I've fallen in love several times in my life. My first love was with the family tales my folks told. Growing up in rural Cumberland County, Virginia where I didn't have access to a public library or a bookstore, I had to depend almost entirely on the oral tradition for historical information about my people. My dad and all of his brothers and a few of his first cousins would, almost weekly, sit in one another's "front" (living room) and spin family yarns. Many of those stories were about my courageous, but mischievous and witty, great grandma Liza, who had been a slave.
A Black Storytellers Festival held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1991 rekindled the love for telling tales that I enjoyed as a child, and in 1992 I found myself drawn to the "Swapping Ground" - a place where would-be storytellers can try their hands in front of a crowd -- at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. Since then, I have told stories as NaMe, a name given to me by my granddaughters who couldn't say Nana Muriel, in schools, churches, public libraries, museums, and at festivals in the Southeast and Northeast. My favorite stories are the African and African-American folktales and legends featuring the tricksters Anansi the Spider, Brer Rabbit, and High John the Conquerer.