I AM WOMAN

Biography 0f the Performer

Anna Francesca Garcia

INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION

Anna works as an apprentice youth services librarian at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas, NV. She has been with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library district since August 2004. Anna enjoys theatre, jazz, reading mysteries, keeping in touch with friends online and spending time with her family (which includes her musician husband, infant daughter, and a menagerie of pets).

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

M.S. Candidate School of Library and Information Science
Candidate Graduate Academic Certificate in Youth Services in Libraries
Candidate Graduate Academic Certificate in Storytelling
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences

Graduated cum laude with a Bachelor's of Arts in Women's Studies with a minor in Theatre
Johnson County Community College -- Overland Park, KS
1999-2001
Graduated Phi Theta Kappa with an Associate's Degree in General Studies
Theatre for Young America, Creative Dramatics Classes -- Shawnee Mission, KS
1986-1999

STORYTELLING INTERESTS

Each night during her childhood, Anna's parents read to her using character voices. Her grandparents all told her numerous family stories. Anna and her neighbors used to put on plays in their front yards, and she dragged her younger siblings into doing skits for the family. As a teenager, Anna discovered a cassette tape of her making up a story when she was four. The tape was recorded a year before Anna appeared in her first play, Fiddler on the Roof at the Waldo Astoria Dinner Theatre in Kansas City, MO. She continued to perform in plays throughout her formative years with roles that include Fern in Charlotte's Web and Anne in Anne of Green Gables. After graduating from college, Anna became active in the Las Vegas poetry scene and co-hosted an open mic night called Word Sculptures with Jeff Grindly at ReJavanate Coffeehouse. However, she did not recognize her rich storytelling background or the label of "storyteller" until beginning to work in libraries and to take courses towards her University of North Texas Master of Library and Information Sciences Degree -- namely Dr. Elizabeth Figa's Introduction to Storytelling and Advanced Storytelling classes. Anna's experiences tutoring at the Johnson County Community College Writing Center and studying playwriting under Davey Marlin-Jones also bolster her ability to adapt material for telling. Anna recently had the opportunity to participate in Petersen Elementary School's library card promotion by performing "Shtetl Stories' a series of humorous tales from the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition.

MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

Anna thanks you for your interest in her stories and would like to leave you with this quotation:

"I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

--- Douglas Adams