The Storyteller’s Tale

Julie Wilkinson began storytelling in 2002, after completing her English degree. She discovered her gift while volunteering with the Zephaniah Trust, a charity specialising in schoolswork. Challenged to tell a story in the next assembly, she did it. And everything clicked into place.

Her stripped back performance style quickly became treasured by audiences of all ages – “it feels like a medieval troubadour just walked in and started telling us a story.” She performs in schools, to children’s and youth groups, and with mixed age and adult audiences. Her repertoire includes traditional folk tales, reimagined faith stories, true anecdotes from her own experience, and original “modern-day parables”, most of it her own original material.

Always performing with a light touch, Julie never becomes bigger than the story. Instead, her warmth and authenticity create an instant connection with her listeners, inviting them to inhabit the shared space of the story alongside her. Her ability to draw out the touchpoints of shared humanity in any tale make listening a powerful, participatory experience.

With a gift for finding the magic in the mundane and shining a light on beauty in brokenness, hers are stories which soothe and stir the soul, “reconnecting us to the better part of ourselves and in so doing, giving us hope.” (Stewart Henderson, poet/lyricist/broadcaster)

She has extensive experience in working with children and young people, giving performances and leading workshops/lessons, running events and holiday clubs, enabling them to write and tell their own stories. She has performed at festivals and community fun days, indoors and outdoors, to small groups and audiences of hundreds. She performs original storytelling shows to audiences of adults – including Sparks of Hope and Kintsugi Tales – and has provided training/workshops to all ages. She created and continues to run Refugee Voices, a pioneering drama/storytelling project working with school students to prepare and perform the true stories of refugees in their own words. As a storyteller of faith, she supports others to explore the Christian faith story and renew their understanding of the call it makes on us to create a better world – and her tales are always accessible and inclusive to those of all faiths and none. She writes scripts and stories for others to use including Sparks of Hope, her Christmas book of Nativity scripts and retellings.

At the heart of all her storytelling is the core function of building empathy – she firmly believes that empathy is how we change the world…

“Characteristic flair, humour and storytelling genius!”
Rev Clare MacLaren, Provost at Sunderland Minster

“Julie has the rare ability not just to bring the stories to life, but also to shine a light on the commonplace and easily overlooked.”
Rev Colin Blake, Retired Anglican Vicar