Coming Home to Story:
Storytelling Beyond Happily Ever After
by Geoff Mead
Coming Home to Story tells of the magic of stories and storytelling, and their power to liberate the human spirit.
Master Storyteller Geoff Mead takes the reader inside the experience of telling and listening to stories. He shows how stories and storytelling engage our imaginations, heal communities, and bring adventure and passion into our lives.
"The power of Coming Home to Story lies in Mead's passion and adventure, his faith in stories and storytelling as a source of creativity, healing and sustenance."
Bristol Review of Books, December 2011
"If you didn't believe before that the storyteller can be both healer and magician, you could hardly not believe
it after reading this book. I feel the better, and the wiser, for having read this inspiring text."
Fact and Fiction magazine, February 2012
£14.99
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The narrative is interspersed with masterly retellings of traditional folktales from all over the world. The book is beautifully illustrated with Chris Seeley's evocative artwork.
Read more reviews and Geoff's blog here
The paper for the first printing has been supplied free of charge by Arctic Paper, as a gesture of support for Vala. We are using Munken Premium, produced at the environmentally conscious Munkedals mill, set in Gullmars Fjord nature reserve in Sweden.
About the Author:
Geoff Mead is a professional storyteller who tells traditional stories, runs story-based workshops and teaches storytelling at venues in the UK and as far afield as Spain, Canada and Japan. He is available for storytelling performances (for adults and young adults) in bookshops, theatres and festival venues.
Read more about Geoff
Pre-publication reviews:
"Oral storytelling has been an art form, a magic, that we humans have carried with us since our inception. Unfortunately in the modern world we seem to make little time for it, and stories are caught between the bindings of books, or on TV or the movie screen. In “Coming Home to Story” Geoff Mead does a lovely job of enchanting the world, of breathing a touch of magic into our daily existence. The book tells the story of his own journey into becoming a storyteller, and adds the delightful spice of some of his own favourite stories. What you get is an extremely accessible account of the challenges and promises of this art form."
Omair Ahmad, Author, "The Storyteller's Tale"
"This wonderful and illuminating book takes the reader inside the experience of telling and listening to stories. The book itself tells a story: the author's own personal odyssey to become a whole person as he engages with the challenges of becoming a professional storyteller. He weaves in some of his most beautiful wonder tales as examples of how stories can enlarge our lives.
Many conventional stories assume a “happily ever after” position - perhaps suitable for the first half of life - but Geoff shows how stories can take us beyond “happily ever after”, into a world of adventure and passion, imagination and heart, in which the listener and teller can participate in the whole of existence.
His passion for stories and for the (re)building of human wholeness is enough to inspire any reader to return to the power of the spoken word."
Judith Hemming, Founder, MovingConstellations
"I read this book in one long refreshing draught before the sun came up on a brand new day and I am delighted to say that the Muse has not deserted Geoff. Wasting no time, he plunges us straight into an inspiring, intriguing and important exploration about our relationship with story which has immediate relevance for those of us working with or interested in the role of story and narrative today. Written with an insight, rigour and vulnerability that moved me on many levels, I can heartily recommend this book to anyone who senses the possibility of a deeper connection with the story world of imagination and meaning."
Sue Hollingsworth, Co-Director, The International School of Storytelling
"Geoff Mead has taken the traditional art of storytelling and shown how it can help people live their lives more fully and more imaginatively. This book weaves personal memoir with traditional stories. It shows how the practice of storytelling can inform life choices and heal old wounds, and help us think through significant issues such as leadership, masculinity, and our relationship with the natural world."
Peter Reason, Professor Emeritus, University of Bath
"Coming Home To Story talks directly and engagingly about the way storytelling can profoundly affect someone’s life from first tentative encounter to a glorious and joyful tool and metaphor for life and work. The author combines a straightforward talking from the heart with a rigorous examination of his own journey and storytelling as an art form. He gives a clear sense of how doubts, challenges, joy and adventure can be addressed and inhabited in a storied life."
Michael Harvey, Storyteller
Coming Home To Story by Geoff Mead
£14.99
Hardback
ISBN: 9781908363008
Publication: 1st November 2011
Table of contents
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