Tag: storytelling

Happy New Year 2020!

Wishing you and yours the best in 2020. We’ll have some great books for you!

the words happy new year over lit candles with a golden hue

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From Audience to Zeal: The Workbook

title of workbook over the images a jumble of old-style printer lettering blocksEnhance Your Learning!

Coming along after the original textbook, Laura S. Packer has a new WORKBOOK (at 92 pages!) companion volume to go with the original A to Z book! It’s a journal, it’s a guidebook, it’s a way to move from idea to implementation.

Designed to be a companion volume to “From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great Story,” this workbook contains deep reflections, focused advice, intriguing readings, and active projects that will take your experiences in storytelling and oral communication to the next level. This workbook contains additional materials not found in the book.

Praise for the Workbook!
Laura has created a working text, a highly practical and useful book that is personal, powerful, and poignant. She captures in words and exercises what we need to do and hear. Using it will only improve your work in story. -Kevin Cordi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Ohio University Lancaster; International Storytelling SIG Chair, National Council of Teachers of English

Get the Workbook!
You can order the spiral-bound version at this link. You can order the Ebook verison (.pdf) at this link.

Don’t Have the Textbook Yet?
Learn more about this project at this link here.

Hear the Interviews!
Sean Buvala and Laura did a series of interviews about this project. Hear them or read the transcripts at this link now.

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Video: Pick the Brain of a Storytelling Expert.

Sean Buvala talks about how Laura Packer’s New book is like taking part in one of those “pick my brain” sessions with an expert in the field of oral storytelling and public speaking. Short video:

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Praise for “From Audience to Zeal” by Laura S. Packer

shows covers of laura packer's new book title from audience to zeal the abcs of finding crafting and telling a great story“In ‘From Audience to Zeal,’ Laura Packer has created a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ that is a remarkable combination of good advice and wonder about the length and breadth of storytelling… time and time again as I read it has set me to thinking about how delicious and right her words are.”
-Loren Niemi, Storyteller

“Whether telling stories for fun or for one’s livelihood, this reference guide will be a useful addition to one’s storytelling library. Beginning storytellers will find that it easily breaks down the nuts and bolts of storytelling from ‘A to Z’. Seasoned storytellers will appreciate Laura’s experiences and anecdotes to hone their own practices.  What I valued most about Laura’s approach is that she provides a blending of storytelling pragmatic, theory and skills while using her own stories and sense of humor to guide the reader along.”
-Aimee DuBois, Storytelling Instructor, Normandale Community College

“Wow! Yes, that’s one of the entries in this amazing book, along with Love and Vulnerability, Tenderness and Truth. Although I am not a professional storyteller and reading a book – even one as good as this – isn’t going to make me one, I can say that I came to have even greater regard for this profession, and for author Laura Packer, a very special storyteller, as well. Like many A-to-Z books, this one is intended to be dipped into as the need arises, but it was equally interesting and informative read in linear fashion. Indeed, the lessons reinforced each other and the writing is engaging and lyrical. This book promises to enlighten and delight, to demonstrate and show, and yes, to cause the reader to say, more than once, ‘Wow!'”
-Susan Dray

Read more

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Laura Packer Interview: Author of “From Audience to Zeal” (Part Three)

Interview with Laura Packer

“It was so important to me that…that I neither shield my audience from the depth and rigor of what it is to be a good storyteller nor do I present this in such a way that they feel like it’s never attainable, that they can’t reach it.” -Laura

Author and Storyteller Laura S. Packer is the creator of “From Audience to Zeal: The ABCs of Finding, Crafting, and Telling a Great Story.” Part 3: Laura Packer and Sean Buvala discuss the nature of Laura’s new book, coming at the end of 2018. They talk about the invite a reader needs in order to feel comfortable in the conversation of an author’s book. They discuss the nature of how stories are used for bonding people’s lives together in the midst of a real-life lab(rador) in the office. Woof. Part 3 of 8. Learn more at audiencetozeal.com. Preorder a Kindle version at this link now.

You can listen here to part three. To hear more of this great interview, please check your favorite podcast provider and search for “Storyteller.net Amphitheater.” You can also go directly to our hosting site at http://anchor.fm/amphitheater.

A transcript for Part Three is printed below the “listen” link below. Additional transcripts for other issues will be available soon!

Read more

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New Book: The Storyteller’s List Book

Now available. It’s a journal and a tool! This is a write-in journal for keeping track of your the stories, poems, and spoken-word pieces you have performed.

Build your own resource of the stories you tell as well as where and when you told them. Generous blank pages for each story with simple prompts. In addition, there are many blank pages in the back for keeping track of programs you create. A write-in resource for all storytellers and speakers to keep track of what, when, where, and with whom their stories were shared.

Get one or give one today with this link for our secure online store.

Your local independent bookstore can order a copy for you. Ask them to check their “Ingram” system to order it.

You can get it at the big A book-retailer at this link.

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Now! You Wake Up One Morning. . .

cover of you wake up one morning featuring doodles of typical morning items such as a shcool bus unmade bed shower panckakes cerealA prompted journal for creative expression in words and art for kids in the ages (suggested) of 9-13. Get One Here.

You Wake Up One Morning. . .

  • . . .and there’s a tiger in the corner of your room.
  • . . .everything you wish for comes true.
  • . . .you are only 2 inches tall.

What Would YOU do? Create Your Answer in Words and Art!

This journal has dozens of fun prompts all about “waking up one morning” and so many different blank pages just waiting for creative thoughts and art: boxed pages, journal pages, college-ruled, storyboards, graphic-novel style layouts and more!

Choose and Get Started!

Take a look through the prompts and find one that gets your brain-juice flowing. Then find a page that lets you write your thoughts or make your art…whatever you want to do! There are no “right” answers in this journal, no correct way to be creative. Go for it!

Two Styles Available!

You can get the journal in paperback binding or spiral-bound. The spiral-bound uses a sturdy, professional-grade plastic coil binding designed to last. (The spiral-binding is on back order until December 1. Shipments with this binding will be delayed.)

A Great Gift!

Hey Parents, Grandparents and All Caregivers: Give the gift of mind-engaging, screens-down creativity! Take a look at this journal for the growing writer and artist in your world. With plenty of room for self-expression in a size that is backpack-perfect (7×10 inches), you probably have at least one “big kid” somewhere in your life who would love a journal like this.

Compiled by K. Sean Buvala, whose decades of experience in story development, creative expression and on-stage storytelling has taken him throughout the U.S. and Canada. The prompts in this book have been chosen to perfectly fit the fresh “abstract-thinking” mind of the preteen kid.

Also available on Amazon at http://a.co/d/1M0hY13.

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Story on Saturday Podcast

Our publisher, Sean Buvala, has released a new podcast series. It’s a bit kinder and gentler than his “Inappropriate Folktales” podcast, but still not really designed for the little ones. You can find it a storyonsaturday.com, with links to ways to subscribe at all the normal podcast-y places.

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An Aesop Tease

watercolor collage illustration of the wren and eagle Aesop fable.Just a little tease of the art from our forthcoming “The Fox and the Crow” collection of Aesop tales. Currently on for a late August release. All art by Michelle Buvala of The Mesquite Tree Studio in Arizona. This is a piece from “The King of the Birds” fable.

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Art, Books, Stories in Goodyear.

Last weekend, we had a nice gathering of stories and art at BOONgarden in Goodyear, Arizona. We sold some books, sold some art and had a fine evening of adult storytelling. Here’s a brief clip from Sean Buvala sharing “The Strongest Man in Ireland.”

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