Saturday, October 17
9:15 – 10:30 am
Dan Yashinsky is a storyteller, author, and animator. Born in Detroit, he attended university in in Santa Barbara, California, and came to Canada in l972. He has lived in Toronto ever since. He is the author of Suddenly They Heard Footsteps - Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century (2007 Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award), and the editor of four collections of Canadian storytelling. In l978 he founded 1,001 Friday Nights of Storytelling, the longest-running storytelling open session in the world. In l979 he founded the Toronto Festival of Storytelling. He has performed and taught at festivals in Singapore, Brazil, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, England, Israel, Germany, Austria, Holland, the U.S., and throughout Canada. He is currently the recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, doing research on how storytellers are creating new narratives. In l999 he received the Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling in the community.