Yarn Spinners: Storytellers' no-tech craft proves refreshing, educationalAuthor(s): JILL SCHACHNER CHANENSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 83, No. 3 (MARCH 1997), pp. 92-93Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27839476 .

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OUT OF THE OFFICE

Yarn Spinners Storytellers' no-tech craft proves refreshing, educational BY JILL SCHACHNER CHANEN

Many, if not most, lawyers have been called storytellers once or twice in their careers.

But few appreciate the appellation like the Santa Barbara, Calif., lawyer who first en countered the mystical qualities of this ancient craft while volunteering as a play therapist at Children's Hospital in Denver.

The young can- ,

cer patients started ̂ ?j growing bored with the arts and crafts meant to

help them forget their pain. So the lawyer gathered them togeth er, pulled the shades, lit a candle and began telling ghost stories.

And within min utes, her young charges began chiming in, offer ing their own campfire tales and letting their minds wander far and away from the antisep tic hospital walls.

"It was marvelous to see these children forget their pain and enjoy fear in a healthy way," says the lawyer, Sunwolf, who declines to explain the name by which she is recognized in the storytelling com

munity and at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she teaches in the communications department.

Words to Live By The children were not the only

ones transformed by the magic of storytelling over the flickering light of a makeshift campfire. So, too, was Sunwolf. She has shifted the focus of her law practice to the power of the spoken word that she first experienced that night; Sun wolf now works as a trial con sultant while pursuing her doctor

Jill Schachner Chanen writes regularly for the ABA Journal.

ate in communications. Just when it seems as

though the television dial is expanding into four digit figures, storytellers are witnessing a renewed interest in their craft. The

National Storytelling As sociation in Jonesborough, Tenn., with about 6,000 members, has seen the number of storytelling fes tivals nationwide increase to more than 220 since it sponsored the first stand alone storytelling festival in 1973.

"Culturally, people are hungry for it because it is the antithesis of tele vision, of being detached," says Sharon Creeden, a

lawyer and professional storyteller in Seattle.

"It is being in a com

munity?sharing and ere

ating something together," she adds.

Sunwolf agrees that the fer vor for storytelling is, in some re spects, a revolt against the per vasiveness of mass media in our society.

"[With] stories in the mass media, the listener is passive be cause you are given visual im ages," she explains. "You know what the princess and the villain look like. Your mind is not en

gaged. "In an oral story, you are

only given the words, so your mind has to be engaged. You make the dragon.

You create the ghost in your mind."

To witness a storytelling performance is in some respects similar to watching a one-man show, with one important dis tinction: The audience is a vital

"Your mind has to be engaged" with oral stories, which can provide a retreat from the mass media, says Sunwolf.

RiImsIii Ywr Most lawyers are natural storytellers,

says Santa Barbara, Calif., lawyer and storyteller Sunwolf.

'Their gift for storytelling is inherent. No matter what they do, they are always telling their client's story to someone else," she says.

So how can this inherent ability translate into better bedtime or cocktail party stories?

Start with a copy of Aesop's Fables or another illustrated book of folktales for children (look for books in section 398 of the library stacks shelved according to the Dewey decimal system).

Sunwolf suggests spending time in libraries or bookstores reading these tales and letting the images and themes resonate inside you.

If a story has moved you, read it

92 ABA JOURNAL / MARCH 1997 abaj/james chen

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component of each telling. Story tellers embellish their tales de pending upon audience reaction.

"Storytellers are who they are and where they are on that day and under those circumstances,"

explains Nancy Donoval, a pro fessional storyteller from Evan ston, Ill. "It is very co-creative.

The stories are really different depending on who is listening to them."

Lawyer Lore Storytellers work their craft

in front of small groups-often at schools, churches and hospitals

-to maximize audience interac

tion. Some even tell their tales to lawyers.

Storytellers tell tales for which they have a personal af finity. Most are not original, but rather the tellers take on leg endary fables, morality tales, %m and religious and cultural lore.

Lawyer Creeden, author of an

Aesop Prize-winning collection of folktales, Fair Is Fair: World Folk tales of Justice, explores concepts of justice in ancient and modern civi lizations in the folktales she tells. She also offers humorous stories about her experiences as a criminal trial deputy for the King County (Seattle), Wash., prosecutor's office.

Her version of The Three Little

lntrStirrtillir aloud to someone with expression, sugi gests Sharon Creeden, a lawyer ?itf storyteller from Seattle.

"Then lose the book and just tell it,* Creeden says.

While the words may not slick, the images from most stories will, Sunwotf says. The gifted storyteller relies on the images to retell the story.

From fables and folktales, start exploring stories about your childhood or your ethnicity.

All the while, listen to yourself speak, Creeden says.

"Think about whether your grand mother would understand what you are

saying." While the advice is designed to help

entertain, it's a not bad strategy for pleading a case either.

Pigs is designed to entertain and educate lawyers about speaking in legalese. Titled The Trio of Diminu tive Piglets, Creeden's point is easi ly made as soon as she launches into her version of the classic tale:

"Whereas these said piglets reached the age of majority;

Whereas the sow de sired the piglets to become self-sufficient;

It was therefore re solved that this said trio of piglets should go forth into the world for the pur

pose of establishing their own domiciles.

The initial piglet that went forth into the world met a homo sapien of the masculine gender who possessed a bundle of straw. The piglet in quired, 'Would you be so kind as to bestow, devise and bequeath upon me that straw so that I

may forthwith construct a dwelling?' The straw was bestowed upon him, and he constructed a

dwelling. Presently along came

a carnivorous lupine (hereafter referred to as 'the Wolf) and com

menced to rap upon the portal and said, (Diminu

WM tive Porcine, Diminutive

?

Porcine, grant me entry to thy abode/ After due consideration the

piglet responded, 'Not by the follicu lar outgrowth on my lower jaw bone.'

'Then I'll inhale and exhale massive quantities of air and cause your dwelling to implode!' said the Wolf ..."

The Trio story does not exist to make fun of attorneys, Creeden says, but to make them think.

"I am making fun so they can look at themselves. The law is an honored profession. When lawyers hear folktales that are hundreds of years old and learn that we have al ways had to settle disputes, hope fully they will learn that it is better to settle one in a clever way than by hand-to-hand combat."

Creeden knows full well the usefulness of storytelling for law yers. In fact, she first learned the craft to improve her own trial skills but then abandoned her prosecuto rial career for storytelling.

She now teaches trial skills to lawyers through storytelling tech niques. The past two summers, she has been the storyteller in residence at Gerry Spence's college for trial lawyers in Jackson, Wyo., teaching about stage presence, word selec tion and connecting with the jury.

And she tells stories. "I try to amuse them. I try to

inspire them, and I try to educate them. That is the aim of a story teller."

t?m Raymond ABA JOURNAL / AAARCH 1997 93

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