Unlocking Story at the SSC
Whenever I feel like I’m bogging down, creatively speaking, I sign up for a workshop at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and I always come away inspired. This past Saturday was no exception. The topic of the day was how to use story with artifacts, archives and museums. Steve Byrne introduced us to the amazing resource [...]
Golem-spotting in Fife!
I recently received one of the best gifts a children’s author can receive: artwork inspired by my writing. Karl Barrs, a teacher in Fife, sent me this photo of golems his class made out of clay after tuning in to an author event I did online for Education Scotland’s Glovember celebration of books. I wrote [...]
The Power of Short Film
A well made short film is like a poem, it leaves room in it for the unfolding of many different stories. Vinko Totic, a soft-spoken man who knows first-hand the ravages of civil war has devoted his life to spreading peace and compassion. When I lived in Ottawa, I knew him best as a organizer [...]
The Tiger Bride: Art, Story and the Wild Mind
The stars–or was it my busy schedule?–finally aligned in such a way that I was able to get to one of Nicola Ryrie‘s story and art workshops at the Salisbury Centre. February’s story was The Tiger Bride from Angela Carter‘s collection, The Bloody Chamber. The experience of working with this story through art in the [...]
Storybikes: Storied Ecotravel through Fife
As often happens with blogs, I got busy with other things and this webpage has sat largely silent for too many months. During that time I went on a fabulous story journey that I meant to write about but just never managed to. With spring promised in the returning light, my thoughts have once more [...]
Telling Stories of Africa in Film
Written by guest blogger Denise Deby, a Canadian who has worked on international issues, and is discovering the power of stories in shaping perspectives and prompting actions. The stories we in North America hear about Africa are usually bleak. My recent scans of news headlines have told me about “violence,” “starvation,” and “political crisis,” but [...]
Edinburgh Transition Tales in Reforesting Scotland
The Autumn/Winter issue of Reforesting Scotland’s magazine (of the same name) focussed on the Transition movement in Scotland. The article “Deep into soul soil” written by Transition Edinburgh member Jude Dunn discusses the importance of addressing heart and soul matters in our attempts to bring about positive changes in our selves and our communities in [...]
Painting Edinburgh Green With Stories
Transition Edinburgh hosted its first (hopefully annual) fair of environmentally-friendly options for re-localizing life in Scotland’s capital. As I have argued (probably ad nauseum) when it comes to environmentally-friendly ways to entertain and inform people (especially the younger ones) storytelling is probably as low-carbon as it gets (though I have to own up to the [...]
Storytelling and Adventure Therapy
I spent much of last week attending the Fifth International Adventure Therapy Conference. Not surprisingly, narratives and storytelling have found their way into this field. Paul Stolz (Evolve at Typo Station) and Cathryn Carpenter (Deakin University), both in Australia, spoke about their use of narrative therapy approaches to working with young people “in the bush”. [...]
Storywalk at the Newbattle Abbey Storytelling Festival
Two weeks after I arrived in Scotland, I spent a weekend learning to tell stories at Newbattle Abbey College, just south of Edinburgh. I fell in love with the place right then and there and I was sad when I completed the second weekend of coursework, fearing my relationship with the college was over. Fortunately, [...]
