Guest Speakers

TIM TINGLE

Panelist
Storyteller ~ Canyon Lake, Texas, USA
www.choctawstoryteller.com

Tim Tingle is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. A powerful conference speaker and festival performer, Tingle was featured at the 2002 National Storytelling Festival. He delivered the keynote address at the 2006 Johnson O'Malley Conference of Oklahoma.  In March of 2003, he completed his tenth tour of Germany for the U.S Department of Defense, performing at schools for children of military personnel. He has been a featured storyteller in festivals covering a thirty-state area, and in 2004 was a Teller-In-Residence at the International Storytelling Center.

Walking the Choctaw Road, Tingle's first book, was released by Cinco Puntos Press in May of 2003. A collection of stories based on interviews with tribal elders, it was Storytelling World Magazine's Best Anthology for 2003. Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma selected WTCR as Book of the Year for 2005, as did Alaska Reads!, marking the first time in the history of the one-book-one-state movement that a single book has been selected by two states in the same year. Tingle completed a tour of eighty Oklahoma libraries in 2005, presenting stories from Walking the Choctaw Road and promoting literacy throughout the state.

In a Governor's Commendation read before the Senate in May of 2005, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry praised Tingle for his "devotion to preserving the Choctaw heritage," and declared May through November as Walking the Choctaw Road months in Oklahoma.

In June of 2004, Texas Ghost Stories: Fifty Favorites for the Telling, co-authored with Doc Moore, was released by Texas Tech Press. Now in its third printing, TGS was also chosen by Storytelling World as the year's Best Anthology.

As a storyteller, Tingle brings the lore of the Choctaw Nation to life in lively historical, personal, and traditional stories. He plays the Native American flute and often accompanies himself with an assortment of gourd rattles and drums, adding a haunting dimension to a concert. Vocable chants and hymns sung in the Choctaw language also compliment his stories.