In her book, THE STORY VINE, Anne Pellowski makes a brief reference to how an itinerant storyteller amongst the Lega of Zaire and the Sambui of Angola would travel from village to village carrying with him a vine on which was displayed a collection of objects each of which represented a story in that teller's repetoire. He would hang his vine up in the village and invite his listeners to choose a story by indicating the "token" for that story.

When I started my nursery school in the fall of 1988, I called it The Story Vine Nursery School, and I made a vine to collect our stories on. At the beginning of each class, one child would choose a story for me to share. Later, when I became an itinerant storyteller, I packed up my vine and took it with me. I have used the story vine as a thematic thread and a graphic motif on this Web site, but my intention here is not to invite you to choose a story for me to tell to you. Rather, I hope to provide you with stories that you can hang on you own vine, and with ideas to help you find, create and tell your own stories.

In launching this site, I am hoping to use a new hi-tech medium in the service of an ancient low-tech medium.

Modern communications technology has in some sense transformed the world into a global village, but, for me, storytelling works most effectively on the scale of a real village. I have told stories on television and radio and I have found that there is an essential ingredient missing. The listener is missing. For me, it is important to see and hear the people that I am sharing a story with ("sharing with" being a different relationship than "giving to" or "selling to" or even "telling to"). For me, the energy and active involvement of the listener is a vital part of the dynamic process that is storytelling. That is what is lost when the audience is too remote, hidden behind the glare of the spotlight or vaguely sensed milling about in some kind of electronic limbo. You can't see their eyes; you can't hear them smile. TV, radio, books... all can be effective ways to tell a story, but they are not ways to practice storytelling. Storytelling is interactive and alive.

The Internet may be more interactive than TV or radio, but it is still not a medium that can provide the teller and the listener with an authentic storytelling experience. But, hopefully, it can provide a medium through which I can make available to other storytellers... real people sharing stories face to face with real people in real communities... some of the stories and techniques that I have enjoyed sharing and exploring with my audiences.