About Your Storyteller . . .

Okay, the first thing I need to tell you is...I'm deaf. Well, 90% hearing loss. So far, being deaf hasn't been a serious problem with storytelling. As long as I get to do most of the talking, everthing is fine. I usually wear two huge hearing aids, that are so powerful, I think I can hear my hair grow! If it is all right with you, I'm going to take them out now. That is what I love about the internet. I'm not deaf here.

So, here is a little bit about myself, and I'll tell you more if you really want to hear it. I am a sixty-some-odd-year-old deaf guy who earns his living by telling stories and teaching elderhostels. (If you want to know what that is and where it happens, click on the link.) I live in the heart of Southern Appalachia near the Cherokee Reservation. I was raised by my grand- parents after the loss of both of my parents and grew up listening to a great deal of folklore, both Cherokee and Appalachian. I managed to go to college (Western Carolina University is only five miles away) and taught English and drama for 15 years, worked for the Cherokee tribal government for 15 more and became a full-time storyteller in 1984. At present, I am living in my grandparents' old farmhouse with my ancient little dog, Teddie.

With me, everything starts with storytelling. The stories that I tell are also the basis for my plays ("The Raindrop Waltz" is autobiographical, "The Uktena" is based on a Cherokee legend and "Land's End" embodies both fact and fiction); and my books contain written versions of stories that I have been telling all of my life. My video, "Blow the Tannery Whistle" is about growing up in Appalachia, and the script for the film, "Willa: An American Snow-white" (winner of a Carnegie medal) is drawn from my love for traditional folklore (Grimm) and old movies. Recently, I have been painting, and the subject matter is always stories, stories, stories. Finally, I read a great deal and I like to talk about what I read, and I'm especially interested in your opinion. There is a section of this website devoted to my book reviews of current fiction.

What's all this business about a Tannery Whistle? . . .

When I was a child, my hometown, Sylva, North Carolina, had a tannery with a mournful whistle that regulated work hours. People often commented on the organ-like tone of the whistle, and on several occasions, our town fathers attempted to talk the tannery owners into blowing the whistle as a celebration device. Why not blow it on July 4th? How about New Year's Day? Better yet, how about when Sylva won a football game? "Absolutely not," said the tannery owners. "That would merely confuse the work force and they wouldn't know if they should come to work or not." However, the owners finally compromised. They agreed to blow the whistle if something "important" happened. It didn't get tooted a lot. There was Pearl Harbor and then they blew it when the war was over. They blew it once when a northern lights display frightened the local populace into thinking the millennium was at hand, but that was only three times in 35 years. The owner's rigid requirements for blowing the whistle gave birth to a commonly-used expression in Jackson County. If a listener was shocked or amazed by a bit of information supplied by a local citizen, he would say, "Well, blow the tannery whistle!" I guess the exclamation suggested that the information that he had heard was so astonishing, even the tannery owner would endorse it and blow the whistle.

So, Click Here & Let's Get Started!