About Allison

Allison is a Storyteller, Singer-Songwriter, Writer and Educator. She believes in the power of story, song and the arts to build community, and teach us about ourselves. She loves to tell stories, listen to stories, and help people tell their stories.

Allison is a bit of a gypsy, living in Washington, DC, Spain, New Mexico, and Austin, Texas before landing in her current home of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her travels across 5 continents give her lots of material for songs and stories. As a contemporary folk musician, Allison has recorded a couple of CDs with award-winning songs, and performed at cool venues and festivals around the country. With her background in theatre (MFA, former Theatre Professor) she’s toured as an actor/playwright in her one-woman performance piece, as a storyteller for children & adults, and ultimately as a storyteller for The Moth Mainstage. Now she works on blending the worlds of music, storytelling and theatre in live performance and through radio/podcast media. Allison served as host, co-producer, and featured storyteller and musician for “The Living Room” radio series on Michigan Radio (the leading NPR affiliate in Michigan) exploring the cultural fabric of Michigan through storytelling, music, and creative writing. (It won a broadcasting excellence award for cultural programming!) And as much as she loves to write and perform, Allison also loves to teach. As a professional educator for 30 years (a professor at Western Michigan University for 19), she delights in offering workshops, residencies and retreats for schools, communities, and organizations, as well as individual coaching.

WHERE’D SHE COME FROM? Born in Berlin, Germany, raised in Washington, DC, Allison is a world traveler, well, 5 continents that is, living for extended periods in Spain, France, Brazil, Senegal, Africa; Tortola, British Virgin Islands; as well as Maine, New Mexico, Texas, Ohio, Washington, and Michigan. She spent much of the past 20 years traipsing across all 50 United States, Canada, England, Mexico, Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand (w/17 twelve year olds), and Eastern Europe before the crumbling of the iron curtain and Russia after the fall. She’s climbed the Grand Teton, the tallest mountain in Wyoming, lived in a tent near the Yukon on a glacier lake, lived in an New Mexican adobe house heated only by the firewood she chopped, snorkled the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, herded sheep and cattle & picked potatoes while living above the pigs in an 1100 year old stone house in Galicia province, Spain. Now she lives in a 1917 stucco in Kalamazoo, Michigan with her musical husband, John, 13 year old dapper son, Michael, and precious puppy Penny.

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