International event includea area storytellers
by ELIZABETH TAUFA Reporter

Spin-a-Storyteller Bob Berghash tells a story from his childhood in preparation for the international Tellabration storytelling event. Local storytellers will participate at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 6230 Main St., near Youngs Road. Photo by Ken Bartolotta

The Spin-a-Storytellers of Western New York will participate in the 2007 Tellabration, an international benefit night of storytelling at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17.

The event will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst, 6230 Main St., near Youngs Road, Amherst.

Spin-a-Storytellers is one of 250 groups around the world that will connect by telling stories during the same weekend.

"The mission of our group is to preserve the tradition of storytelling," said Annemarie Jason, a Spin-a-Storytellers member.

The group meets on the second Friday of the month from September through June at the Holy Spirit Church in North Buffalo and is comprised of both storytellers and listeners.

Only performing members of Spin-a-Storytellers will participate in the Tellabration event.

There is also a group called Spin Kids, which offers mentors to youth who want to learn to tell stories. The Spin Kids perform in March at a special meeting of the group.

"A number of our members write their own stories," said Jason. "But the majority are folk tales and personal tales."

The stories that will be performed at the Tellabration will focus on memories because money raised by the event will go to the Alzheimer's Association. Donations will be accepted at the event.

The group, which was founded in 1983 after members attended a YWCA program titled "Story telling for Peace," boasts around 30 members.

"I'm a children's librarian," said Jason of how she came to join the group. "When I tried telling the kids a story as opposed to reading it to them, it was a whole other experience because they had to make the pictures in their heads rather than see them."

Other members of the group who will be telling stories at the Tellabration are Bob Berghash, Eric Hahn, Judey Eberle, Pat Feidner, Merri Lee Debany, Craig Werner and Lorna Czarnota.

Czarnota is a professional storyteller who concentrates mainly on medieval programs and historical programs from the American colonial, Civil War and Dust Bowl eras.

"Storytelling is tied in with the medieval arts," she said.

In addition to traveling throughout the country telling stories, Czarnota has published a book of medieval stories titled "Medieval Stories that Kids Can Read and Tell" and has participated in the Tellabration for several of the 10 years it has been held.

"It's like looking up at the sky when a star explodes," she said of the Tellabration. "It's a lot of people doing the same thing at the same moment."

Storytelling is also a healing mechanism, according to Czarnota, who works with at-risk teenagers and travels to areas such as the Virginia Tech campus to tell healing stories.

"It brings a moment of peace into a troubled world," she said. "And it's also passing on knowledge and valuable life lessons."

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