Jay Leeming first came to storytelling in 2012 while working as a ranger-naturalist in the high country of California’s Yosemite National Park, where he found that the best way to connect visitors with the natural world was through the dream-like wildness of traditional stories. Yet to his own surprise he found that he’d secretly been apprenticing as a storyteller for years, both through his youthful adventures as a songwriter in Minneapolis, Minnesota and through a poetic career which connected him with the storytellers Gioia Timpanelli, Michael Meade, and Martin Shaw. Since that time he has performed for audiences in theaters, schools, conferences and libraries, bringing traditional stories to life through his connection both to the wild and to the firecracker power of poetic eloquence.
Leeming is the creator of the Crane Bag Storytelling podcast, the author of the poetry books Miracle Atlas (Writers and Books, 2011) and Dynamite on a China Plate (Backwaters Press, 2006), and the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Debut performance for the world storytelling Cafe:
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Jay Leeming
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Our Festival Performers
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Irene Lofthouse
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Maria Papanikolaou
The last 10 years I combine storytelling with educational programs for children, in Museums, Cultural Centers, Schools, Art places, etc. I love working with children. I have also published two books, a Greek Myth and a tale of my own.
Raine Geoghegan
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Antonio Rocha
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Dawn Ellis
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Jan Williams
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Csenge Virág Zalka
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Zouhair Khaznaoui
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Theresa Kelleher
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David Heathfield
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