Stansfield, John

A resident of Colorado and a storyteller since 1970, John has told stories professionally since 1979. During that time he has performed for more than one million listeners (thankfully, not all at once) in a great variety of settings. John's programs of stories and a cappella ballads feature: Western History and Environment; Literature Aloud!; and, World Folklore, especially American lore. He reenacts the lives of national park pioneers Enos Mills and John Otto, as well as Charles Fox Gardiner, frontier physician. A former classroom teacher, he is a specialist in storytelling in education, having taught storytelling and other courses at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. In 1989, he founded the Rocky Mountain Storytelling Festival, now the Douglas County Libraries Storytelling Festival. He spends his spare time hiking, skiing, and working to protect Colorado's wild places.