Hello! Thanks for stopping by.
Finally, Heather’s House of Stories has a website, a home, a collection of my storytelling shenanigans over the past few years, I plan to build more rooms and open more doors, travel to more places, meet more people, share more stories. I can’t stop looking at all the beautiful pages and the cute doors and magical keys. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy poking around and if you have questions message me here or on my socials.
Today I’m on a train to Birmingham, a journey I have done so many times in the past, often brimming with anticipation to work on a new show with Stans Cafe. Today I’m excited to see old friends at Of All The People In All The World at MAC because from 2003 – 2007 I toured the world with this show, and it remains one of the greatest gifts of my life.
Though it may not look obvious from the pictures (link below) this is a storytelling show, each pile of rice represents different groups of people, one rice grain for each person. Every pile has a relationship with its neighbour which gently brings into focus human kindness, pain or humour in their juxtapositions.
Touring with this show, researching, presenting, and discussing the stories we told made me pay attention to the world around me. It got me interested in history in a way that school had certainly failed to do, it began my political education. In every country we visited we were fast tracked into the culture of the place, working with local volunteers who would tell us about their home. They would tell us the stories they wanted to share and together we told these human tales through thoughtful placement of the rice. The tag line for the show is ‘come and find yourself’ and in doing so we know that we are a part of the story, that we are important, that we are included. And that feels good.
The stories I write and tell have a strong sense of place, I often adapt a part of the story to reference a place families will know or may have travelled to. I’m inviting my listeners to feel part of the story, to feel important. In Peter Sally and the Sea a story written for the Jersey Festival of Words the island Peter lives on is of course Jersey, and the children there wanted to share so much about their island home with me. But when I tell the same story in England it becomes the Isle of Wight and when I told the story in Los Angeles it opened up a rich seam of discovery around the founding of New Jersey by Sir George Carteret in 1664 in honour of his defense of the Channel Island during the English Civil War. Teachers and Children alike were fascinated to hear about ‘Old Jersey’. An Island 5 by 9 miles in size is hard to comprehend in the sprawling metropolis of LA. And it’s no surprise that both Jersey and the Isle of Wight are places of strong significance for me, my paternal family are from The Island (the Isle of Wight) and I’ve called Jersey my second home since my first visit to my future in-laws in 1994. Sometimes I feel like Disney’s Moana…the sea, it calls me!
So, thank you Stan’s Cafe and The Rice Show, thanks for my broader horizons and the impact it’s had on my work. Congratulations on the longevity of this brilliant storytelling show.
https://macbirmingham.co.uk/whats-on
Of All The People In All The World, Stan’s Cafe, Melbourne 2006,
Thumbnail Picture by Dasa Wharton Photography
