Featured Teller
Children’s Story Hour
Sheila Arnold has been gifted by God with performance skills; using this talent since she was eight years old. As a full-time Storyteller she travels throughout the United States sharing varying stories, as well as Historic Character Presentations. She uses story to connect with people of all kinds, from pre-school children to octogenarians, from inner city youth to suburban church members. She uses her knowledge of human development, her passion for history, her compassion for humanity and her extraordinary performance skills to craft and deliver storytelling programs that engage and entertain audiences nationally and internationally in all kinds of venues.
Willy Claflin
Featured Teller
Workshop “Out of Thin Air”
Willy Claflin became a full-time storyteller in 1984. He’s been featured eight times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN.
This will be his 5th appearance at Sierra.
Willy lives in El Sobrante, CA, with his faithful companion Maynard Moose, renowned teller of ancient Mother Moose Tales. He and Maynard teach storytelling at Stagebridge in Oakland. He loves singing old ballads, recounting old hippy misadventures, and exploring outer space with his storytelling collaborator Dovie Thomason.
Dovie Thomason
Featured Teller
Children’s Story Hour
Dovie Thomason has been described as a river, fed by many streams: Lakota, Apache, and Scot Traveller ancestry, urban Chicago, rural Texas and international travels, the Internet and Indigenous elders, family teachings, kitchen table wisdom, and university classrooms. Drawing on those contrasts and cultures as she weaves stories old and new has made Dovie one of the most respected and admired storytellers of her generation. When she adds personal stories and untold histories, the result is a contemporary narrative of Indigeneity, history and identity told provocatively with elegance, wit, and passion.
Jasmin Cardenas
Featured Teller
Jasmin Cardenas is a proud daughter of Colombian immigrants who was born and raised in Chicago, IL. Growing up, every family gathering was filled with stories, jokes and dancing. Stories and our collective wellness matters, Jasmin uses her skills as a storyteller and theater artist to facilitate spaces of solution finding & unity.
She has been a headliner at 2023 The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN and the 2024 Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Utah.
She received a MidAtlantic Foundation Grantee in 2022 for her one woman show DISPOSABLE, which she toured in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Her 2023 Live Album recording Cuentos from the Americas won the 2024 Storytelling World Award. The album was a labor of love and collaboration with 18 musicians and artists. Jasmin has enjoyed performing it bilingually around the country to adults and children alike.
As a co-founder of WorkersTEATRO Jasmin uses theater to advocate for workers rights along with low wage workers across the Chicagoland area. Recognized for this work by Georgetown University she was awarded a LAB Fellowship and is an active Fellow at the Laboratory of Global Performance and Politics. Jasmin is a proud SAG-AFTRA Member, stage actress and published writer.
Tim Ereneta
Featured Teller
Storyteller Tim Ereneta of Berkeley, California, connects ancient stories to modern day life, as he shares classic and forgotten fairy tales, with audiences of all ages—but especially adults. He’s told stories on stages from Washington, DC, to Chennai, India, performing in theaters, art museums, camps, churches, nightclubs, and Zoom meetings.. A former playwright and actor, Tim has been delighting audiences for more than three decades.
Bob Jenkins
Guest Teller
BOB JENKINS, locally known as “Bobby J’” at can be seen chucking his ukulele and singing at open mics, fine restaurants, and seedy bars throughout the California Foothills. He is a published author of five books, and professor emeritus of Theatre Arts at San Jose State University where he served as chairman from 1994 until his retirement in 2000. He holds a PhD in Dramatic Criticism from Florida State University. As a nationally prominent raconteur, he co-founded the Sierra Storytelling Festival with best friend, Steve Sanfield, and was twice a featured performer at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Bobby J lives with his wife, CJ Jenkins, in south Nevada County. Yes, of course, he has a dog, a sweet yellow Lab named Wazi.
As director and actor, his directing credits include Equus, Cabaret, A Piece of My Heart, All My Sons, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, As You Like It and more than thirty other productions staged during his twenty-five-year career at San Jose State University and in the professional theatre. As an actor he specialized in Shakespearean roles including Oberon in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and Richard in Richard the Third.
A professional storyteller known for his unpredictability and wit, BOB JENKINS has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival, Winter Tales, the Sierra Storytelling Festival, and many other festivals, conferences, and venues throughout the United States. His original stories have been published in San Jose Studies and More Tales from the National Storytelling Festival.
Past Tellers:
