Katrice Horsley
Katrice has been fascinated by stories and words for as long as she can remember. As a child she was speech impaired and painfully shy. As a means of escape she turned to books and stories and these, in addition to a wonderful family (Irish and eccentric English) provided a firm foundation for her present occupation. It was on the inner-city adventure playgrounds of Birmingham that she first discovered her flair for telling tales. This was further enhanced through living and working in Ghana for six years where she saw stories alive and breathing, not fossilised in the pages of a book.
She was so inspired by what she saw that she developed a television show based on storytelling in education (funded by UNICEF). She also collaborated with local hunters and a small NGO to develop a series of three books on the importance of preserving the rainforest. This was the true start of her career both as a professional storyteller and a user of stories to promote change and development.
Since then Katrice has developed her passion for communication and for enabling people to share their stories and celebrate and understand those of others. This passion has led her to work for a range of organisations including the BBC, (for whom she was the main consultant of a storytelling web-site) UNICEF, UNHCR, British Council and The British Heart Foundation. She has written a few publications and is now working on a series of children’s picture books around the theme of resilience.
She is also known as a trainer in the field of creative evaluation and is a director of the Traditional Arts Foundation – a Midlands based organisation, set up to promote the traditional performance arts and explore their uses in education and development. She offers a wide range of training in many areas from performance to language development and is often used as an inspirational and motivational speaker.
“Wow, wow, wow, a fantastic storyteller, unique in every way. It was wonderful to see our less confident children interacting and using their imaginations to express themselves. You made me see a child’s true imagination and how they can be transported into a wonderful magical world. I felt inspired by your ideas.’ Walsall Nursery Head.
For more information or to contact Katrice, please visit www.katalysttales.co.uk