Mary Jo Maichack, Singer Storyteller, Teaching Artist, Writer

03/11/2024

Pleased to say that my version of a Czech folktale, "The Three Spinners," has been accepted for publication in the National Storytelling Network's "The Story Beast."

11/13/2023

11/01/2023

Telling an Italian ghost story at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, MA on Halloween. The audience plays along with bits of Italian they speak by figuring out context with the English spoken parts. They're always great at it and we have a lot of laughs. Giovannin Senza Paura! Dauntless Little John! Also on the bill: The Vanishing Hitchhiker, placed in the Berkshires on Mt. Greylock, with my dad the salesman as the protagonist encountering the strange girl in the road; Arachne--the Greek myth of the world's first spider, whose brilliance in weaving angers the goddess of fiber arts, Athena. Told with intermittent song and guitar. ("Speak your truth!") I LOVE telling all these! I love the adults playing along with me and the way they enable me to see other aspects of these tales I've told so many times.

11/01/2023

Thank you for your patience while we get the new Web site up and running! Please contact me at [email protected] for current photos, activities, etc. I just concluded a wonderful run of Halloween shows for all ages. The programs for adults have been so well-received, including a standing ovation and one moved to tears! Last night I performed adult folktales, myths and urban legends at Canyon Ranch in Lenox, MA, where they are looking to rebook me. Several cabarets of the great American Songbook are in the offing: Nov. 9th at 6:30 pm at Lee MA Library Association, 17th at 12:30 pm at Lenox Community Center. A Mass. Cultural Council Special Project, "Of Woods & Words," connecting literary readings to the Berkshire landscape, will begin at Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield, Nov. 8 at 6:30. Your poetry, recollections and connections to the topic welcome! Thanks to the MCC!

09/21/2023

I estimate I have performed some 5,000 programs for at least a half million people. Celebrating 34 years of performance from San Francisco's Chinatown to a school in Vienna, Austria.

09/21/2023

I have just begun to make more posts about my work as a storyteller and musician here. Please ignore the many posts from organizations who spammed this site. I'm working to get rid of them, but they piled up! For info on my shows, workshops and more, please email me at [email protected]. Thank you!

09/21/2023

On the first day of fall, here are NEXT summer's library programs! (I am an early bird so I can write Mass. Cultural Council grants for you now.)
1) Adventure of the Frogman: Playing with Stories and Songs of Nature
Lively, big-time participatory fun in celebration of our friends from nature, from animals to alligators, ferns and frogs, even a stubborn turnip! I believe that children love nature, and the more we nurture that love, the more naturally inclined they will be to appreciate and protect it. Elements include songs like The Earth is Our Mother, This Pretty Planet, Among the Leaves So Green-O, and of course, if you know me, the Alligator Stomp! Because kids learn it right away and it’s fun. A tale from Japan has a lazy man become inspired to save frogs (because he played near them as a child). The Tailor is the CLASSIC tale of recycling from coat to thread to…(a story).

2) Adventures in Puppets: Endangered Animals: a Make-and-Take Program
I’ll bring supplies so kids can create a card stock paper stick puppet of their choice of creature, from Spider Monkey to Pandas to Sea Turtles (inspired by Eric Carle, some tissue paper will play a part). (Templates make it easy so they can color or redraw, and glue-stick on the papers, depending on their ages. A few key facts about the animals’ plight and how we can help them make the artwork connect meaningfully to the theme. And they can take them home and play with them.

3) Fairy Houses—too popular to ignore. I bring supplies—natural and fairy bauble-ishious—and paper plate bases. Lots of libraries have found packed houses with this theme, and the results are heart-throbbing in the way the kids envision a petal as a blanket, an acorn cap as a bowl. The videos I’ve taken of kids describing what they’ve made for the fairies will warm the cockles of your heart.

06/17/2023

This is Meatball. He's home for the very first time, with a human of his very own. 💗💗💗