33 American storytellers

StoryCorps is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to record, preserve, and share the stories of Americans from all backgrounds and beliefs. StoryCorps grew out of Sound Portraits Productions as a project founded in 2003 by radio producer David Isay. Its headquarters are located in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York.

Sheila Kay Adams is an American storyteller, author, and musician from the Sodom Laurel community in Madison County, North Carolina.

Judith Black is a professional storyteller, who has toured internationally, telling stories to a wide ranging audience in the United States, Europe, and the Near East. She has produced thirteen CDs, and won a variety of awards, such as the coveted Oracle Award. Her work has been featured in venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Montreal Comedy Festival, and has been featured seven times at the National Storytelling Festival. In addition she has produced a variety of seminars and workshops for storytellers. She has been commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Public Radio, religious institutions, and non-profit organisations to create original stories that strengthen their respective missions.

Hugh Morgan Hill who performed as Brother Blue, was an American educator, storyteller, actor, musician, and street performer based principally in the Boston area. After serving as First Lieutenant from 1943 to 1946 in the segregated United States Army in World War II and being honorably discharged, he received a BA from Harvard College in 1948, was accepted into the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) before transferring to receive a MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a Ph.D. from the Union Institute, having delivered his doctoral presentation at Boston's Deer Island Prison, accompanied by a 25-piece jazz orchestra, with a video recording for his dissertation committee's further consideration. While performing frequently at U.S. National Storytelling Festivals and flown abroad by organizations and patrons from England to Russia and the Bahamas, Brother Blue regularly performed on the streets around Cambridge, most notably in Harvard Square. He was the Official Storyteller of Boston and of Cambridge by resolutions of both city councils.

Celestial Navigations was an American music and story-telling group with members Geoffrey Lewis, Geoff Levin, David Campbell, Eric Zimmerman, Betty Ross, and Chris Many. Their performances consisted of Lewis telling a story along with electronic music to enhance the story. Lewis received a Drama-Logue Award for his performances.

Tom Chapin is an American musician, entertainer, singer-songwriter, and storyteller.

Slash Coleman is an American storyteller, producer, and writer who lives in Richmond, Virginia. The author of "The Bohemian Love Diaries," a personal perspectives blogger for Psychology Today, and a laughter yoga teacher, he is best known for his one-man performance-based storytelling shows which combine clever wordplay, music, and poetic observations about family, spirituality, romantic relationships, and struggles to find a sense of home common with Generation X artists. His work is often compared to that of author David Sedaris.

Mabel Cory Costigan (1873–1951) was an American community and church leader and advocate for labor laws for children and foreign-born individuals. Among her many social and political endeavors, she served on the advisory council of the National Child Labor Committee and was vice president of the National Consumers League.

Kambri Crews is an American comedic storyteller based in New York City and author of The New York Times bestseller Burn Down the Ground: A Memoir, a book about her chaotic childhood with deaf parents. Crews was spotlighted as a top comedy choice in the May 19, 2008 edition of Time Out New York, which called her an "emerging monologist." Crews has also been referred to as a "world-class storyteller".

Donald Davis is an American storyteller, author and minister. Davis had a twenty-year career as a minister before he became a professional storyteller. He has recorded over 25 storytelling albums and written several books. His long career as a teller and his promotion of the cultural importance of storytelling through seminars and master classes has led to Davis being dubbed the "dean of storytelling".

Pleasant DeSpain is an international storyteller, world traveler, and author of multicultural story collections and picture books,. many of which are used in elementary schools and libraries as multicultural teaching aids. He has performed in more than 3,000 schools, theaters, conventions, libraries, and churches in America, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Southeast Asia, and Central America.

Lenard Ray Hicks was a renowned Appalachian storyteller, who lived his entire life on Beech Mountain, North Carolina. He was particularly known for the telling of Jack Tales.

Ruth Edmonds Hill is an American scholar, oral historian, oral storytelling editor, journal editor, educator, historic preservation advocate and spouse of Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill who is also known as Brother Blue. Ruth Edmonds Hill is sometimes known as Sister Ruth. Her oral history office is part of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University. She is an iconic figure among oral storytellers, particularly in the United States but also abroad, and has advised storytellers' organizations. Ruth Edmonds Hill is the daughter of Florence Edmonds of western Massachusetts, whose life story is chronicled and has been critically analyzed as part of African-American oral history. Hill has degrees from Simmons College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Linda K. Hogan is a poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence. Hogan is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. She lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

David Holt is a musician who performs traditional American music and stories. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Holt plays 10 acoustic instruments and has released recordings of traditional mountain music and southern folktales, hosted Riverwalk, a jazz program on public radio, Folkways, a television program on folk music and culture, Great Scenic Railway Journeys, and North Carolina Mountain Treasures on North Carolina public television.

Janie Hunter was an American singer and storyteller who worked to preserve Gullah culture and folkways in her home of Johns Island, South Carolina. She received a 1984 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in recognition of her contributions to folk art and traditions.

Andy Offutt Irwin is an American storyteller, singer-songwriter, and humorist. Born and raised in Covington, Georgia, a small town outside of Atlanta, Irwin began his career in 1984 with an improvisational comedy troupe at Walt Disney World. After five years he shifted to performing as a singer-songwriter, touring the Southeast. In the mid-1990s, Irwin branched into performances for children and since then has appeared in hundreds of schools and countless public libraries.

Woodrow Landfair is an American novelist, and NCAA Champion athlete, known for pawning his 2005 College World Series ring, changing his name, and leaving on a used motorcycle to live as an itinerant laborer on what became a forty-eight state odyssey. The motorcycle trip is the subject of the novel Land Of The Free (2014).

Susie Rayos Marmon was an American educator, oral historian, and storyteller, who was committed to the education of children at Laguna and Isleta Pueblos, New Mexico, United States. She received accolades from New Mexico Governor Garrey Carruthers, Senator Jeff Bingaman, Senator Pete Domenici, and President Ronald Reagan.

John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 40 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and Jew's harp. He has received six Grammy Award nominations.

Bobby Norfolk is an American storyteller and arts educator.

Cathy Olkin is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, focusing on the outer solar system. She is deputy principal investigator for NASA's Lucy mission examining the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter, to launch in 2021 and fly past its targets between 2025 and 2033.

Orunamamu was an American/Canadian professional storyteller, raconteur and griot. Her peripatetic storytelling led her on extensive, demanding and often impromptu journeys across the United States including Alaska, overseas to the United Kingdom and Egypt and finally to Canada. She is included in a number of books, journals, articles and two documentaries. Her performance medium was the spoken voice in performances to audiences. For Orunamamu storytelling became her cause as well as her art form, because "[s]torytelling demonstrates the humanity in every culture." Orunamamu died in Calgary, Alberta on 4 September 2014 at the age of 93. She was booked to perform at the Calgary Spoken Word Festival in the summer of 2014. Orunamamu has been the subject of countless portraits over many decades and in many countries, including photographers such as Arthur Koch (Oakland), Kenneth Locke (Calgary) and Jim Hair. Many of these are shared through social media.

Peggy Pettitt is an American actress, dancer, teacher, playwright, and storyteller. Pettitt is best known for her role as Billie Jean in the 1972 family–drama film Black Girl, starring alongside Brock Peters and Claudia McNeil. Pettitt is a native of St. Louis, Missouri.

Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips was an American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet. He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.

Antonio Sacre is an American author, solo performer, and storyteller. He writes and performs internationally, in English and Spanish.

Emma Augusta Sharkey was a 19th-century American writer, journalist, dime novelist, and story-teller from New York. Known as Mrs. E. Burke Collins in the literary world, she wrote for the press and was one of the small group of women writers of her era who earned more than US$6,000 a year with their writing. As with Sarah Elizabeth Forbush Downs, Sharkey used a married name as a pseudonym.

Leah Song is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumental musician, storyteller, poet, and activist known for her role as front woman in Rising Appalachia, with her sister Chloe Smith, incorporating sultry vocals, rhythm, banjo, guitar, ballads, dance, spoken-word and storytelling into her work. Her music is based in the traditions of Southern soul and international roots music.

Mark Whitney is an American entrepreneur, podcaster, storyteller, political satirist, and comedian. He is president of TheLaw.net and the former host and producer of Late Nite Last Week, a political satire show on Apple Podcasts. Whitney has toured as a one-man show since 2006. His one-man shows include The EDucation of Dianne, and Fool For A Client. He has been profiled by writer Robert McKee in Story magazine.

Marie Louise Defender Wilson, also known by her Dakotah name Wagmuhawin, is a storyteller, traditionalist, historian, scholar and educator of the Dakotah/Hidatsa people and a cultural director working in health care organizations.

Rudolph G. Wilson was an American professor, writer, storyteller, and public speaker, known by his students as Papa Rudy. He was the first African-American member, and later the first elected black president, of the Edwardsville School Board. At Claremont Grad School in 1965, he was the first African American to teach in an all-white school. He was, until retirement in 2009, the Assistant Provost for Cultural and Social Diversity at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, as well as holding the academic rank of Associate Professor of Secondary Education in the department of Curriculum and Instruction.

Kathryn Tucker Windham was an American storyteller, author, photographer, folklorist, and journalist. She was born in Selma, Alabama, and grew up in nearby Thomasville.

Rosebud Yellow Robe (Lacotawin) was a Native American folklorist, educator and author. Rosebud was influenced by her father Chauncey Yellow Robe, and used storytelling, performance and books to introduce generations of children to Native American folklore and culture. Rosebud was a public celebrity to thousands of children who visited the Indian Village at Jones Beach, New York, every summer from 1930 to 1950, and known for her beauty, enthusiasm and intelligence. From the late 1930s through the 1950s, Yellow Robe was a broadcast celebrity with the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City and appeared as a regular on NBC children's programs. In later years, Rosebud continued her storytelling and lectures at the American Museum of Natural History and the Donnell Library of New York. In 1994, Yellow Robe's career as an educator was honored in a performance of "Rosebud's Song" by the National Dance Institute at New York City's Madison Square Garden.