Discipline: Literature – poetry

Gioia Timpanelli

Discipline: Literature – poetry
Region: Bearsville, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 1975
Gioia Timpanelli is often called the dean of American storytelling and is considered one of the world’s foremost storytellers. She won two Emmy Awards (Citations of Merit) for Tales from Viet Nam and for her series of 30 programs on storytelling, Stories from My House, on educational television, where she created, wrote, produced, and appeared in eight series of literature programs shown on PBS. She has also received the prestigious Women’s National Book Association Award for bringing the oral tradition to the American public and he Maharishi Award for “promoting world harmony wherever she goes by enlivening within the listener that field of pure consciousness that is the source of all stories.” She has performed her improvisational telling of ancient and modern stories and given talks in collaboration with respected masters of other art forms throughout the U.S. She has also performed in Canada, Britain, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and Greece. She founded the storytelling at ARTPARK, Lewiston, New York, 1973-1983; one of the first storytelling places for the revival of storytelling, creating a one-week residency for storytellers at the edge of the Niagara River Gorge. She is one of the founding members of the New York Storytelling Center.