Burning Brightly is the first full-length book treatment of professional storytelling in North America today. For some years there has been a major storytelling revival throughout the continent, with hundreds of local groups and centres springing up, and with storytelling becoming an important part of the professional training for librarians.

In the book, Stone explores storytelling through storytellers themselves, while providing enlightening commentary from her own background as a storyteller.  Included in her analysis are informative discussions of organized storytelling communities, individual tellers, and tales.  Issues such as the modern recontextualization of old tales and the role of women in folktales are linked to individual storytelling accounts.  Texts of eight storyies that exemplify the approaches of the various storytellers are also included.

Burning Brightly will be compelling reading for storytellers--and for everyone who loves storytelling.

Comments:

"This is a lively, well balanced and insightful book.  Boldly combining the perspective of an "inquisitive folklorist," the voice of a purposeful storyteller, and the fire of the "curious girl" of many a wondertale, Kay Stone's book is a bright light guiding us down the contemporary Canadian and American river of stories.

Readers of fairytale, teachers, storytellers, folklorists, librarians, and students of oral narratives and performance can all benefit from Stone's careful and unpretentious analysis as well as the stories she lovingly presents." - Christina Cacchilega, University of Hawaii-Manoa

"scholarly yet accessible" --The Globe and Mail

"Stone is uniquely qualified to write a study of the history, development, current status, and future trends of the storytelling movement. Readers...will want to add this important book to their bookshelves." -The Story Bag

Kay Stone is a widely-published professor of folklore at the University of Winnipeg, and an established storyteller.

Academics please note that this is a title classified as having a restricted allocation of complimentary copies. While the availability of bound complimentary copies is restricted to desk copies only, electronic complimentary copies are readily available for those professors wishing to consider this title for possible course adoption. Should you choose to adopt the book after viewing an electronic copy we will be happy to provide a bound desk copy.

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

In Gratitude

Useful Terms

Foreword: The Path Into The Woods

SECTION ONE: Organized Communities and their Members

1. Folktales and Organized Storytelling

2. Four Streams, One River: The Storytelling Revival

3. Intentional Storytelling Communities

4. Once Upon a Time Today: Tellers and Tales

5. Social Identity in Organized Storytelling

SECTION TWO: Tellers and Tales

1. Creative Drama and Storytelling

               "An Honest Penny" (Bob Barton)

2. Old Tales, New Contexts

               "The King of Egypt's Daughter" (Joe Neil MacNeil)

3. The Teller of the Tale

               "The Horoscope" (Marylyn Peringer)

               "The Three Feathers" (Stewart Cameron)

4. Difficult Women in Folktales

               The Victims

               The Victimizers

               "The Rosy Apple and the Golden Bowl" (Carol McGirr)

               "Snow White: A Reflection" (Marvyne Jenoff)

               "The Juniper Tree" (Susan Gordon)

5. Burning Brightly: The Development of a Story

                "The Curious Girl" (Kay Stone)

Conclusion: The Wedding Feast

Appendix I: Four Streams in the Toronto Festival of Storytelling

Appendix II: "The Curious Girl" in Print

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Permissions

Tale Types Index

Index