How the story transforms the teller | Donald Davis | TEDxCharlottesville

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Storyteller

Donald Davis was born in a Southern Appalachian mountain world rich in stories. "I didn't learn stories, I just absorbed them," he says as he recounts tales and more tales learned from a family of traditional storytellers who have lived on the same Western North Carolina land since 1781. Davis remembers, "I discovered that in a story I could safely dream any dream, go anywhere I pleased, fight any foe, live or die. My stories created a safe experimental learning place.

And that is the way that Donald Davis has approached all of his learning places...as a graduate of Duke University; as a retired Methodist minister; as featured teller at the Smithsonian Institution; as a guest host for the National Public Radio Program "Good Evening"; and as father of four sons. For Donald Davis storytelling "...is not what I do for a living...it is how I do all that I do while I am living.”

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