Below is information about both storytelling groups involved in this joint Tellabration! ™ as well as bios for all of the tellers. There is a description of the history of Tellabration! ™ at the bottom of this page.
Contra Costa Tale Spinners
Member of Storytelling Association of California (SAC)
Contra Costa Tale Spinners grew out the storytelling program at Stagebridge Senior Theater Company in Oakland, and has been meeting regularly for over two decades! Stagebridge members Cathy Cabral, Sally Holzman and Helen Mortenson wanted a place to practice and share stories nearer their homes "on the other side of the tunnel". From 2002-2020, the swap met at the Orinda Public Library, with storytellers and story listeners coming from Contra Costa County, the East Bay, and all around the San Francisco Bay Area. Since the pandemic, we have been meeting on Zoom, and our community has grown to include tellers based around the U.S., Canada, and India.
Our swap begins with a featured storyteller with Open Mic following. Our events are geared toward grownups with all genres of stories that are intriguing, humorous, thoughtful, and entertaining. We meet from 7-8:30 pm PST on the fourth Thursday of the month (except 3rd Thursday in November and December varies due to Christmas, please contact organizers for details). For more information, contact coordinators Liz Nichols and Dana Sherry at talespinners1@gmail.com
Sally Holzman has guided Tale Spinners since the beginning, and at this Tellabration! ™ we celebrate her contributions to our community as she formally becomes a listening member of the swap. Thank you, Sally, for all the laughter, all the hard work, all the homemade treats, all the friendship. In short, for all the stories we shared and made together!!
The tellers and a Master of Ceremonies from Contra Costa Tale Spinners are listed below. If you click on their name, you will get a short bio about each teller and the MC.
Liz Nichols is the Master of Ceremonies for Contra Costa Tale Spinners as well as one of the tellers.
Inland Valley Storytellers of Southern California
Affiliate Member of National Storytelling Network (NSN)
Member of Storytelling Association of California (SAC)
The Inland Valley Storytellers (IVS) was formed in 2003 in Claremont, California and has members that live in the east end of Los Angeles County and the west end of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. We meet monthly, the third Monday of each month at 7:00 PM, in the Ginger Elliot Center on the northeast side of the historic Garner House in Claremont to share stories. IVS welcomes both storytellers and story listeners. Attendance is free and open to anyone. We produce 2 storytelling concerts per year, one at the Claremont Friends Meetinghouse in the spring and one at the Claremont Folk Music Center in November. Our first Tellabration! ™ concert was at the Claremont Forum in 2003. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic IVS meetings were online using Zoom until December 2022, when we returned to meeting in person at the Claremont Forum. Now our monthly story swap meetings are hybrid meetings with both in person and Zoom attendees. Now we are meeting in the Ginger Elliot Center, the northeast side of the historic Garner House, 840 N Indian Hill Blvd, Claremont. To learn more about IVS, click on the links at the bottom of this page.
John St. Clair is the MC for the Inland Valley Storytellers.
History of Tellabration! ™
Tellabration! ™ originator J. G. Pinkerton envisioned this international event as a means of building community support for storytelling. In 1988 the event was launched by the Connecticut Storytelling Center in six locations across the state. A great success, Tellabration! ™ extended to several other states the following year, and then, in 1990, expanded nationwide under the umbrella of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, or NAPPS, which later became the National Storytelling Association, and is now called the National Storytelling Network.
In 1995, for the first time, there was a Tellabration! ™ in Japan, brought there by Japanese storyteller Masako Sueyoshi, who had been a part of Tellabration! ™ when she lived in Connecticut for several years. By 1997, there were Tellabration! ™ events on every continent but Antarctica. In 1999, 333 sites, 400 producers, and 6700 production staffers spun stories to a combined audience of over 34,000.
J.G. "Paw-Paw" Pinkerton passed away on November 4, 2008, just 3 weeks before the 21st year of Tellabration! ™ celebrations, on his way home to Connecticut from a family wedding in Texas.
Storytelling was J.G.'s second career, to which he devoted himself passionately after his retirement from Texasgulf in 1988. He served on the Board of Directors of NAPPS (the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, parent of NSN) for six years, and he also served on the Board of the International Storytelling Center. He has been a generous friend and mentor to hundreds of storytellers.
In this season we remember J.G. particularly as the creator of the tradition of TELLABRATION! ™ - the night of storytelling on the weekend before Thanksgiving. As many of us produce and perform in our hundreds of Tellabrations! ™ across the country and the world every year, let us thank J.G. Pinkerton, with whose vision it all began.