Winter Tales Workshop: “I Pledge Allegiance to the Coat of Many Colors”

• Event Date: Saturday, February 21, 2015
• Time: 9:00 am–12:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: $30 adults/$20 students. A box lunch may be ordered for $11.

• Workshop
• Family-Friendly tag

As part of our Winter Tales event, a celebration of American Indian storytelling, the Museum is offering a workshop for writers, educators, and tellers by nationally renowned teller, speaker, and author Tim Tingle.

Workshop description

As an Oklahoma Choctaw writer and storyteller, Tingle shares brief stories of his own experiences performing and writing stories of multiple ethnicities. Participants (Tim included) will ponder the rightness and wrongness of telling outside of one’s experience. Hoping for a high level of audience participation, Tim's goal is to germinate ideas for a truer version of who we/they are in our performance tales and written narratives. “Where do we go to learn the truth?” Good question.

Leader bio

Tim Tingle is an award-winning author, nationally renowned storyteller, and an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. His early interest in writing and storytelling was fueled by the memories passed down from his great-great grandfather, John Carnes, who walked the Trail of Tears in 1835. Tingle now performs his lively Rabbit trickster tales and compelling historical stories throughout the United States and Canada. He often accompanies his storytelling with the Native American flute, plus an assortment of rattles and drums, adding a haunting musical dimension to a concert.

From 2002 to the present, he has performed a traditional Choctaw story before Chief Gregory Pyle’s Annual State of the Nation Address at the tribal gathering in Tushkahoma, Oklahoma, a Choctaw reunion that attracts over thirty thousand people. Tim has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival and founded the Choctaw Storytelling Festival. In June of 2011, Tingle spoke at the Library of Congress and presented his first performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The author of twelve books, Tim received the prestigious Notable Book Award from the American Library Association for Crossing Bok Chitto. His short story “The Lady Who Changed” was selected as 2007 Best Short Story for Adults by Storytelling World. He has received the Talking Leaves Award and Oracle Award from the National Storytelling Network.

Winter Tales events are sponsored by an endowment from Reginald and Gladys Laubin.