Julie Halpin

Julie cannot remember a time when she was not telling stories. In Brownies and Guides it was a very useful skill and it was whilst a Guide leader that she decided to do storytelling more often and more constructively. Julie offered her services to her old school at Irymple (Vic.) and spent Friday mornings telling stories to each grade. After some months, she left her library job and decided to go to Canada for a visit.

There are many storytellers in Canada and Julie benefited from their experience.

After visiting family in England, Julie returned to Australia to take up a position with the Ministry of the Arts. In this role she travelled around Victoria on The Jolly Jumbuck, a truck which was used as a "mediamobile", showing films and performing puppet shows based on children's books. She told stories and trained library staff in storytelling and other ways of using children's literature.

It was an exhilarating but exhausting experience and Julie then decided to take a position at Scotch College in Melbourne as a housemother in one of the boarding houses. The Headmaster and Housemaster were both enthusiastic and supportive of storytelling, which meant she was able to continue telling part-time during the ten years she was at Scotch.

During the year spent at the Ministry, the Storytelling Guild of Australia (Vic.) was put on a firm basis. It was always good to get together with other storytellers and annual conferences are a good excuse to do so. As Convenor of the 1993 Australian Conference, Julie was extremely busy but delighted in the closer contact with tellers from interstate and overseas.

Julie enjoys telling folk and fairy tales from around the world. They are the reason she became a storyteller . . . however, she also tell personal and modern stories.