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.
Delta Wordweavers - Northern California
Member of Storytelling Association of California (SAC)
Delta Wordweavers began some 38 years ago as a small organization of educators/storytellers in Antioch, California who told stories in parks, schools, and for organizational and library programs. We also put on different workshops for children, teens and adults. It was some time before any story swaps were held. They were started so we could practice our stories occasionally, began to expand and have been regular for the most recent 8 1/2 years. When met with COVID-19 restrictions, the swap immediately joined SAC's Zoom swaps. We welcome teens and adults to monthly swaps and have invited children to specific swaps to be the storytellers. Speech Pathologist/Storyteller Marian Ferrante, Antioch Librarian Patty Chan, and Los Medanos College Early Childhood Educator Ed Lewis teamed up to start the Delta Wordweaver Tellabration! ™ events that have ongoing for 28 years. Tellabration! ™ events have been held at Los Medanos Community College, the Antioch Historical Museum, Antioch Library, and this is the second year on Zoom.
The tellers and a Master of Ceremonies from Delta Wordweavers are listed below. If you click on their name, you will get a short bio about each teller and the MC.
Marian Ferrante will be the MC for the Delta Wordweavers tellers.
Eleanor Clement Glass .............................................. Andre Le Mont Wilson
Sally Holzman ..................................................................... James Langdell
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 in the Claremont Forum to share stories and welcome 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 all meetings are online using Zoom until further notice. To learn more about IVS, click on the links at the bottom of this page.
There are 4 tellers from the Inland Valley Storytellers. If you click on their name, you will get a short bio about each teller.
John St. Clair is the MC for the Inland Valley Storytellers as well as one of the tellers.
Adrien Lowery ..................................... Angela Lloyd
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.