised for Channel 4 at the end of the 1980s. The series at that point was almost completed. All we lacked was a title. The production company offered the champagne. I remember racking my brains in the bath. As soon as I thought of  By Word of Mouth,  it sounded obviously right.

Don’t children often say it: ‘Tell me a story out of your mouth’? They love the directness of telling and this week’s two stories quite literally add a twist to the telling. They take you back to the fun that you get as a child when some lovely silly adult makes hilarious expressions at you. Combine the facial expressions with a good story and the story gets asked for again and again. This week I’ve got two stories to choose from.

And by the way, I hope you love my photo illustration as much as I do. If you don’t know who its subjects are, go to the bottom of my Blog for details. (more…)