Lifetime Achievement Award for Alice McGill

Alice McGill has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Storytelling Network.

“I began telling stories as a child,” recalls Alice. “Everyone did.” She grew up in a family of eight children in Scotland Neck, North Carolina, where her father was her favorite storyteller.

Thursday afternoons at school were devoted to storytelling – first the teacher told a story and then the children followed. Usually the children told stories that had been passed down in their families, often the Bruh Rabbit stories that ultimately made their way into one of Alice’s books, Sure as Sunrise.

Alice continued the storytelling tradition in her own classrooms in North Carolina and Maryland. New children would arrive in class, pleading with her to “tell me the story you told my brother.”  After she left teaching, the Maryland State Arts Council supported her burgeoning storytelling career.  By now, she has told stories in 41 states and seven countries, including Canada, South Africa and the West Indies.

 “Knowing one’s own culture is to know oneself; to learn and respect the culture of others is to become educated.”    Alice McGill   theteller.com