Here I am telling stories on the Storytelling Stage during the2012 Tucson Festival of Books. I am often approached by phone or by email by a potential customer asking the “how much do you charge” question. My answer is always “that depends.” I need to consider answers to the following questions before I can provide […]

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We had good crowds under the Storytelling Tent. The 2012 Tucson Festival of Books was even better than last year! This says a lot about how the our community supports and values stories, reading, books, authors and learning. I am proud to be a small part of an event that brings an estimated 115,000 people together in southern Arizona […]

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At the request from a reader, this post includes two photos of Fry-Fry, the nemesis of the “Squirrely Shirley Meets Fry-Fry” show. The story behind the creation of this puppet started with a comment by a friend years ago when I was on the board of a downtown Tucson (AZ) historic neighborhood association. Being on the board […]

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After performing for many years, I know a good thing when I see it, and the Squirrely Shirley show is a good thing – the real deal. I’ve been upstaged by puppets before, but this is different and more exciting. I’m jazzed! We added a Squirrely Shirley “journal” to the Story Works Group website during the 2010 […]

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Whenever I can, I like to add a simple magic trick to my shows, so when I wrote the 2010 program, I considered Soft Soap, a trick that involves magically cleaning three small silks. Since I had used this trick during my clowning days, I knew it was a crowd pleaser. I wrote dialogue for […]

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When the 2010 “Squirrely Shirley Makes Waves” tour returned to Tucson that fall, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun the show had been. This program proved to be a great way to entertain and reinforce important pool and water safety rules for children. Getting the kids involved by giving water safety advice to Squirrely […]

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