Anthony Nanson has told stories professionally since 1999 and been a published writer since 1992. He’s taught creative writing at Bath Spa University since 2001.

Storytelling

As a storyteller he’s worked in arts centres, bookshops, cafes, camps, castles, charities, churches, clubs, festivals, fetes, galleries, gatherings, libraries, parties, retreat centres, schools, theatres, universities, weddings, woods – around Britain and in Greece, Finland, and Switzerland – and has appeared on television and radio. He founded the long-running Bath Storytelling Circle in 1999, and in 2000 co-founded the performance company Fire Springs, with whom he co-produced the ecobardic epics Arthur’s Dream, Robin of the Wildwood, and Return to Arcadia and such pioneering compilations of history and myth as Voices from the Past, Vanished Voices, Wild Encounters, and Tales from the Saxon Shore.

His flexible performance style varies from high-energy intensity on stage to cheerful informality in the pub. At the core of his repertoire are traditional stories from Britain, Ireland, Greece, East Africa, and the Middle East, but he also tells true stories of exploration and ecological history and his own traveller’s tales and original stories.

Writing

Anthony was editor of the arts magazine Artyfact from 1997 to 2001. His stories and articles have been published in magazines and anthologies such as Vector, Resurgence, Prediction, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, Third Way, Articulate, Facts & Fiction, Storylines, Greek-o-File, Xenos, Writing the Land (2003), and One Hundred Wisdom Stories from Around the World (2003). His short-story collection Exotic Excursions was published in 2008 and his collection of essays, Words of Re-enchantment: writings on storytelling, myth, and ecobardic desire, is forthcoming from Awen in 2010.

Workshops

Anthony instituted evening classes in storytelling at the University of Bath in 2000 and has facilitated creative workshops in schools and diverse other contexts, including the University of Wales Aberystwyth, Kingcombe Centre, Bishops Wood Centre, Rising Sun Country Park, Othona Community, Lee Abbey, Society for Storytelling Annual Gathering, WWF AGM, WWF Greece, and Olympus Storytelling Festival.

His storytelling workshops combine practical performance skills with techniques in preparing stories – often with a genre focus such as Greek myth, Celtic myth, King Arthur, Bible stories, ecological stories, or wonder voyages. His writing workshops address both the imaginative and technical skills of prose and offer specialities in fantasy/science fiction and life/nature writing.

Environmental interest

Anthony’s love of nature and concern about today’s ecological crisis inform much of his work. He’s the author of Storytelling and Ecology: reconnecting nature and people through oral narrative (2005) and co-author of An Ecobardic Manifesto: a vision for the arts in a time of environmental crisis (2008). He’s taken part in the Tales to Sustain gatherings since their inception in 2006, joining their organising committee in 2009. He’s been commissioned by the National Trust to interpret a wood-pasture, was the keynote speaker at Greece’s first conference on Storytelling and Environmental Education in 2007, and has contributed to WWF International’s One Planet Leaders programme.

Background

Anthony has master’s degrees in natural sciences from Cambridge and in creative writing from Bath Spa University, also a Postgraduate Certificate in Education and a Diploma in Publishing. He’s a member of Equity, the Society for Storytelling, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (UK), and British Science Fiction Association, as well as the RSPB, Mammal Society, Wildfowl & Wetland Trust, and Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. He’s worked as a science teacher, executive officer of a peace-studies charity, production editor, copy-editor, and manuscript consultant, and has lived and worked in Kenya and Greece.