The “Dean of American Storytelling” comes to New Paltz

NEW PALTZ — Gioia Timpanelli, one of the founders and leading promoters of the worldwide revival of the ancient art of storytelling, will be the guest lecturer at SUNY New Paltz at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 3, in Lecture Center 102. The title of the lecture is “From Folk Tale to Fiction: The Italian Oral and Literary Traditions.”

Often called the “Dean of American Storytelling,” Timpanelli is the winner of two Emmy Awards, a Women’s National Book Association Award, a Maharishi Award for promoting world harmony, an American Book Award and a National Book Award. She is the author of “Tales from the Roof of the World: Folktales of Tibet” (1984), “Traveling Images and Observations, Immagini e Annotazioni” (1987), and “Sometimes the Soul: Two Novellas of Sicily” (1999).

Timpanelli has received the enthusiastic praise of many contemporary writers and critics, who laud the freshness of both her oral and written tales. Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, calls her “an utterly masterful storyteller,” while the poet Robert Bly said of her, “I love almost all storytelling, but this woman, Gioia Timpanelli, is the greatest I have heard in the art.”

For more information, contact Dr. Marinella Garatti at (845) 257-3485.

This lecture is one event in the Luigi and Anita Traverso Italian Studies Lecture Series.

The Luigi and Anita Traverso Endowment has been created by Professor Emeritus Giancarlo Traverso to honor his and his brother Giuseppe’s parents. It provides funding for scholarships to benefit SUNY New Paltz students interested in Italian Studies and for an annual lecture series open to the public.