Portland Storytellers’ Guild: DIG DEEP

“When the world says “Give up”, Hope whispers “Try it one more time.”    -author unknown

In dark times and challenging moments, we are uplifted by stories of people (and even animals!) that didn’t give up. Join Janice Alexander, Wink Harner and Gretchen Peterson as they delve into stories of perseverance: An ancient culture struggles to survive annihilation. Mysterious signs posted around a neighborhood lead to a remarkable woman. Lovers separated by a Viking raid long to be reunited. These and other tales explore our capacity to dig deep and keep going no matter the odds.

The Portland Storytellers’ Guild continues its “virtual” season on Saturday, December 5 at 7:00 via Zoom with an evening of stories right in the comfort of your home. Just $10 per log-in.  Click Here for Tickets.

Gretchen Peterson enjoys crafting and performing personal stories, original folktales, fairy tales, and myths – usually with the theme of women who love women. Gretchen created a mantra that she often shares with audiences, “I have a story! And my voice matters!” Gretchen has told stories with PSG since 2014, and she has written and performed two one-women shows with Portland’s Fertile Ground Festival.

Wink Harner is fairly recent transplant to the PNW from Phoenix Arizona. She’s had several lifetimes of a variety of careers in and around foreign languages (professor of, translator, interpreter, typesetter), disability services in colleges & universities (manager of DSS office for large colleges, assistive technology manager, assistive tech trainer & workshop developer), and currently teach adaptive technology in graduate school for CUNY’s School of Professional Studies. She’s been an avid lifelong performer, with stage experience on in theatre, singing, playing in orchestras, swing dance bands, Dixieland groups, and storytelling. She gained professional storytelling training from South Mountain Community College Storytelling Institute in Phoenix Arizona in bilingual storytelling. No stranger to the Storytelling stage, she’s told personal stories about her brother “Dickerson,” true stories of her work as an interpreter working with asylum seekers from around the world, personal stories of challenges. Her favorites though are the multicultural tales and myths that bring ancient cultures and figures to life once again.

Janice Alexander, a retired schoolteacher and kindly grandmother, finds pleasure in creating with story and also with clay. She joined the Portland Storytellers Guild in 2015,shortly before retirement, and has been telling tales ever since.(Some based in fact, others not.) Janice likes to say she lived alone in the woods for such a long time that she forgot how to speak and regained her ability to talk after a fortuitous encounter with the Newberg goat woman and her many entrancing goat stories. This is probably not true, although Janice does live in Newberg but not in the woods.