The Port Fairy Festival ... too much fun!I spend the bulk of my time at the festival listening to music and dreaming of coming back for another crack at life as a musician.
However one of the highlights of the weekend is a spoken word event - the Pat Glover Storytelling Award. Now banned from entering since I took home the trophy for a third time in 2009 - I participate on the judging panel.
Jim Haynes MCs the Pat Glover and kindly invites me tell a tale at some point in the preceedings. What storyteller could resist standing on the stage of the old Lecture Theatre in front of those plush curtains. Looking at the pic taken by my friend Stephen Whiteside, after 3 days of camping, I'm looking a tad crumpled!
My mate from the Newport Fiddle and Folk Club, Greg Jenkins and I enjoyed sharing hot tips from the program. Greg and I will be co hosting WORDS WORDS WORDS - the spoken word event for the Newport Folk Festival in July. Check out the Club here. News of our festival will soon start trickling through.
Back to the Pat Glover ... I thought this year was one of the best. The winner, Andrew McKenna, floored us with a brilliant, dark, Irish selkie story. In the hall with nothing to assist in the telling, storytellers have to work against a slightly inhospitable environment. From the moment Andrew spoke, we were transported and held captive to the end.
I managed a couple of snaps of Andrew. In one he is being congratulated by Jim and in the other, he is alongside Teresa Jordan who was visiting from the US. Teresa and husband Hal Cannon presented a piece called Songs and Stories of the Rancher's World. How this went under my radar - I don't know, but I was fortunate enough to meet Teresa and the first thing I did when I got home was look at her beautiful website. Teresa is now off to central Australia but hopes to return to Victoria and with luck, I will have the pleasure of introducing her to the tellers at Storytelling Australia (Victoria) one day.
Well, that's all folks. There are now tents to pack away, several loads of washing to hang out and its back into harness. The week of storytelling begins tomorrow at a kindergarten.
Stories for all ages... I love my job!
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