Written by Stephanie Holman
Libyq@yahoo.com
I just unearthed a VHS copy of my first storytelling in 1989. Recorded at the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University in Bloomington for use in a job application, baby-faced Stephie told “Caps For Sale” to the dreaded camera lens. I got the job though.
Now almost 30 years later I daily use the skills from a Storytelling class with Dr. Shirley Fitzgibbons in that job as Children’s Librarian at the Monroe County Public Library.
Over the decades I have gained experience and observation as a member of the Bloomington Storytellers Guild and through the evolution of Stories Inc. into Storytelling Arts of Indiana. Thanks to SIA in the early days I got to introduce tellers such as Donald Davis. As Emcee I always had the best seat in the house.
A moment of growth was due to a conversation with the late Hope Baugh at a library conference. She was considering applying for the Frank Basile Emerging Stories Fellowship when I talked to her about it and in true Hope Baugh fashion she talked me into applying instead. That fellowship I received was a giant step in my career as a writer crafting new stories for telling. I wrote and performed a collection of stories I treasure to this day called “A Sleighful of Sisters”.
Thanks to the Basile fellowship, I then had a story to record on a SIA CD project “Stories from the Heartland”. People still tell me they know well the local hill I travel in the CD story “A Taste of Fall”.
Next it was an email to tellers from Ellen Munds about an opportunity involving a pilot television show called “Tell Me a Story”. I drove to Illinois for the all day taping, dealt with make-up and nerves as I was in the last show of the day. Three tellers told in each program and the audience voted for the winner via applause. I told an original version of the folktale “Fortunately, Unfortunately”. Fortunately I won the episode vote. Unfortunately the series never got picked up.
Another moment came when Ellen wrote about a filming for the children’s DVD’s “Storywatcher’s Club”. I was filmed telling my “Golly Mander” folktale and over the next few years received my first ever royalty checks.
Each experience that was offered by SIA helped me grow but the commissions to write and tell for the “Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories” series and the “If These Walls Could Tell” series have led to a great deal of learning and enjoyment.
Telling history in an engaging way is something I have had to work on. I have met with fellow storytellers to get advice and I took a free online course called “Writing Fiction Like a Pro” to help me turn facts into journeys.
Each opportunity to create a story is filled with delight and worry as I work for months on the project. I tell about women artists of Brown County Art Colony, about WWII from the Hoosier perspective at home and abroad, about Vincennes comedian Red Skelton, about buildings such as Marquette Pavilion in Gary and Fowler Theatre in Fowler and now a chance to tell about Angel Mounds State Historic site.
I love the research, interviewing people, visiting research libraries and the behind scene tours of the locations. I relish sifting through facts, finding my protagonist and story elements and then molding them into the story arc that plays out in the traditional three acts. I even enjoy the rewrites and the early days of getting the story off the page and into my head for telling. Waiting to go out on the stage the day of the premiere is the only time of regret. But always, when I walk out to welcoming words of kind emcees and feel the encouragement that comes from SIA crowds the regret is gone and the story flows.
Thanks to the partnerships that Ellen has formed with Indiana Historical Society and Indiana Landmarks I now have several stories that travel around the state of Indiana. For instance I have told my Red Skelton story at least 25 times. After the premiere in Indianapolis five years ago I told it at the Red Skelton Festival in Vincennes on a lovely outdoor stage that unfortunately was in front of the Tilt-a-Whirl ride. Fortunately this past month I told it there again in the comfort of the Red Skelton museum. And just like every time I have told it, people come up afterward and tell me their Red stories.
My stories grow and change with each telling as does this teller.
My own story arc has a hero and it is Storytelling Arts.