Getting Started

And isn't that the hardest thing we have to do . . . just to get started! So I'll jump in.

Who am I? Let's start with what I do (probably the most common way to answer that question).

• I'm a professional storyteller. That means I actually get paid to tell stories to people! I tell stories to groups of adults at concerts, at festivals, at retreats, at coffee houses, at church. I tell stories to children at school assemblies, at libraries, at bookstores. I tell stories to families at all of the above. I give workshops about storytelling to other storytellers, teachers, students, and others. More on my storytelling work in future posts.


• I'm an actor. I'm in an independent feature film that's currently shooting in Los Angeles. Yeah! That's been a dream of mine since I was a small girl. And I have a BIG part! More on that in the future, too.


• I'm a college professor. I earned my Ph.D. in Speech Communication at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado (USA) in 1987. I've been teaching for the last eighteen years at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California. I teach storytelling (my favorite and most popular class), public speaking, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, gender & communication, and screenwriting.

Okay, that's what I do. I've been working on who I am for some time now. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever figure that out. For so many years I defined myself in relation to others. I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother. I didn't think past those labels. But I've finally realized I'm more than those labels! Duh! Now why couldn't I have come to that realization years ago?

Well, I started!