The Spoken Word
The Live Art of Storytelling Performance
Confusion often prevails when I tell strangers that I run a storytelling club.
“How often do you hold readings?” they ask, and “Do you publish your work?”
And I can understand their confusion, because I remember my own delighted amazement when I first heard that there were actually people who made a living from telling stories to live audiences. But the fact is that there is a ban on reading in the Narrative Arts Club, and the storytellers publish all of our work in live performance.
It is a sign of how marginalised the art of storytelling has become in the industrialised world that the very title of this art form has come to be widely used in a metaphorical sense for a range of other arts, including particularly writing, filmmaking and computer-game design. While storytelling is still practised and patronised as a well-developed profession in countries such as Iran, with rigorous training reminiscent of the now extinct Irish bard, the profession is almost unknown in Ireland. Nevertheless, there are a few dedicated artists working on the island of Ireland who bear the title of “storyteller” in the literal sense of one who tells stories, and who manage to make a living at it.
The Spoken Word - Podcasts.ie
Looking for a new way to connect with your audience? Some new technologies make a swift transition between elective to essential. Webcasts have been around since late the 1990s but the advent of the iPod and its move toward global domination has seen a surge in the popularity of podcasts. 
This meteoric rise has fostered the creation of Podcasts.ie. Podcasts.ie - Voices from Ireland, is a website delivering high quality free audio content from Irish writers of poetry, prose and song as well as documentaries, story-telling and radio style programmes about our culture, heritage and the arts.
Podcasts.ie is the brainchild of Jho Harris and Sinéad McClure of All Points West Media Services in Culfadda, County Sligo. Former producers of Artbeat on Mid West Radio, Jho and Sinéad are seasoned radio producers and broadcasters whose work includes a ten year stint at the helm of ‘Artbeat;, they have also worked with Lyric FM on a series dealing specifically with Irish literature and have produced many documentaries on history and heritage, most of which had local writers as guest presenters. More recently they have been involved with RTE Junior Radio writing and producing an original children’s drama series. A second children’s dramatised story telling series has been approved for production in late summer 2011.
If you would like to contribute articles, news, or anything writing related please 
To be kept up to date on all areas of our site why not sign up to our RSS feed 