Featured Storytellers
Carolina Quiroga
Carolina Quiroga
Carolina is a bilingual storyteller who engages her audience with Latin American stories from El Río Grande to La Patagonia. Since arriving in the US, she has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival, among other events, and it is her second time participating at the Weber State University Storytelling Festival in Ogden, Utah. Carolina has toured numerous schools, libraries, museums, and cultural institutions from east to west, sharing the richness of Latin American and Hispanic folklore.
Her dedication to stories brought her to produce her literary podcast, Tres Cuentos, which showcases Latin America’s literature and can be found at her website, www.carolinaquiroga.com. Today, Carolina showcases animated videos for kids, parents, and teachers to enjoy on her YouTube Channel @CarolinaQuirogaStoryteller.
As a teacher-artist for The Wolf Trap Institute of Early Learning since 2016, Carolina created an integrated curriculum for Pre-K classrooms in San Antonio, Texas. Today, she is part of the TAPAS (Teaching Artists Presenting in Asheville Schools).
Tim Lowry
Tim Lowry
During a circus performance, Tim was bitten by the show biz bug at six years of age. Waiting for his big break, he filled his childhood with performance opportunities. Cast as Ebenezer Scrooge in a second-grade production of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” Tim later played Jed Clampett in “A Beverly Hillbillies Christmas.” Demonstrating that he could raise one eyebrow and thereby look “wicked” Tim’s Sunday school teacher cast him as King Herod in the annual Christmas pageant.
As a teenager Tim produced puppet shows for children’s birthday parties. His fee was $20 per show, but he offered a $5 discount if you could give him a ride because he was not yet old enough to drive. As an award-winning high school drama student Tim toured the East Coast in 1987 with a Broadway style musical. As a theatre major in college he studied Shakespeare and Romantic Opera, but when he took an elective class in storytelling he found himself. After graduation, Tim taught English Language Arts and Drama for five years. Drawing on his love of show business his teaching methods were often considered “unorthodox and disruptive.” In 2000 Tim left the classroom to pursue a career as a professional storyteller. To date he has shared his “unorthodox and disruptive” teaching methods with more than a quarter million children!
In 2012 Tim began touring the National Storytelling Circuit performing at over fifty different festivals. Occasionally, Tim provides workshops for corporate clients such as the North Carolina County Commissioners, Dollywood Dream More Resort, Ballad Health, and Daramic LLC.
Donna Washington
Donna Washington
Donna Washington is an award-winning internationally known master storyteller, artist-educator, and author who has been performing for audiences of all ages for over thirty-five years. She is renowned for her storytelling for both children & adults from poignant & funny fables about the human condition to racy relationship stories to spine-tingling tales of terror. She has been featured at numerous festivals, schools, libraries, theaters and other venues around the world including Canada, Peru, Argentina & Hong Kong. During the pandemic, she presented over two hundred shows & workshops virtually online. In 2020, she co-founded the non-profit organization Artists Standing Strong Together with Master Storyteller Sheila Arnold for which they won a 2021 Oracle Award. In 2022 she received the Coleen Salley Storytelling Award.
Donna's eleven storytelling CDs have garnered thirty national awards. She has authored numerous articles about storytelling and education including her very popular blog Language, Literacy & Storytelling. She is also the author of six children’s books: Li’l Rabbit’s Kwanzaa, A Pride of African Tales, The Story of Kwanzaa, A Big Spooky House, award-winning Boo Stew, and her new book, Prak Fills the House. She travels all over the world performing and giving workshops. She lives with her husband and cat in Durham, NC.