Karen Chace’s book, Story by Story, Building a Storytelling Troupe is a must have for anyone even slightly interested in starting a storytelling group with students.  I know I am guilty of sometimes skipping over sections, but every word that Karen writes is important and useful distilled (and therefore potent) information.  Ms. Chace not only tells you what to do to run a successful troupe, but also WHY you need to do it.  This is, to me, very important.  Sometimes one is tempted to skip things, but this book explains how important the steps are. Everything from how many hours Karen thought it would take, to ACTUAL hours, where the funding comes from, how and why to lay foundations and expectations (including ‘no teasing policies’ and group dynamics), right the way through presentation skills to advertising the event and getting bums on seats (emphasis important)!
 
Over the years Karen has and continues to come up with new and inventive ways of teaching the skills of storytelling, and a great many of these exercises and activities are included in the book.  When it comes to research and materials as well as technique, Karen adds new meaning to "thorough".  There are links to websites for stories, for grants, for microphone techniques, and how storytelling connects to the school curriculum and more.  And if you prefer to read books, there is an extensive bibliography, too.
 
Basically, I believe if you want to succeed in building a storytelling troupe or group, all you need is Karen Chace’s book, Story by Story, Building a Storytelling Troupe and to do everything Karen suggests.  I am sure it would be very hard to fail if you follow her words of wisdom between the covers of her goldmine of a book.
Simon Brooks, storyteller, and educator

Chock-full of informative detail,
Trails of Central Arkansas delivers:
 
*  Sixty trails in 36 parks or locations from Benton and Bryant to Cabot, from Wrightsville to Conway
*  Color maps of every trail
*  GPS coordinates for every trailhead
*  Color-coded distinctions between paved and unpaved trails
*  Level of difficulty ratings
*  Scenery Scores
*  Top-ten lists: Most Scenic, Trails for Kids, and Trails for Solitude

Residents and visitors have an urban-outdoor haven in Little Rock: actually more than two dozen of them. They are the hiking trails, biking trails as well as the canoe and kayak-read waterways within the city and immediate area. Whether your passion is a quiet walk in the woods, a mountain-climb, fishing, bird-watching, or a quiet float, this handbook will help you find and use the trails and waterways of Little Rock.

It has not been easy to value play.  Mainstream culture urges us to rush and finish what we are working on to quickly advance to the next task at hand.  Too often we must punch our time clock forward without much consideration.  As the minutes and hours move, we indirectly communicate both to ourselves and the world no time remains to play; we must work. 
 
Despite that the world around me does not value play, in my creative life, play is necessary.  In fact, I have discovered it is the real work I do as an artist and teacher.  As a storyteller, writer, teacher, and imaginative thinker, it is play that has produced the most desired results in my life, in my work, and especially, in my creativity.   It is in play that we experience who we are and we begin to extend our choices.   Play is not consciously prepared; discovery that happens in the moment.   It invites reflection.   In fact, Plato once shared, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” 

 In this book, you will discover new ways to work with your story craft and find new story direction using play.  Indeed, play is a meaningful way to create and learn. 
 
In both childhood and adult play, the imagination plays a central role in the meaning making process.  Although there are many types of play: school-based, recess, sports, this work is rooted in play inviting the writer, storyteller, or imaginative thinker to make choices as they work to create meaning in their work.   
 
I will share how collaborative play can increase your choices when making a story.  You will find not only exercises to build your story making and telling skills, but pedagogy of practice to use when called to create story.

“Even after dark, if you are quiet and attentive, you can hear a Killdeer far off. Sandbars, mud flats and grazed fields are where you find them. They are commonplace. So much so, that you might miss them if not for the unique sound they make as they fly overhead, or dart back and forth on the ground, as if wondering which way to go next. So it is with Michael Cotter’s stories. They are like a comfortable pair of slippers. Not flashy at all, but each time you put them on and walk in them, you are so glad you did. They appear so ordinary, but the way they wrap around your soul surprises you. And like slippers you thought you’d never buy, Michael’s stories surprise you. Even though they are not flashy, energetic or dramatic in ways we have come to expect in this digital age, they are grounded in universal truths, with timeless characters. They provide us with a sense of memory, wisdom and peace that celebrates the human spirit, and revels in the common man, woman, boy and girl that is in us all. When Michael tells his stories, it’s as if time stands still. We are reminded of who we really are….down deep….after the television is turned off, the radio is silenced, and we have put our egos on the shelf to rest a spell.” 
 
 --Rex Ellis, Director of Museum programs, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

An anthology of traditional and original stories with commentary for using the stories to help troubled teens in need of character formation and re-formation.  Also for use in general classrooms and youth activities to undergird healthy character formation in the pre-teen and teen years. Mentoring teens can be a wild dance. As adults we count and measure our movements but teens have created their own music and their own steps, they dance to the cycle of adolescent change in an effort to become one of us, though they would never admit that.  

The books Dancing at the Crossroads: Stories for Mentoring At-Risk Youth, Practitioner’s Guidebook and Caregiver’s Guidebook are packed with the lessons of fifteen years in the field working with at-risk populations in runaway shelters, group homes, residential treatment facilities and one-on one with youth and parents.      Out of a real understanding of these young people and their needs, and a passion for helping guide them into the adult circle, Lorna MacDonald Czarnota has compiled a collection of time-tested stories with activities, advice and information for parents and families, and a series of programs that storytellers, mental health workers, counselors, therapists, and others can utilize with groups of their own.

An anthology of traditional and original stories with commentary for using the stories to help troubled teens in need of character formation and re-formation.  Also for use in general classrooms and youth activities to undergird healthy character formation in the pre-teen and teen years. Mentoring teens can be a wild dance. As adults we count and measure our movements but teens have created their own music and their own steps, they dance to the cycle of adolescent change in an effort to become one of us, though they would never admit that.  

The books Dancing at the Crossroads: Stories for Mentoring At-Risk Youth, Practitioner’s Guidebook and Caregiver’s Guidebook are packed with the lessons of fifteen years in the field working with at-risk populations in runaway shelters, group homes, residential treatment facilities and one-on one with youth and parents.      Out of a real understanding of these young people and their needs, and a passion for helping guide them into the adult circle, Lorna MacDonald Czarnota has compiled a collection of time-tested stories with activities, advice and information for parents and families, and a series of programs that storytellers, mental health workers, counselors, therapists, and others can utilize with groups of their own.

An anthology of traditional and original stories with commentary for using the stories to help troubled teens in need of character formation and re-formation.  Also for use in general classrooms and youth activities to undergird healthy character formation in the pre-teen and teen years. Mentoring teens can be a wild dance. As adults we count and measure our movements but teens have created their own music and their own steps, they dance to the cycle of adolescent change in an effort to become one of us, though they would never admit that.  

Dancing at the Crossroads: Stories for Mentoring At-Risk Youth, Caregiver’s Guidebook and Practitioner’s Guidebook are packed with the lessons of fifteen years in the field working with at-risk populations in runaway shelters, group homes, residential treatment facilities and one-on one with youth and parents.      Out of a real understanding of these young people and their needs, and a passion for helping guide them into the adult circle, Lorna MacDonald Czarnota has compiled a collection of time-tested stories with activities, advice and information for parents and families, and a series of programs that storytellers, mental health workers, counselors, therapists, and others can utilize with groups of their own.