Pontine Presents 'Family Stories' Workshop

Sunday 19 May at 2pm, Pontine Thetre presents Jo Radner's Family Stories: How and Why to Remember and Tell Them. Thanks to grant support from New Hampshire Humanities, this program is open to the public at no charge. Seating is limited and reservations are recommended.

Telling personal and family stories is fun - and much more. Storytelling connects strangers, strengthens links between generations, and gives young people the self-knowledge to carry them through hard times. In this interactive program, storyteller Jo Radner shares foolproof ways to mine memories and interview relatives for meaningful stories. Participants practice finding, developing, and telling their own tales. The Plains School is located at #1 Plains Avenue in Portsmouth NH. The space is fully accessible with free parking adjacent.

Jo Radner received her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Before returning to her family home in western Maine as a freelance storyteller and oral historian, she spent 31 years as professor at American University in Washington, DC, teaching literature, folklore, American studies, Celtic studies, and storytelling. She has published books and articles in all those fields, and is now writing a book titled Performing the Paper: Rural Self-Improvement in Northern New England, about a 19th-century village tradition of creating and performing handwritten literary newspapers. She is past president of the American Folklore Society and the National Storytelling Network.