Cell phone videos

Last week I gave a workshop on story hour stretches, games and songs for the Children's Services librarians at the Kansas City (MO) Public Library. I LOVE working with librarians, partly because I am still one to my core, even though I haven't worked as a librarian since 1994. It's not the diploma that proves it (though I have one). It's in my DNA. You laugh? Here's a quote from a piece my mother wrote about her mother-in-law, not officially a librarian but...

Like her father before her, she chose the books for Bristol's Rogers Free Library, and read most of them first. (Some categories she shunned, letting other Library people choose the romances and Westerns.)

Granny Howe referred to those as trashy novels, my father said. All but those were delivered to the house before they ever got to the library.

Sidetracked. Isn't this post about videos? One of the librarians at the Westport Branch sent me links for four videos she put on Youtube. Keep in mind that these were taken on a cell phone!

You can see another of the librarians recording the workshop on her iPad, so there may be more videos to come. 

Video of Peeps at Maple Valley School

A friend was looking me up on youtube and found this--I didn't even know it was up. It was filmed at Maple Valley School in Kansas City, MO, during the Kansas City Storytelling Celebration earlier this month.

I had two different groups at this school. The kids responded really well. I think my favorite part was walking around after the stories inviting each of the kids to shake hands or touch my puppet Trixie. She's quite gentle in this kind of setting.

By the way, I DO have my own youtube channel. Check it out!

The Itsy Bitsy Tiger is here!

The UPS delivery man stopped by yesterday with over a thousand copies of my new DVD, The Itsy Bitsy Tiger and Other Ridiculous Stories and Songs. It looks great!

I've had a huge amount of help on this since beginning the project last spring. Christie, Jeff and Kevin Dobson of Stormdoor Productions filmed it live at the Union Pacific Depot in Lawrence (you can hear the train go by twice--this required a certain amount of vamping on my part) on May 8, 2010. The proceeds of the performance itself went to the Lawrence Schools Foundation. The audience rocked!

Thom Alexander of Americana Music Academy wrote the song Gary's Gone Fishin' for the intro. Graphic designer Annie Tichenor, who worked on my last project, did an incredible job on the packaging. I love the tiger stripes! Countless family members and friends previewed the video.

Since I'm about to go on tour, I'm not quite ready for orders. While you wait, here's the first cut:

I'm not yet sure where the DVD release event(s) will be. Maybe one in KC, one in Lawrence. I'll let you know.

Oh, and for those of you who gave an opinion on the packaging, I did go with the eco-friendly digipak. Much less plastic than the ordinary packaging.

"The Ghost with the One Black Eye" on video

I'm home from Belgium, and though I'm not done blogging about the trip, I wanted announce that I've just put The Ghost with the One Black Eye up on the Interwebs, both on Vimeo and on Youtube. This is part of the new DVD, The Itsy Bitsy Tiger and Other Ridiculous Stories and Songs, which I'm hoping will be ready for release in April or May.

Ghost with the One Black Eye from Priscilla Howe on Vimeo.

By the way, this is the first time I've used Vimeo on the blog. Do you have a preference for this or for Youtube?

Videos on my philosophy of storytelling

Last week, Marisa Bregman interviewed me about storytelling. Here's a bunch of my random blather on the topic. These short videos show off my crooked fingers, too!

Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival

I'm just back from the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival in Missouri, right on the Mississippi River, where I was one of two regional storytellers. It was a great time, better even than the first year in 2008, in part due to pleasant weather. According to the organizers, there were nearly 3,100 listeners from 16 states this year. It's hard to believe that this well-run festival is only three years old.

One of the great joys of festival performing is listening to the other storytellers. This year, the headliners were Donald Davis, Minton Sparks, Kevin Kling and Syd Lieberman. It was also fun to hear and hang out with Marilyn Kinsella, the other regional teller--Marilyn was also a regional teller in 2008. My good friend Joyce Slater ran the story swap, which was a big success, with more people wanting to tell than there was time. Storytelling is certainly growing in Cape.

I'd heard Don and Syd many times, but had only heard Minton once and had enjoyed listening to Kevin on NPR but never live. What a treat to listen to them all!

I couldn't find a video of Donald, but here are some of the others.

That's John Jackson playing guitar. The combination was amazing.

These storytellers are SO good in person--it's worth going out of your way to hear them.

Another of my videos up on YouTube

Today I got an e-mail from Jackie Baldwin, who airs the Story Lovers World radio show on KSVY-FM on Sundays at 5-6 p.m PST. Jackie plays my stories on some of her shows, and she'd had an e-mail from a listener asking when she had aired my version of Drakestail. 

That was the little nudge I needed to post the video of the story on my YouTube channel. 

And now for your entertainment, here's the story: 

Remember, quack, you can never have too many friends!

New Video!

I don't know why I'm so slow putting these up. I'm planning to do a whole new DVD of all the brave baby stories and a few more funny-scaries this spring. In the meantime, here's "The Pancake," a slightly different take on the more familiar "Gingerbread Boy." This is on my DVD, The Bully Billy Goat.