Diane Wolkstein
Diane Wolkstein, the author of 23 books including The Magic Orange Tree, is one of the pioneers of the storytelling revival in the United States. She is creative director of the Hans Christian Andersen Center in New York City where she began the storytelling program at Bank Street College. Her Central Park performances of Hans Christian Andersen stories are legendary.
Since 1967, Wolkstein has occupied a unique place in the world of storytelling and literature. Through her performances, teaching, books, and recordings, she has played a major role in the renewed interest in mythology and the modern storytelling movement.
In the Fall of 2005, August House will release Wolkstein's Hans Christian Andersen Classic Stories. The definitive recording of Hans Christian Andersen's six best-loved stories is being reissued just in time to celebrate Andersen's 200th birthday. Wolkstein has long set the standard for public performance of Mr. Andersen's stories, and her award-winning recording will now be available in digital format (audio CD).
In the early 1970's, Diane's search for stories led her to Haiti where she collected over 400 stories and later published three books: The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales (Random House/Schocken, 1978, reprinted in 1997), The Banza (Penguin/Dial, 1981), and Bouki Dances the Kokioko (Harcourt, 1997).
The Magic Orange Tree, in particular, is memorable not only for the wide assortment of stories but also for the personal vignettes of the Haitian storytellers. It is now considered a classic in both the storytelling and the publishing worlds. Each year, several of its twenty-seven stories are reprinted in a major anthology.
From 1983 to 1990, Diane worked on the seven epics to be published in her book, The First Love Stories: From Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Iseult (HarperCollins, 1991). Her research took her to Israel, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. She began telling these and other "large stories" in theatres and museums for adults.
In addition to her performing and writing, in a desire to create a community of learning for storytellers, Diane founded the first educational conference for the National Storytelling Institute in Jonesborough, Tennesseee in 1978, and co-founded the Storytelling Center, Inc. in New York in 1983. She started the first storytelling course at Bank Street College in 1972 and taught storytelling there until 1996.
She has taught courses in mythology at Sarah Lawrence, The New School, and Pacific Graduate School. Since 1983 she has taught mythology at New York University and continues to tour internationally giving workshops on myth and the art of storytelling.
Diane also still directs the storytelling programs at the Statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in the summer and at the American Scandinavian Foundation in New York in the winter.
See all titles by Diane Wolkstein.
