So... what exactly is a Storyteller?

Did you know that a total of ten professional storytellers participated in the A to Z Challenge this year? That's like, nine more than last year. I know, because I am one of them. Also, I compiled a list of their blogs so you can go and check them out for yourself.
The A to Z challenge is all about stories. Written stories. Musical stories. Old stories. New stories. Fantasy stories. Romantic stories. Stories in pictures. Histories. As people of the word, we are all too familiar with the idea of story.
So, what am I doing here exactly with a title like that?

Let me introduce myself first. I am your friendly neighborhood A to Z minion, one of the Seven Ladies of #TeamDamyanti. My name is Csenge, I am originally from Hungary, and I am a professional storyteller. I go to schools, libraries, festivals, museums and other interesting places, and I tell stories for a living. On stage. By heart. From memory. I travel around the world, I collect new tales wherever I go, and I bring them home to my audiences.
(Okay, so maybe I hoard them like a squirrel. So what? Squirrels are cute.)
 I mostly work with folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends and epics (lots of epics). I am crazy about old stories, long stories, heroes, adventures, and imaginary places. I also tell and translate a lot of Hungarian folktales into English for international audiences.
I decided to use my time in the A to Z spotlight to talk about some of these tales, what we can do with them as storytellers, and why they are important. I am going to post every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, and talk about a special topic within storytelling. Today's post was only meant to be an introduction, so without any further ado, I'll announce the next theme right now:

Ladies and Gentlemen, mark your calendars and check your blog feeds, because on Wednesday, May 21st, the A to Z Blog will be taken over by...
TRICKSTERS!!!
from all around the world.

In the meantime, if you are interested in stories, you can check out my latest book, Tales of Superhuman Powers. It is a collection of 55 folktales and legends with superpowers in them - everything from telekinesis to laser eye beams (yeah, really). It started out as a bet to see if I could find at least one traditional story for every superpower on my list. The book includes four categories (physical, mental, elemental, and transitional), and 61 individual powers. It was the most fun I have ever had with research (I mentioned some of the tales in my A to Z posts both this year and last year).
If you ever wanted to be the coolest person in a room full of teenagers, I strongly suggest take a look at some of these stories.

Also, feel free to visit either one of my two blogs:

The Multicolored Diary - Adventures in storytelling. This April I filled it with folktales and fairy tales about colors, from the Azure Lion to Zaffre and Alchemy.

MopDog - The crazy thing about Hungarians... On this blog I post weird and amusing things from Hungarian culture and history. This year's A to Z ran from the Aggressive Piglet all the way to Zanzibar music. Also, the blog features a lot of gifs about puli dogs. You have been warned.

You can follow me on Twitter under the handle @TarkabarkaHolgy