Midlothian Folk Tales

LEA TAYLOR is passionate about storytelling's ability to inspire, inform, educate, enable and enlighten, and has extensive experience of storytelling with family groups, schools, business and community groups. A founder member for BagaTelle, Midlothian's storytelling development group, she also developed the First Young Storytellers Festival and is actively involved with Young Storytellers Scotland. She is also a working member of The Life Stories Group, working with elderly people. Recent appearances include the International Book Festival, The Royal Highland Show, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and The National Mining Museum. Donald Smith is an accomplished storyteller in a variety of media from fiction to digital, live stage and spoken word. He has produced, adapted or directed over 100 plays, and published a series of novels on turning points in Scottish history. He has also written a series of non-fiction books on Scottish culture including Storytelling Scotland (2001). He is a lead author in the series Journeys and Evocations, celebrating local storytelling traditions across Britain and Ireland. He is a founding member of the Scottish Storytelling Forum, Edinburgh's Guid Crack Club and is currently Chief Executive of TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland) which brings together Scotland's traditional arts, as well Director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.