March 4, 2018 - Local Mariposa Storyteller, Angela Heiss, will be featured, along with Anne Rutherford and Norm Brecke, at the Keeping Storytelling in Schools SIG’s, Storytelling Family Concert on Saturday, March 10 at 7:00 p.m. Venue is the Parish Hall of St. Joseph’s Church, doors open at 6:30 p.m.  Angela has won Story Slam contests in Mariposa and Sonora, was featured at the NW Tall Tale Competition in Medford, OR, and performed at the 2017 National Storytelling Network Conference in Kansas City, MO, as a storyteller from the Pacific Region.

Born in London, England, Angela emigrated with her mother to the USA when she was a baby.  She grew up in Los Angeles in a multigenerational American/British home.  When she was a little girl, she could never answer a question with just one word; it usually became a story.  Her family was very colorful and theatrical, and the talk around the kitchen table was a delight.  She always loved listening to stories and sharing stories and told her first story publicly at 17 years old as part of a high school city-wide speech competition. 

After college, Angela served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga, where she met and married her husband, a fellow-volunteer. She lived on an island in the middle of the South Pacific for two years in a 10 ft x 20 ft. grass house with no running water, nor electricity.  She taught English as a Second Language to both Tongan students and teachers. Returning to Los Angeles, after the Peace Corps, Angela and her husband started a family, taught for many years and later moved their family to Mariposa County.  It was in Mariposa that Angela started to write and perform her own stories. 

Most of her stories are personal ones based upon family legend or experience.  She enjoys combining the humorous with the poignant, and feels it is important to take her listeners on a journey to a place they’ve never known.  Come gather around Angela’s, Anne’s, and Norm’s “kitchen table” for a powerful night of traditional Storytelling at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 10, 2018, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Parish Hall. The concert, recommended for those 6 – 106, is a fundraiser for the Keeping Storytelling in Schools SIG.

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