Brand New!
A digital download of my “Through The Years” stories is now accessible via this QR code (or by clicking on the code). Through the Years 2 offers stories previously recorded on several CDs. Inclued for your listening pleasure are: Passing Through the Heartland: the Story of the North Platte Canteen; Heaven on Earth; The Fisherman and His Wife; and L– G—–: The Story of a Great Man. Enjoy!!
It’s been my pleasure to create new programs with the extraordinary artists, storytellers, and friends Jennifer Munro and Megan Wells.
FEISTY MUMS with Jennifer Munro
What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day – or Women’s History – than to have two feisty women telling stories about their feisty mums? Engaging, humorous, and poignant, these stories celebrate the power and strength of ordinary, working-class women. They lived, loved, survived backbreaking domestic work and menial labor outside the home, while raising four children to be productive members of society. Mostly, they did all this without complaint. Feisty Mums gives voice to heroes, whose lives have gone unnoticed. Well, no more!
LITTLE WOMEN AT CHRISTMAS with Megan Wells
“Caring for one another is part of the religion of our sisterhood.” Louisa May Alcott wrote a lovely evocation of the holiday spirit. Alcott’s Christmas chapter from Little Women is appropriate for November programming because Alcott’s birthday is November 29th – a mere 191 years ago. This holiday story offers a satisfying antidote to all that’s hectic, strident, or jarring in the month of December. Alcott’s beloved story bursts off the page and moves the past into the theater of the now!
“With a gift for phrasing and subtle characterization, Birch’s narration blends her candor with the tenderness of a trustworthy friend. These new recordings astound!”
– Dr. Gwendolyn Nowlan, Professor Emeritus, Southern Connecticut State University.
“With the advent of story slams and endless Facebook commentaries about our personal lives, it is refreshing – and necessary – to have someone who knows that we often understand ourselves and our world best through the universal mirror of great art and literature.”
– Lorraine Hartin-Gelardi, Storyteller
“When Carol tells a story every word becomes a song. She breathes shape into each one, setting it free to soar its way into our imagination. I could hear the same tale told by someone else and not be engaged by it at all.”
– Marianne McShane, a Seanachie from the North of Ireland.
What people crave is experience – a way to lift off from the weight of their daily familiar routines. Great Storytelling lifts and enlivens. I use the word “great” on purpose, because there is average storytelling. Carol Birch is GREAT. I love her long literary pieces best. Hearing Carol tell The Grapes of Wrath refueled my love of humanity. Carol tells without Ego – fully devoted to the author’s language and palpably present to the listener’s experience. I felt safe, immersed, transported, inspired – completely taken up into pictures in my mind, believing every character, aching through to the outcome. You have to hear her tell The Grapes of Wrath. Really. You do. Carol Birch is irresistibly engaging.
– Megan Wells, Storyteller