Award Winning Storyteller at New England College

Diane Edgecomb’s journey to collect the stories of the Kurdish people has become something of a race against time. Acutely aware that she was losing a generation of storytellers who held the rich folkloric traditions of their people, Edgecomb embarked on a seven-year odyssey to record and preserve their stories. Her travels often took her to the mountain villages of Turkey where outsiders are rarely seen. The result of her work, A Fire In My Heart: A Storyteller’s Journey Among the Kurds, is a collection of thirty-three stories describing the people, customs, and traditions of this ancient Middle Eastern culture, and is the first publication of Kurdish tales in English.

On Wednesday, February 18, at 6:30 p.m., Edgecomb will give a storytelling performance in the Simon Center at New England College. The presentation is free and open to the public. Her poignant and thought-provoking presentation is oriented to all ages and will include stories from her collection, slides, and video.

Diane Edgecomb is the recipient of the Year’s Best Performance-Boston Herald, and a two-time winner of the Storytelling World Honor’s Award. Her appearances include the Three Apples Storytelling Festival, National Public Radio, WERS, WUMB, Charlestown Working Theatre, and Club Passim. She is a master storyteller and is an approved touring artist on the roster of the New England Foundation for the Arts. Publisher’s Weekly has described her as, “a virtuoso of the spoken word.”

Ms. Edgecomb’s performance is sponsored by the General Education Committee, the Veritas Collegium, and the Education Department at New England College.