Professional Teller

In 1989 Barbara Fankhauser learned about the Portland Storytellers' Guild and discovered a whole world of people telling stories for the pure love of it. She joined up and has been telling stories in formal settings ever since.

From the very the beginning, Barbara’s stories centered on strong women and fools, fairy tales and Elder tales (yes, there are such things) – stories from the great oral traditions and stories from her own life. The more deeply she immersed herself in the rich oral traditions, the more she came to believe that much of what ails society today is the loss of our own stories… stories of who and where we came from, what we fear, and what we hold dear.

In a quest for her own stories, Barbara turned to the great Celtic and Norse stories at the heart of her own ethnicity. In that search, she has seen the strengths and weakness of the ancient gods and ogres echoing through the centuries into the lives we live today. There, in the middle ground, where past and present—myth and mortal—meet, that is where the stories get interesting.

Barbara served as president of the Portland Storytellers’ Guild from 2012 to 2017.