Toni Simmons
Toni Simmons is an award-winning, dynamic storyteller and author who brings new life to her stories with songs, rhythms, chants and audience participation. Toni is a former librarian who has spent time working across the country, including at the Des Moines Public Library. She previously worked at the former Mid-City Branch as well as as a Rosie librarian during her time in Des Moines.
She has presented her multicultural tales throughout the US. She has captivated audiences at many festivals including the National Storytelling Festival Exchange Place, the National Black Storytelling Festival, and the Texas Storytelling Festival. Internationally, she has performed in schools in South Africa, in Germany, and in Mexico.
Toni is listed on the Texas Commission on the Arts Touring Artist roster and was designated as an American Masterpiece by the National Endowment for the Arts. Her interactive sessions also use creative drama with a variety of age-appropriate folklore. The audience is taken on an imaginary story trip to different continents all the while helping to tell the stories. Her programs are designed to motivate, inspire, and educate while being entertaining. She performs at schools, libraries, churches, festivals, and museums.
Janice Del Negro
Janice M. Del Negro, PhD, is a storyteller who excavates and decorates the bones of traditional folk and fairy tales as an invitation to others to do the same; her focus is reimagining traditional folktales to make them emotionally resonant for contemporary listeners. Del Negro has been a featured storyteller and presenter at the National Storytelling Conference, the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Northlands Storytelling Conference, the Mariposa Storytelling Festival, the National Storytelling Festival, the Moonshell Storytelling Festival, the Rocky Mountain Storytelling Conference, the Tejas Storytelling Festival, and many other celebratory events.
Her book, Folktales Aloud: Practical Tips for Playful Storytelling was awarded a Storytelling World Resource Award in 2015. Her most recent title, Engaging Teens with Story: How to Inspire and Educate Youth with Storytelling (2017) received a Storytelling World Resource Award and was named SLC/ARBA’s “Best Professional Resource for School or Youth Librarians”.
Her latest recording is Fortune’s Daughters: Ghost Tales and Folktales. In 2016 Del Negro received the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award, “presented to artists who are recognized by their peers to be master storytellers who set the standards for excellence and have demonstrated, over a significant period of time, a commitment and dedication to the art of storytelling.”
Del Negro is the editor of the fifth edition of the classic storytelling textbook, Storytelling: Art & Technique (2021), and a professor at the School of Information Studies at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.
Darrin Crow
Darrin Crow is a storyteller. He came by it honestly through parents and teachers that taught him a love of stories and people. Darrin's boundless energy and love for stories of all kinds allow him to connect audiences to worlds of magic and wonder in traditional tales and original narratives as well as to the stories of our past through vibrant historical stories. He lives in Cedar Rapids with his wife, in a house of kids, cats, and a lot of stories.
Calle Sur
Panamanian‑Colombian duo CALLE SUR brings to life the rich diversity of Latin American music, challenges cultural preconceptions, and lifts spirits with the energy and beauty of its performances. Musicians Karin Stein (Colombian, ella/she/her) and Ed East (Panamanian, el/he/him) take audiences of all ages on a multi‑faceted musical journey through many Latin cultures, relating their personal life stories as Latin Americans to the music they play. The duo tours nationwide and abroad and offers workshops for all ages.
During their interactive, family‑friendly program, Calle Sur will sing songs from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Brazil, and tell traditional stories from those places. Guaranteed fun for all!
Maureen Korte
Irish American Storyteller, Maureen Korte writes, adapts, and tells stories of every genre, from every country for every kind of audience. She enhances her tales using sign language, puppets, pantomime, accent, paper cutting and folding, costume and audience participation.
Wherever she goes, Maureen studies and gathers tales to share with others. She has traveled to Ireland to study and collect the ancient myths and legends of her heritage, visited China to study storytelling’s use in Chinese school curriculum, collected stories along the Zambezi River in Africa, and has traversed Europe in search of the perfect story.
Maureen teaches through a variety of venues. You can find her at festivals, conferences, working with businesses to write their stories, through private seminars and in schools and colleges. Her teaching programs focus on storytelling, public speaking, creative writing, poetry, creativity, and acting.