Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Storytelling Starters ~ Storytelling Ventures

Saturday, October 28th, 2017

Two different ventures are my subject this week. One involves one of the readers of this blog – Swati Kakodkar.

Becoming a storyteller:

Swati lives in Bangalore in India. She became interested in storytelling when she lived in America and started taking her young son along to her local library. She loved seeing and hearing the storytelling sessions that were held there and she loved how they involved her son.

So when Swati moved to Bangalore, she took up storytelling herself. She enrolled at an institute in Bangalore which gives training and knowledge in storytelling. She also arranged to go regularly to tell stories to a children’s group.  (more…)

Storytelling Starters ~ Read/tell/read/write

Saturday, January 23rd, 2016

P1040754Ever feel uninspired? Empty of ideas and spirit? I hope so – but only in the sense that I hope it’s something we can all admit to. Certainly, after a week of editing work, completely uninspired is how I felt about the prospect of writing this blog today. I was convinced I had no stories to tell and nothing to say. 

Then on Thursday evening, I happened to turn up a little piece I’d written a month or two ago in the aftermath of reading a number of books by novelist and short-story writer, Ali Smith. Re-reading my piece, it made me wonder. Could I put that piece of mine on my blog?

Ali Smith has had a big effect on me. There’s daring in how she writes, a willingness to experiment and take risks. So why not, I’ve wondered since Thursday? Why not take the risk? As a storyteller, I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy going on about the powerful link between the oral and the written and how one can inspire the other. So why shouldn’t I confess to a passion for writing? Moreover, as I approach my dotage, I think I love doing it more and more. So here goes – a piece I wrote which is a bit of an experiment in visualisation, more of an idea than a story.

The uses of ‘a’

Come. Stand outside with me on a cold, clear night and I’ll show you how to experience one way to expand your sense of life. Preferably it’s cold because that makes you feel things more deeply. Preferably it’s in a part of the country, like on a small hill in Wales, like in my village of Mathri, where there’s little or no light pollution. (more…)