An Air Force Brat who grew up all over the world, Sue wound up in San Antonio where she taught elementary school for 32 years. A frequent presenter of workshops on integrating the TEKS and storytelling into writing, reading, and theater arts, Sue excites young audiences to love and appreciate traditional folktales and fairy tales. She founded and continues to work with elementary storytelling clubs where five of her students have been selected to perform at the National Youth Storytelling Showcase. In 1999, she was on the founding committee of the Texas Storytelling Youth Challenge and became lead organizer of this almost annual “gentle competition” for 15 years. Sue was NEISD’s Teacher of the Year in 2010, and she received the prestigious H-E-B Lifetime Excellence in Teaching award in 2011. She has been an emcee, storyteller, workshop presenter and a featured storyteller at the Texas Storytelling Festival. In 2015, the library at Tuscany Heights Elementary in North East ISD was named for her.

Sue’s storytelling sessions are age appropriate, utilizing participatory tales for the pre-k through 3rd grades such as folktales and personal tales. For 4th–7th graders she selects longer tales such as myths, legends, and historical tales that relate to their TEKS. After she retired in 2014, she dived right into energetic leadership as SASA’s president, took a leadership role in planning the 2014 Texas Storytelling Conference, drawing on her connections in San Antonio’s North East ISD, Harlandale ISD, and Northside ISD, and Region 20 ESC, and was quickly selected for the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist Roster.

More about Sue at http://www.door2lore.com/

Mary Ann Blue has thirty years of classroom experience. She presently teaches Spanish and coaches storytelling at San Antonio’s Saint Mary’s Hall.  She has presented workshops on teaching language through storytelling for professional organizations, including the American Council on Teaching Foreign Language.  Mary Ann is a performance artist and event organizer who has been a leader in the Texas storytelling community for over twenty years.  She has been featured at the Texas Storytelling Festival, George West Storyfest, PBS “Barney and Friends” and as keynoter for UTSA’s 2010 Storytelling Festival.  She serves on the Tejas Storytelling Association Board and is the Director of the Texas Storytelling 25th Anniversary Festival.

Carolina Quiroga-Stultz is a Colombian Social Communicator who graduated in 2013 with a Masters in Storytelling from East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Her large repertoire of bilingual stories, explores the Native Latin American and Hispanic Myths, Legends and Mysteries ranging from El Río Bravo to La Patagonia. Her bilingual storytelling enchants her audiences with her compelling mannerisms and the passion she brings into each story.

On 2014, she was awarded “Outstanding Performer of the Year” by ETSU, and in December 2015 she became the recipient of the “J.J. RENEAUX EMERGING ARTIST GRANT” by the National Storytelling Network. Currently, she is one of the four teacher artist selected to undergo a year residency by the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through ArtsFound at San Antonio.

In the United States, she has performed in many regional festivals in Tennessee, Texas and Kansas City, and also at numerous schools, libraries, universities and colleges to culturally and socially diverse audiences.

Visit her website: www.carolinastoryteller.com

Click to follow her on Youtube.com/Carolina Storyteller

Follow her podcast on Latin American Stories. Click to listen to it at: iTunes.applecom/3Cuentos or SoundCloud.com/3Cuentos

Jane McDaniel  Born in Limerick, Ireland, Jane moved to Texas in 1993, bringing with her a wealth of Celtic lore and story. Rollicking tales of Irish country folk, a range of great Celtic myths and romances, and stories filled with imagination, superstition and traditions passed from generation to generation, these are the tools she uses to transport adults and children alike to a wonder world on the edge of Tir na nOg: Land of Eternal Youth. A four-year national champion in Irish storytelling, she hones her skill by telling and collecting stories on Achill Island, Ireland each summer.  (210) 930 1026.

Ryan McPherson, M.A. serves as a faculty member at The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is the faculty sponsor and advisor of Storytellers at UTSA, founder of the UTSA Storyslam, founder of Bluebonnet Storytellers of New Braunfels, and former president of the San Antonio Storytellers. He is also a lifetime member of the National Storytelling Network and a member of the Tejas Storytelling Association.

He is founder of Storytelling Movement LLC, a human development company focused on professional and personal narrative coaching, strategic communication workshops, and story craft.

He can be contacted at:

Storytelling Movement LLC,

or

storytellingmovement@gmail.com

After a miserable yet hilarious cross-country car trip, Brooke was propelled out of the world of teaching mathematics into the world of storytelling. She has performed across the country from San Diego to New York City.  Brooke founded a nonprofit, Down South Word of Mouth, dedicated to promoting personal growth, social justice, and community connection in central Texas through the art of personal narrative storytelling. And when she isn’t on stage, she occupies her time with four kids, shooting pool, roadside adventures, and welding.

Check out her website: http://downsouthwordofmouth.org/

Jason Winn is a militant-Buddhist-former-massage-therapist-turned-architect and has been a junior scholar of storytelling since hearing the tellers of the Arabian Nights Entertainments in the great plazas of Morocco.  A serial-revisionist, Jason hopes we can change the past in retelling the story--seeing it by the light of a different campfire.  He can be reached through his website: www.SpacePoetics.com

Mary Grace Ketner From Ali Baba to La Llorona, Tiger to Turtle or Vasalisa to Jack, folktales, fairy tales and legends from all around the world come alive in the enchanting voice and graceful gestures of storyteller Mary Grace Ketner. Her interactive story programs address the scope and sequence of each grade’s Social Studies content as well as the TEKS for language arts. Mary Grace is part of the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist Roster; support may be available through the Cultural Connections Performance Support grant application. Find her CD and learn more about her Tales and Legends. 

Mary Grace has worked as a middle and high school teacher, a director of religious education, and a museum educational specialist at UTSA’s Institute of Texan Cultures. Co-founder of the San Antonio Storytellers Association in 1991, she has served as the organization’s president or in some board position each years since. She has served on the Tejas Storytelling Association Board of Directors, produced five of the organization’s biennial Conferences since 1997, and organized registration for the Texas Storytelling Festival for four years. Active in the National Storytelling Network, she has presented two workshops and performed in story concerts a half dozen times at that organization’s annual conference. She presently serves as NSN’s State Liaison for Texas. She blogs at FairyTaleLobby.wordpress.com. 

Larry Thompson has been performing in front of audiences for 30+ years.  Whether it’s a business event, or a classroom of youngsters, Larry is at home helping the audience to laugh, learn, and let loose.

If you ask his mother, she'd say he's been performing for almost 50 years.  Larry specializes in “Full-Contact” performances – offering the audience a chance to participate in the fun.

He has told stories on mountain tops and in valleys from New Mexico to South Carolina and many large and small places in between.  He has received "Least Forgettable Performer" honors and his style caused one listener to remark, "He's not so bad!"  Larry was honored to be named a Featured Teller for the 2015 George West Storyfest.

Larry tells cowboy tales, folk tales, home grown tales, and guarantees to make you smile. With campfire tales, both chilling and not-so-chilling, his outdoor performances have been enjoyed by children and adults across the South.

Feel like you or your group wants to learn more about storytelling or maybe you want to include storytelling in your business toolkit – Larry has workshops on crafting and polishing a story, creating new material, or delivering a great performance.

Larry has recorded two compact discs with old and new favorite stories and has published several books of his own stories; his newest book is a collection of cowboy and western poetry titled “Good Jeans and Good Rhymes.” He is past president of the San Antonio Storytelling Association and is currently the President of the board of directors for the Tejas Storytelling Association.

Mark A. Babino is a native of Beaumont, Texas with roots extending into Louisiana. His stories are as rich and as spicy as his mother’s gumbo. A versatile storyteller, Mark has the ability to move the audience with his stillness and calm as well as bringing them to laughter with his  animated style of presenting a story. (He/Mark is...or A) a very rhythmic, active performer who leaves the audience wanting more.