Jim Cogan Storyteller

About

Jim

Jim Cogan Storyteller’s energetic, often hilarious and always moving oral presentations of folklore, history, mythology and personal memories have captivated millions. Engaging young audiences with participation tales, his children’s programs are story Chautauquas; everybody gets into the act. Enchanting teens and adults with more intricate stories, Jim brings history, mystery, drama and an eclectic bag of stories alive in an engaging concert of storytelling serving up a visual and verbal feast of time, place, character and action. Incorporating a mesmerizing blend of sounds, faces, gestures and words, Jim Cogan celebrates the infinite possibilities of imaginative human expression.

Jim brings experiences gained as actor, teacher/administrator, journalist, Yosemite naturalist, historian and author to his world as storyteller. A native New Yorker transposed to California, he grew up as the middle child in a zany, eccentric Irish-Catholic family of nine. Jim was fed stories from relatives for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Parroting those tales through his schooling and creating his own stories, Jim excelled at UCLA, toured Europe with USO shows and was soon featured at the 2002 National Storytelling Festival . He also served as Teller in-Residence there for a week in September, 2004.

Here in the West, Jim has received commissions to create unique, interactive storytelling programs for the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Orange County Museum of Art and the Bowers Museum. He has served as storyteller-interpreter-docent trainer for each year’s exhibit at the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts during the LA County Fair. Master storyteller-teacher with Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts for 25 years, Jim shares his art everywhere with assemblies, workshops, special performances and consultation. Jim also serves as keynote speaker for conventions, workshop leader at educational conferences, and summer reading catalyst at libraries. Featured on PBS-TV ‘STORYTIME’, director of several Dr. Seuss tributes on Time Warner Cable and keynote/workshop presenter with his acclaimed “Bring Bullying to Bay” programs, Jim is one of the West’s most sought after artists.

Jim’s spoken word CD for kids, Participation Tales, received the Parent’s Choice Award. His work with history as story is published in Many Voices: True Tales of America’s Past and in a variety of articles in national periodicals and journals. He is working to publish two children’s books when his not presenting those stories in person. Literacy, Language, Lore and the Oral Tradition.