Michael Kerins

Michael Kerins was born in August 1952 into a Scottish family in Glasgow. His father was blind, but the level of his oral communication abilities was considerable. It is believed that Michael took after his father in his talent of telling stories. Michael has had the status of mentor and member of The Scottish Storytelling Forum since 1988. In 2009 and 2010 he was a chairman of Glasgow Storytellers. He is also famous for being a founder or co-founder of various clubs and projects both in Scotland and worldwide.

Better Crack Club (Glasgow’s oldest storytelling club) and Even Better Crack Club (Glasgow’s oldest storytelling club for children of all ages) were co-founded by him. Moreover, Kerins is the founder of a charity organization named S.L.A.T.E Charity (Scotland Language Action Towards Education). See http://www.slatecharity.com/Welcome.html. For this work he received the prestigious W H Upjohn Humanitarian Award.

In collaboration with Russian actor Nicholas Naumov he set up “ Mother Tongue” in 2002 and the well-respected “Kerinsnaumov” International Translation competition has been running ever since. Kerins promotes storytelling along with storytellers all over the world, for example during the festival Ananse Sound Splash, in Jamaica, where storytellers from Jamaica, Haiti, UK, US, South Africa gathered to reinforce a cultural tradition of storytelling on the theme of Tell it for Haiti. Kerins also founded the 27 word micro story project “Lermontov 200″ dedicated to 200th anniversary of Mikhail Lermontov, who had Scottish roots.

•2004: W.E. Upjohn Humanitarian award

•2008: Scottish Storytelling Centre – Edinburgh winner Tall Tales Oscar

•2009: PharmaTimes Representative of the Year 2009 Awards Evening