Patrick Ryan Storyteller > Background

Patrick Ryan has worked as a teacher and professional storyteller for over thirty years. He regularly tours Britain, Europe and the US performing, lecturing and conducting a variety of workshops. Patrick has written for the BBC and has also actively participated in several major storytelling projects, among them:

• 'Living Stories of the World', a multi-cultural workshop for primary children in inner and outer London.
• 'Telling the Tale' with the Lion's part in Southwark schools and at Globe Education, Globe Theatre.
• 'Kick into Reading' and 'Sports Stories', which get footballers and coaches to tell and read aloud stories to children, motivating them to read more and use the library
• 'Listen Up!' an innovative, long-term storytelling residency in Northern Ireland primary and secondary schools, getting students to tell stories and helping teachers use storytelling to teach topics across the curriculum
• 'Writing Together', the resident storyteller for a NAWE project with writers resident in nine schools, primary and secondary, across England every term for 3 years; the impact of writer and storyteller residencies on pupils' learning and development and teachers' methodology was monitored and a major study presented to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority with recommendations for future planning of residencies

Patrick is based in London. He grew up in Illinois in the USA, and attended the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. He taught primary school in the USA and Britain for ten years. In 2004 he completed his doctoral degree at the University of Glamorgan, where he is currently a research fellow at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling.

Doctoral Thesis:
'The Contemporary Storyteller in Context, a Study of Storytelling in Modern Society' 2003
Honours:
Fellow of the English Association
An 'Aesop's Accolade' awarded for Shakespeare's Storybook by the Folklore Association of America, an honour for children's books promoting and representing folklore