This June long weekend should have been our Sydney International Storytelling Conference where we would have welcomed and shared stories with storytellers from all over Australia and the World. After much consideration we decided to postpone the Conference till 2021, and we are delighted that most of our presenters have already committed to attend.

Other conferences and festivals have gone ahead or are going ahead online. Storytellers Nsw has been invited to host an online event with Australian Storytellers by the U.S. National Storytelling Network, for their online Conference and Festival. Jo Henwood and the Fairy Tale Society have been busy organising their online Conference for the long weekend and you can catch Lilli Rodriguez-Pang's storytelling festival, Southern Skies Festival on Youtube.

We hope everyone is staying well in these challenging times. While we can't meet in person yet, there has been an explosion of storytelling online. Many of our members are now embracing Zoom, Facebook Live and Youtube to share their stories. It is a very different experience telling a story to a screen rather than a live audience, perhaps it is then that we truly realise just how integral the audience response is to the art of oral storytelling.

Until we can share stories eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart, here are links to various online storytelling events

John Hockney grew up in the industrial town of Bradford in Northern England.

He was one of five children in a creative household, led by his iconoclastic father Kenneth, was a conscientious objector who always told his children to 'never worry what the neighbours think'.

During the war, there were many shortages. As child, John's brother David would creep downstairs in the morning and draw on whatever paper was available.

He drew figures, streets, houses, landscapes and cartoons on the white edge of the newspaper, his mother's magazines, or whatever comics arrived that day.

When David got his first sketchbook at the age of 10, his parents realised his drawing was much more than compulsive doodling.

You might already know the old Scottish saying:" A story should be told eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart", but these difficult days call for an addition to the saying "computer to computer". We would love be meeting and swapping stories in person, holding workshops and of course, hosting our International Conference but alas it is not possible, so we have decided to go online with our storytelling.

Dark Enchantment 2019 was a joint event held by the Sydney Fairy Tale Ring and the NSW Storytelling Guild on 16 November.

A delightful concert/seminar presenting four different fairy tales through different versions of the stories, with introductions to the history and various interpretations, it opened up these tales to a much deeper understanding for our shared communities.

All present were welcomed to the BM Story Circle, under the auspices of the Australian Storytelling Guild, run by Jill and Kiran to provide an opportunity for Blue Mountain storytellers to share their craft, resources and learn from one another through stories and discussions. This is our third meeting (and the first to be held on a Sunday).