Stories Connect Us All

Today I would like to bring you a wonderful little gift from the world of storytelling: Let me tell you about the Stories Connect Us All project and Online Storytelling Festival!

The Fairy Godmother of the whole thing is Chicago storyteller Susan O'Halloran. She has been working with stories of diversity and cultural pluralism for a long time, and she poured her wonderful heart and soul into the project. What Stories Connect Us All is about is simple: Susan gathers storytellers who have something to say, she records them telling their tales to the camera, and then she makes the stories available. To everyone. To you. Free of charge. This wonderful collection of some of the best storytellers near and far exists for a very, very important purpose:

To tell us about diversity.

All the stories are personal stories (although a lot of them also have to do with larger events in history). Storytellers talk about their own experiences with culture, ethnicity, diversity, race, and prejudice in the USA. Many storytellers come from many different backgrounds, and their tales make a mosaic of story that reflects the amazing diversity of the USA, and the diversity that surrounds us everywhere we go in the world.
During the storytelling festival, a new video is posted online every hour, and they are made available for comments and discussion on Facebook as well.

You know what else is great about this? The videos are all online, all the time, and they make wonderful teaching tools! I use them myself quite often in my Cultural Pluralism class. Whether we are discussing civil rights, First Nations history, inter-cultural relationships, or cultural holidays, there is always something useful to find in the project. Students respond very well to stories, especially if they are personal stories from people with first hand experience.
In order to make the teaching experience even better, they also come with a great website that includes tons of information, classroom activities, teaching materials, and of course, stories.

At the start of the school year, I wanted to put this information here in case the teachers and educators among you are looking for new tales to bring to the classroom!

You can find Csenge (@TarkabarkaHolgy) at
The Multicolored Diary - Adventures in Storytelling
MopDog - The crazy thing about Hungarians

National Literacy Month and Happy Labor Day

Co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Xmen, Iron Man and the Fantastic Four and Honorary Chair of Library Card Sign-up Month Stan Lee.

September is National Literacy Month and Library Card Sign-Up Month. And as a writer I'm interested in raising awareness about this issue. After all, I write books, and what's the use of doing that if people can't read them? Here are some stats that I discovered when doing research for my latest novel in which my main character is barely literate.

• A 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) revealed that 90 million Americans read at basic and below basic levels. READ MORE
• The anual U.S. cost for low literacy is mind boggling: 80 billion in lost worker productivity, 225 billion lost to unemployment benefits, lost taxes and crime. Literacy Partners 
• L.A. county, population 7,000+ has 33% of its people who are lacking basic literacy Visalia Times READ MORE
• 2 million New York City residents are functionally illiterate (25%) READ MORE .
• 32 million (14%) of U.S. adults can't read and 774 million people worldwide can't read. READ MORE

If any A to Zers are interested in joining the cause here's the LINK to my post about Writers Supporting Literacy. 

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And now LABOR DAY!

Labor Day has been with us for 132 years. The U.S. celebrated the first one on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City. Then in 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday.

Over the years, it's had it's poster girl and other spirited patriotic images to communicate the U.S. Can Do spirit.

Here's the famous Rosie The Riveter that was popular WWII. 

AN ICON OF AMERICAN LABOR, 1942

NORMAN ROCKWELL'S SATURDAY EVENING POST ROSIE, 1943

Have a safe, wonderful, restful LABOR DAY! 

#atozchallenge #roadtrip #lifeisgood - Road Trip Detour

A slight detour on today's Road Trip post.

I'm sure you've seen the news by now, that we have lost a very influential and inspiring woman from the blogging world, Tina Downey.

Tina and Nicole Ayers were kind enough to ask Stormy the Weather Gnome and I to join them in the Post A-to-Z Road Trip this year.

I was truly flattered and honored that they asked. Tina was very supportive and understanding when the newbie and her gnome asked the dumb questions.

I'll never forget her funny emails, her always relevant movie quotes, and just her general positive attitude, even when things weren't going well for her.

The Road Trip won't be the same without her.

Check out this POST to find out about the Sunflower for Tina tribute taking place soon.

Sunflowers for Tina - September 8, 2014 #LifeisGood #AtoZChallenge

In memory of Tina Downey, the A to Z Team is hosting a sunflower tribute on September 8, 2014 – Remembering Tina Downey.


Prior to that date, purchase or plant a sunflower in her honor. (If you have to resort to plastic, that’s cool.) Take a photo of your sunflower and post in in her memory on Monday, September 8. Tina loved her sunflowers, and we want to splash the blogging world with sunflowers that day and honor a truly amazing woman who was friend and family to so many.

You can sign up now or add your link when you post your sunflower.

Please help us spread the word! Add Tina's motto #LifeisGood as hashtag and share about this blogfest on all social media platforms.

Let’s brighten the Internet with sunflowers the way Tina brightened the lives of so many.

Themes That Rocked - Amazing Photos From Around the World!

Please welcome expat and travel master, Rhonda Albom!

Your theme was My Photos of AmaZing Places – why did you choose that theme?

I wanted a theme that defined me, something incorporating adventure, travel and photography. I also wanted short, easy to read posts. April was prior to my re-branding to Albom Adventures, so my blog was still named Laugh-Quotes. I wanted a clever theme as I was still trying to make that name work. Using the AtoZ style in AmaZing seemed to meet that need.

How many countries did your photos represent?

I had to go back and count. I used photos from only 24 countries, half of the number we have been to collectively, although my teens have only been to 34 countries (I know, I shouldn't say "only").

Which set of photos was your favorite?

Being that AtoZ was a collection of my favourites, this was a difficult question. I am choosing three:
K: Kate and William – Watching the Royals Racing Yachts in Auckland For some reason, I am enchanted by the royals, and when Kate and William came to New Zealand in April, I had to change my post for them. I was pretty pleased with the photos I was able to get.
N: Night Shots of Cities on Five Continents I really love taking night shots. I have printed the night shot of St. Basils Cathedral in Moscow on canvas and it hangs in my house.

X: eXpert Craftsman in Morocoo Did I cheat with eXpert? I am not worried about it. This post made this short list because it is about the people. And for me, meeting the people is one of the best part of travel.

Which letter provided the greatest challenge?

You will never guess . . . it was S. My process was to make a list of AmaZing places. Then I matched it to the alphabet starting with the traditionally difficult letters like J,k,q and z. As I assigned the photos, and paired down the list I had about 10 items remaining at the end, and only the letter S.

Of all the places you’ve visited, which is the most amazing?

Having walked on the Great Wall of China, been inside the Kremlin, rode an elephant in Malaysia, seen platypus in the wild and even taken a broomstick flying lesson at the same castle as Harry Potter, I found this to be a very difficult question. So I used my dictionary, amazing "causing great surprise or wonder." Using this definition, I would have to say it was somewhere in Portugal, either arriving at Obidos to find the city gates locked or Evora where our hotel was haunted, we visited an ossuary, and a circle of monoliths created 400 years before Stonehendge.

Were there any scary moments?

I am pretty easy going in most situations, so being stopped, detained or overly questioned generally doesn't frighten me, especially when I am fairly sure it's more about paying a bribe than about the "issue." I think all long term travels encounter some difficulty along the way. Our scariest moments were: the creepy guy setting us up to be mugged in Morocco; driving through rapidly raising flash flood water in Oman (incident death toll of 6); landing without runway lights in Samoa; riot police running past us towards protesters in the park in Rabat; or being let off a boat in a closed to the public area being used by the military in Moscow.

Did drinking from the Fountain of Youth in Norway work?

I will let you decide. I am actually 107 years old.

If you do the Challenge again next year, do you have a theme in mind?

Yes. It is a fantastic theme and I can't wait for the big revel day so I can share it with you.

Whoa! I guess the fountain did work. Thanks, Rhonda.


Co-host Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh is the author of Amazon Best-sellers CassaStar, CassaFire, and CassaStorm, and his blog can be found HERE