By Virginia Dean, Standard Correspondent
Lifelong storyteller Julia Lynam is also a true nature lover, spending her days in and around national forests and parks not only for the splendor they exude but also to fashion the stories they inspire.
“I’ve been a ‘nature nerd’ all my life and being a park ranger has been a wonderful opportunity to indulge that passion in some very special places,” said Lynam who, for the last 10 years, has been working as a seasonal interpretive national park ranger in several national park service units, including Marsh- Billings- Rockefeller National Historical Park.
Prior to that, beginning in adolescence in her native country of Wales, Lynam remembers telling stories while accompanying her little sister to school.
“We passed the time walking to school by me telling her stories of Mr. Bushytail the squirrel and the lilac fairy,” said Lynam.
Now, as an adult, Lynam was one of ten Vermonters who took the stage in Burlington last week as part of the first Moth Storytelling GrandSLAM Championships which brought together the StorySLAM winners from the past year (Lynam won in November 2014 with a story called “The Little Jersey Heifer”) to present new stories at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts MainStage in Burlington.
“The theme for the evening was ‘Fish Out of Water’, and I told a story called ‘The English Teacher’ about culture shock during my year as a foreign student in a U.S. high school in Illinois,” said Lynam.
Founded in 1997 by poet and novelist George Dawes Green, The Moth is a New York based non-profit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Since that time, the outfit has presented thousands of true stories told live and without notes to crowds worldwide.
The name is derived from Green’s desire to recreate the feeling of muggy summer evenings in his native Georgia when moths were attracted to the light on the porch where he and his friends gathered to tell stories. The name is a metaphor for audiences being drawn to the stories. The storytellers allegedly stand alone, under a spotlight, with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers.
The storytelling events that are presented nationally and internationally often feature prominent literary and cultural personalities. The Moth offers a weekly podcast and a national public radio show, “The Moth Radio Hour,” launched six years ago and winner of the 2010 Peabody Award.
In the fall of 2013, Hyperion Books published “The Mother: 50 True Stories,” a collection of stories from the group’s performance history. In December 2013, it reached No. 22 on The New York Times paperback nonfiction bestseller list.
As a storyteller and park ranger, Lynam not only tells personal stories but interprets the history, culture and nature of the country and turns those into narrative form. “So it really exercises me, it gives me a chance to try to work out how to do that and that really does help with my storytelling,” Lynam said.
About three years ago, she began attending a story sharing session run by Recille Hamrell in the Williston public library.
“That was a very challenging opportunity to do ad-lib, impromptu stories and that really got me going with the personal storytelling,” said Lynam.
Following that, Lynam discovered open microphones in parts of Vermont and specifically in the Burlington area where The Moth was located.
“That was a wonderful opportunity to continue with the personal storytelling,” said Lynam.
The process behind the storytelling involves what Lynam calls “work in my head.”
“I don’t write things down very much at all,” said Lynam. “I find that ideas just come to my head sometimes and then they begin to form themselves. It often happens when I’m out walking in nature or when I’m driving – an idea will come up, a memory, an incident, and then it gradually creates itself and it ends up sitting in my head like a kind of movie. Then when I want to retell it, I just start the movie reel going and I watch the movie and interpret, explain what’s going on as I go along.”
Lynam said she hasn’t told many stories about her work as a national park ranger even though there are ideas that she wants to bring forward and work on as stories.
“I’m kind of waiting for that inspirational moment someday when I’m out there in the woods,” she said.
When not working in Woodstock, Lynam lives in South Hero and Newport. Aside from hiking in nature or spending time with her family, including two daughters and seven grandchildren, she participates in sacred circle dances.
This article first appeared in the October 29, 2015 edition of the Vermont Standard.