Who we are

StoryCommons is run by Dr Joanna Gilar.

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Joanna is a poet and community storyteller, building projects for young and old that strengthen community via stories. She is passionate about inspiring groups and individuals to explore the infinite wonder of the ordinary world.

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Joanna has lectured in literature and storytelling at Charles University, Prague, the University of Liberec, and the University of Chichester. She has an MA in Creative Writing, and a PhD in Fairy Tales and Ecology from the University of Chichester. Her publications include The World Treasury of Fairy Tales and Folklore (co-editor, Wellfleet Press, 2016), and she has just completed her first novel. 

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Each StoryCommons project is run by a team of wonderful storytellers. Click here to meet the Storytelling Choir, or here for the Giant's Garden team. 

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What we do

We cannot restore the land without restorying the land.

David Abram

StoryCommons is a space dedicated to speaking, writing and enacting stories that reinvigorate our relationship to the real world.

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We are a space for wonder tales and for real life stories; for fantastic tales that illuminate the real, and real stories about this fantastic  world. We host courses, workshops and conversations aimed at enhancing story fluency and navigating tellings of change.

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As storytellers, we are particularly interested in the relationship between story and community; in stories as networks that make connections.

Read more about our philosophy.

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Myth is neither fact nor fiction, but a species of truth that precedes that distinction 

 Robert Bringhurst

Storytelling

Choirs

A community space for the refinding of stories, storytelling choirs explore fairy tales from multiple voices and diverse perspectives to forge concerts of collective telling.

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Courses

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Story Commons runs courses for all ages, using folk and fairy tales to explore our relationship to the wild, wonder world 

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Journal

An online journal offering a space of conversation around the reforging, refinding and retelling of folk and fairy tale.

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