Welcome to Mary Louise Chown.com!

Updated September 29, 2008

Hello! Another season of storytelling begins again. My colleagues and I in BraveHeart Storytellers have just finished a week at Art city, where we presented our storytelling program "The House of Celebration".

There is news about the upcoming Magic of One season on our new Magic of One website:wwwmagicofonestories.com. Also see my Manitoba Storytelling Guild page for the latest news on the guild.
I have added some recent storytelling articles for your reading pleasure on my Published Works page.

The election is coming up on October 14th. PLEASE VOTE!

Updated July 18, 2008

Hello everyone Our Magic Of One fringe show, The Seven Deadly Sins, is going really well, and we’d love to see you there. We're at Venue 21, Aqau Books on 274 Garry St.

Here is a review from our opening night that was posted by Hannah & Chris Wigglesworth on the CBC review site. Thanks Hannah and Chris! "We went to opening night for this show and really enjoyed it. The stories held our attention from start to finish, and the music and storytelling fit really well together. There were six great stories from around the world including one from Canada about the gold rush in B.C. And there was lots of variety in the music (and musical instruments!) as well. It was even very kid-friendly (that is no sex or swearing) - but still lots of spice!!."

Spring has been very busy for me, with a storytelling workshop in Pinawa, thanks to the organizational talents of Irene Friesen and Darlene Hare. There has also been a wonderful week at Norway House with Val Clancy and Laura Cowie, my fellow BraveHeart Storytellers. While we were there, working with Grade One students, one little boy asked us how we managed to get a job that brought us to Norway House where we brought so much happiness to the children!

I will be playing my hammered dulcimer with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at the MTS Centre April 24th for the North American Premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I have been practicing like crazy!

Coming up for me is a week's work in Killarney at the local Elementary/High School for their MADD days.We will be telling stories and making collage artworks. Also,I am lucky enough to go to Vancouver to participate in their 2008 Epic weekend. A group of storytellers will be telling the complete Ramayana, beginning Friday night, continuing all day Saturday, Saturday night, and Sunday morning.

Next comes the Winnipeg School Division's Young Author's Day, held this year at the University of Winnipeg. I am looking forward to helping a group of high schoolers bring their stories alive. International storyteller Laura Simms will be the keynote speaker at the conference.And speaking of Laura Simms,check out the Arthur Mauro Centre at St. Paul's College. They are presenting their 3rd annual storytelling festival in early May.

ALso on the horizon is a BraveHeart workshop called "All my Life's a Story",which Laura Cowie and I will be presenting in late May at the provincial Manitoba Child Care Conference.

MAGIC OF ONE AT THE FRINGE.

Between July 16-27th, 2008.

Don’t miss

The Seven Deadly Sins: Stories Told After The Fall

At a new Fringe venue Aqua Books New Store 274 Garry Street 8:30 PM July 16-19, & July 23-26th

Starring local sinners: Kay Stone & Tom Roche Mary Louise Chown

With some Wonderful Music by Michael Cobus and Kevin Scott

What’s the Las Vegas Fringe without some sinning? Gorge on the seven deadly biggies in a 75-minute show of stories old as sin itself, with music to match. We’ve got pride, envy, and a cobra! From the storytelling collective that has sated the local lust for tasty tales for over five years. These Sins are good for the soul.

watch here for news updates

Updated March 18, 2008
Storytelling is alive and well in Winnipeg, if the last few months are any indication.We have had 4 wonderful concerts presented by Magic of One Productions. So many people came to our March 14th concert that we had to bring out all the chairs from the storage room of the church hall! Check out the Magic of One page on this website for information about our Fringe Festival show coming in July and our plans for the 6th season of concerts.

In between working on my book about storytelling in hospitals, I have been busy telling stories in schools, and at the healing concerts organized by Sanctuary, which has a new home at the St. Norbert Arts Centre. The next concert takes place on March 21 at 7:00PM. This spring equinox coincides with a full moon, so it will be a wonderful night!

Music and dancing seems to be as important to me as storytelling. I have been lucky to be a member of the Fine Companions Dance band for over 20 years now, playing music for English Country Dancing, and now I have also begun to teach this wonderful dancing on Wednesday night at Harrow United Church. My teacher is Liz Goossen, who is also a good friend and fellow band member.You may have heard her play harp at the January Magic of One Concerts.

A group of storytellers have been meeting regularly to flesh out the Manitoba Storytelling Guild. More about this on the MSG page of the website.

BraveHeart Storytellers are planning a return trip to Norway House, to tell stories at Helen Betty Osborne School, in April. We are also presenting a workshop called "All My Life's A Circle" at the May conference of the Manitoba Child Care Association.

Stone Soup Stories has been meeting at Aqua Books for the last 3 years, and we will move along with owner Kelly Hughes to his new store at 114 Garry St. in April. Come on down to our April 12 meeting at 7:30. The group is open and free to all interested in telling or listening to stories. It's a great way to get started in storytelling, or practice a story in front of an appreciative and supportive audience.

And finally, check out the storytelling festivl organized by the Arthur Mauro Centre at the University of Manitoba.It's coming up in early May.Here is the website: http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pauls/mauro_centre/outreach/storytelling/index.html

Updated December 18
I hope you like my newly designed website. Please email me if you have any feedback on it.

here is a Christmas story for you that I wrote a short while back, but it began with a sharp memory....

Good King Wenceslaus looked out on the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even

Wenceslaus. It is very strange and mysterious how one word can call up a thousand images...a whole story. My friend Elizabeth came over for supper one night last October and she told me about her stay in Prague; the beautiful old medieval city, full of music. Then she saw the castle of King Wenceslaus, built on a high cliff overlooking the river Vltava.

I have not told Elizabeth this, but as soon as she mentioned Wenceslaus I was eight years old again, trudging through the snow that lay “deep and crisp and even”, my head bent down against the bitter north wind that drove itself down Claremont Avenue. There was no snow blanketing the Winnipeg world as Elizabeth and I sat and talked over supper, yet in the space of a second, a winter scene was unfolding itself from the recesses of my memory.

December 1953. I was eight years old. Dad had died in November of that year and my mother, my brother and I were on our way to the movies for the second time that week. We were Catholic and my favourite part of Christmas every year was always Advent...the getting ready....pulling out the Christmas records, playing the carols and the hymns, practising them for the school Christmas concert where Father Empson always sat large and encouraging in the front row. But the winter of 1953 was different. After Dad died we went out a lot, and we always walked. Looking back now, I wonder if we didn’t have a car until my mother found work. In Norwood at that time, there were two movie theatres across the park at the end of our street, and two drugstores with lunch counters where you could buy milkshakes and sodas.

My brother and I didn’t question why we had to go out to the movies two or three times a week that winter. What normal eight or ten year old would? It was a dream come true! I remember the cold north wind blowing on our faces as we walked into it along Claremont Street to Coronation Park. Then across the park to Tache and Marion where the shows were. I remember walking beside my mother and crying because the wind cut into my face. She didn’t chide me. She simply said, “Walk in my footsteps. I’ll break the wind for you.” Mom wore a thick, velvety black beaver coat and those black boots with fur at the top which came just above the ankle and tied in front. She strode along the snowy sidewalk like a large black bear. I walked along behind and the wind no longer bit into my face and cheeks.

In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very steps which the saint had printed

Well who are the saints anyway? I had been taught at school that they started out as ordinary people who did something brave or kind. Wasn’t my mother both of these things? Brave to keep on living as normally as possible, keeping us cheerful and hopeful. Kind to take us to the show so often each week, feeding us along the way with milkshakes and sandwiches.

This was my song. It didn’t matter that there was no poor peasant to whom we were bringing food. I was that page, trudging through snow that was “deep and crisp and even”. The sandwiches my mother carried and the milkshake we stopped for was to feed us...poor starving trio without our dad. It didn’t matter that we were walking so purposefully not towards home, but away to the cold comfort of a movie house.

Who was King Wenceslaus? This is less clear. Perhaps Mom and Dad were both Wenceslaus. Dad was the Wenceslaus at the beginning, when he looks out of his castle window and sees someone walking through the bitter snow. After all, I had been assured that my father was in fact in Heaven and could have chosen this very moment to look down on us as we worked our way north on Claremont Avenue.

Then the scene shifts with the ease only possible in the mind’s eye. My face is stinging with cold and now Wenceslaus is walking ahead of me, shielding me from the bitter weather with her own body.

The carol began its part in shaping the story of who I am even while I walked along on those far off winter nights and it continues to bring into sharp and instant focus that feeling of being at once without, and yet protected

Updated May 30, 2007

Click here to listen to Angus a Celtic Love Story

Magic of One Productions presents

Hamster in a Tea Towel: Badd late night storytelling

Tues July 24-Sat July 28 @ 9:30 pm

Aqua Books, 89 Princess Street in the Exchange

$8.00 at the door.

Happy late spring or early summer, depending on where you live!

The Magic of One Concert Series has finished its fourth season, and is preparing for the fifth season of storytelling and music concerts. But we don't want to wait until October to tell you more stories, so 6 of us are going to be performing at this year's Winnipeg Fringe Festival, so come on down and hear us.

Manitoba now has another organization to work for storytellers and all those who love to listen to stories!

THE MANITOBA STORYTELLING GUILD has been formed and registered by Kate Isaac, Laura Cowie, and Mary Louise Chown. It's mandate is to support and promote the art of oral storytelling throughout Manitoba. Its first activity was to offer a storytelling workshop in January called Bring That Story to Life: How to research and give voice to historical people and events
which was co sponsored with Magic of One Productions. The guild will only grow and develop with the help of all of you involved in some way with storytelling. Right now, it is simply a framework. Please get in touch with me if you want to help develop this further.

Earlier news and events posted January 5, 2007

Happy New Year to everyone and may you be well and happy in 2007!
The Magic of One Concert Series is halfway through it's fourth year of storytelling concerts supported by music. As I write, we are rehearsing for our 3rd concert, which takes place in January 26, 2007 here in Winnipeg. Call or email me for more details and to reserve tickets! A big thanks to all the Tellers and Musicians who shared their talents in the first 3 years of concerts and to all the volunteers who helped make it possible. And of course, thanks to all you who continue to be interested, especially as we move through a fourth season! To get information on the season line-up, click on Workshops and Performances.

I have finished my storytelling and music project in Palliative Care facilities at Riverview Health Centre and Grace Hospice, and I have begun work on a small book of stories and some poems, along with accounts of with my personal experiences and ways I have used the material in my work over the last 4 yrs. I am writing for my own satisfaction, to have something concrete to show, as storytelling and music are ephemeral activities, but so far I have received so much encouragement here in Winnipeg, that it may get published one day.Thanks to Manitoba Artists in Healthcare, and it's hard working director, Susan Johnson, I have enjoyed telling stories, listening to stories, and playing music at the bedside of patients in Palliative Care. It was a privelege to enter into the lives of those who are dying, to hear their stories and those of their families and the staff who care for them.



My trip north to Churchill in October was a wonderful experience! I was asked to work with the students in Grades 5 to 8 at the local school in Churchill, and to test run The House of Celebration , a new program designed by the three of us in BraveHeart Storytellers (Laura Cowie, Val Clancy, and myself). I also was treated to a day out to see the polar bears.

The Harvest Moon Festival on September 16-18/06 was a unique experience for me and my fellow storyteller, Wayne Drury. This is the first year that storytelling was offered. We hope i twill be a continuing tradition.

My colleagues, Laura Cowie and Val Clancy and I also be presented 2 workshops this Fall for the Manitoba Child Care Association, called Tell it from the Heart: Building Empathy and Community through Storytelling. We were honoured to be able to work with some of the youngest students at Pinkham School in Winnipeg this Fall. BraveHeart Storytellers are in the planning stage of our first CD of stories for nurturing empathy.

The House of Celebration has been accepted into the Manitoba Arts Council Artist -in-the-Schools program. We will be travelling to Norway House next April to work with students in the elementary school on the reserve. We can work with groups of any age, in schools or communities. We also have a training program designed to help adults who work with children and youth at risk. . Contact me for more information.