Long before the emergence of the printed word, human beings gathered to hear stories. These tales, carried in the head of the storyteller, ensured that a community remembered its history and its beliefs.Now our stories come from a range of sources, but there is still something magical about the spoken word. In this collection of stories and thoughts, Dan Yashinsky shares gems from his treasure trove of material. We travel from the neonatal ICU at SickKids' hospital to the realm of the Blue Djinn, from a mythical forest path to a British Columbia beach, but everywhere we go we are accompanied by Yashinsky's gentle, quizzical, sometimes bawdy, and always entertaining voice.

Dan Yashinsky is a storyteller and writer from Toronto. He is the author of I Am Full, Golden Apples, Swimming With Chaucer, Suddenly They Heard Footsteps (winner of the Ann Izard Storytellers' Choice Award), and Tales for an Unknown City and the editor of four acclaimed collections of Canadian storytelling: Ghostwise, At the Edge, Next Teller, and Tales for an Unknown City. Dan co-founded both the Toronto Storytelling Festival and the Storytellers School of Toronto and began the 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling in 1978, a weekly open evening of oral stories in Toronto that continues to this day. He has been a storyteller-in-residence at Queen's University, Toronto Public Library, The Stop Community Food Centre, Storytelling Toronto, UNICEF Canada and Baycrest Health Services, working in psychiatry, palliative care, and in the dementia program. Dan has performed at festivals in Israel, Sweden, Norway, Holland, England, Wales, Germany, Brazil, Austria, France, the U.S., Singapore, and Ireland, as well as all across Canada.

Dan Yashinsky's profile page