Our 2024 Headliners Line-Up

Tom Juniper

Tom is the winner of the 2024 Step-Up Commission and is a performance poet based in Sheffield.

Tom’s work often focuses on the experience of being other, whether that’s talking about being autistic or being part of the queer community, or about the Other as in strange and mysterious creatures from folklore traditions.

See more about Tom

Shonaleigh

Not only is Shonaleigh is one of Europe’s leading storytellers, she runs House of the West Wind College of Storytellingb bringer of the Step-Up Commission.
Having learned the Drut’syla tradition from the age of four, she carries thousands of oral stories from the Jewish tradition and shares their magic, mystery and wisdom with audiences around the world.

See more about Shonaleigh

Jimmy Williamson

Jimmy Williamson, son of Duncan, is a member of the Scottish traveller community. He tells stories of the traveller people passed down through generations of the traveller community. These stories are purely oral having never been written down.
Jimmy is also a singer and songwriter, singing songs which cover a whole spectrum of subjects.

Zahra Afsah

Zahra was born and raised in Tehran. She studied Art and Archaeology at SOAS and in 2016 completed her second MA in Persian Painting and Transcultural Visuality at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her MA dissertation examines the links between oral storytelling and Persian miniature painting, exploring the direct influences of the oral tradition in the Khamseh of Nizami of 1494-95.

For more, click on Zahra

John Row

John Row is a storyteller and poet, curator of the World Storytelling Cafe and director of the 2022 Marrakech International Storytelling Festival with half a century behind him of spoken word both poems and stories.
John has told stories over the whole world and is a familiar figure at festivals across England. He runs storytelling areas on Glastonbury Festival Kidz Field and at Cambridge Folk Festival.

John is also one of the East Anglian Storytelling Festival tellers.

Find out more about John’s work at the World Storytelling Cafe on worldstorytellingcafe.com.

Despina Ariou

Despina was born and bred in the little island of Syros, Greece, where -after travelling Greece and Europe- she now lives. Despina teaches English and Spanish as second languages. Growing up listening to tales from her granny, she believes stories are a very useful tool for educational purposes and also for trying to make the world a better place by creating strong community bonds and the comforting feeling of sharing.

For more, click on Despina

Simon Fletcher

Simon is a well-known poet and freelance writer who organises live literature events, runs workshops and manages Offa’s Press, a small poetry press in Shropshire.
Simon has organised hundreds of live literature events and creative writing workshops in the West Midlands and will be performing and running a poetry workshop for us this year
In addition. Simon has also performed all over the country and abroad.

For more, click on Simon

Amelia Armande

Amelia “Ace” Armande is magical, sparky, and probably several goblins in a long coat. They make work about fairytales, death, and how the stories we tell shape us. They have toured nationally as an actor and internationally as a storyteller. Their plays and poems have won awards, and they are a talented artist and graphic designer with a flair for colourful and quirky designs. Amelia is non-binary and asexual, and proud to represent the LGBTQIA+ community.

For More, click on Shonaleigh

Simon Heywood

Simon Heywood has published poetry, translations fiction and non-fiction, and worked to international acclaim as a storyteller, musician, composer, and workshop leader, performing in pubs, clubs, cafes, festivals, parks, schools, libraries, village halls, cemeteries, theatres, arts centres, forests, living rooms, hospital wards, narrowboats, roundhouses and castles.

He completed a PhD on contemporary storytelling at Sheffield University’s National Centre for English Cultural Tradition in 2001 and has lectured in creative writing at Derby University since 1996.

For more, click on Simon

Trigger Bliss

riggerBliss is a multi creative who uses spoken word as an avenue to connect to the individual, to inspire healing, conscious thought, and conversation. This is achieved by incorporating spoken word into visuals, imagery, quotes, music, as well as performing live. TriggerBliss harnesses her creativity to spread mental health awareness, love, unity and encourage the authentic self.

For more, click on For more, click on Trigger

Dan Sedgewick

Dan Sedgwick is a storyteller from Ipswich, Suffolk. He spent 13 years teaching and used storytelling to engage, inspire and connect children. In 2022 he set up the non-profit organisation Chapter 82, running projects with children and adults in Suffolk.

He has told stories in nurseries, schools, festivals, libraries and recovery groups to people of all ages. Dan believes stories go right to the core of what it means to be a human and tries to share stories in places they wouldn’t otherwise be. He sees stories as a way of connecting people to one another and the world, geographically, historically and spiritually.

Marion Leeper

Based in Cambridge, Marion and her amazing story mat are familiar visitors to museums, schools and libraries around the region. She has toured her shows for grownups to clubs and festivals around the country and internationally. She tells stories for children of all ages, and specialises in multi-sensory storytelling for the very young and for people with learning difficulties.

She writes on education and storytelling for the magazine Early Years Educator and for PPS books.

She is a long time member of the local group Cambridge Storytellers, and is currently involved in organising the East Anglian Storytelling Festival.