www.eldrbarry.net

Reviewed By: Kathleen Vander Vorst

REVIEW

This website is entitled Eldrbarry.net and has two subtitles, "The Art of Telling Stories" and "Creative Ways of Sharing His Story." The author of this page is actually Barry McWilliams who writes a full-page biography about himself. His credentials are definitely layman in nature. He is a grocery store checker turned storyteller and a person heavily involved in his church. His biography is full of links to his personal interests. Personally I don't see that his credentials, though lengthy, are particularly professional which would ultimately add credibility to his authority in the area of storytelling. This website is full of links to stories told by McWilliams. The full text of many stories is given. This is a very nice aspect of this web page. Since there are literally hundred's of links from this page, it is difficult to check the accuracy of them all. However, I did find at least four dead links when I clicked on some of them. Since the author of this website has many links to his religious affiliation, I would have to say that this is not an objective site. While not a platform that he promotes, it appears evident that most of his personal storytelling occurs in his church. This page gives a 2002 copyright date and a link dated January 2003. It definitely appears that it is current. This website gives the text of numerous stories suitable for telling. Stories of a number of master storytellers are given as well as numerous stories that the author of the website tells. Intrinsically this site is a tremendous resource of usable stories. Unfortunately the huge number of links makes it difficult for the eye to follow the succession through them. The viewer should definitely bookmark this site and refer to it for storytelling stories. Also included are lists of storytelling basics and techniques, storytelling organizations and publications, and storyteller's pages.