Girl in the Mirror |
About the Author
Catharine (Kate) Farrell has always loved stories. From her childhood in San Antonio, Texas, where she read fairy tales and produced plays in her backyard, to her years teaching high school in the mid-1960s in San Francisco, stories spoke a special language. Gaining a Master’s in Library Science in 1970 (UC, Berkeley), Kate returned to the City schools. When the Zellerbach Family Fund awarded her a grant in 1980 to teach storytelling to California teachers, Kate conducted a successful decades-long project. Today, a published author of educational books, Kate is a San Francisco high school librarian and resides in Sonoma County. Over the years, she was a language arts classroom teacher (pre-school and grades kindergarten through 12th), author, librarian, university lecturer, and storyteller in Northern California since 1966. She founded the Word Weaving Project, funded by grants from Zellerbach Family Fund, San Francisco, 1979-1991, based on her experience with storytelling and her belief in it, to encourage educators at all levels to learn and enjoy the art. She was a consultant to the California State Department of Education, conducting Word Weaving staff professional trainings and developing statewide language arts curriculum. She is Senior Author of Storytelling in Our Multicultural World, an oral language development program for early childhood education, published by Zaner-Bloser Educational Publishers, 1994. She is co-author of a monograph, Effects of Storytelling: An Ancient Art for Modern Classrooms, 1982; author of Word Weaving: A Teaching Sourcebook, 1984; producer and co-author of a training videotape, "Word Weaving: The Art of Storytelling," 1983, distributed by the University of California, Berkeley; and author of the professional book, Storytelling: A Guide for Teachers, Scholastic, 1991. Since 1996, she has worked as a librarian in the San Francisco and Santa Rosa public schools, primarily at the high school level. She is a member of Redwood Writers, the Sonoma County Branch of the California Writers Club, serving as an officer in various capacities for over four years. Back story: Kate "discovered" the myth of Psyche and Eros while consulting as a storyteller to Chemical Dependency Center for Women in Sacramento, now Strategies for Change. Telling stories by heart to women in the Sacramento County jails and later in the day treatment program, Kate learned this myth. But the story took hold of her and informed her life as a single mother, struggling to overcome abusive experiences. She has long wanted to share this myth and its powerful quest with other women, particularly young women. (Author Photo by Cindy A. Pavlinac, www.CAPavlinac.com)
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