How did you become a storyteller? Well, it's certainly a fair question! After graduating from Connecticut College in 1982, I moved to London, England to train in theater at the Webber-Douglas Academy.  Once, we were asked to learn an Elizabethan monologue; I reached a little outside of the box, and came in with the episode of Saul and the Witch at Endor from the King James Bible.  As I performed the piece, I realized I wasn't reciting a monologue, I was telling a story.  The notion intrigued me.  After Webber-Douglas, I spent a summer in Scotland working as a chef in the tiny fishing village of Crinan.  While there, I became absorbed in the stories of the Brothers Grimm, struggling to translate them from the German.  Inevitably, friends would ask what I was reading, and I found myself caught up in recounting these amazing, sometimes unsettling tales. Slowly, I began to perform these stories for a variety of audiences.  My one man play "Grimm" was eventually produced in a late-night performance at a London pub theater called, appropriately, The Man in the Moon.  That production went on to the Edinburgh Festival and was excerpted on BBC-TV. Living in England, I was able to spend a lot of time in Italy and other parts of Europe, where my understanding of folk culture and traditional stories expanded significantly.  Once established, my appetite for traditional stories became voracious.   I discovered the treasures of the British Library and spent many, many hours tracking down elusive ancient tales. This was in the late 1980's, when storytelling was experiencing a spontaneous revival both in England and in the United States.  I was fortunate to encounter other travelers on the same path. Still, it was only when I returned to America and began telling stories to children that the real power of traditional stories struck me with a tremendous force.  Stories, I realized, were not texts to recite so much as maps one could follow to create a unique, shared experience with one's listener.   Children have enriched everything I know about storytelling. Living in New York City in 1999, I began telling stories at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where my ability to explore the connections of stories to their broader artistic heritage took on new depth. Now back in Connecticut, I have come in a surprising "full circle."  The vibrant storytelling community here is based at The Connecticut Storytelling Center, in-residence at Connecticut College. When not telling or researching stories, I find myself propping up my century old farmhouse in Chester, or gardening with an amateur's zeal.  Further afield, I visit my family on Cape Cod or, when possible, my old haunts in London and in Italy. One never knows where the next story might be.