Seanchai: A Virtual Library Out Loud
Group: Seanchai Library
Date: Thursday, March 19, 2015
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: AvaCon Grid Main Stage (Use teleports from AvaCon Plaza)
Moderator: Cyndyl Enyo
Abstract
The purpose of this panel is to discuss how Seanchai Library has been successful in maintaining a library with events that are interactive and engaging since 2008. The panelists will focus on the unique choice of being a library of spoken literature, how that is relevant to a virtual platform, and what future opportunities exist using this approach.
Panelists & Bios
Aoife Lorefield’s (Mary Pat Lynch) career included instructional design, faculty development, and educational research in medical education. She has an MA in Anthropology and a PhD in Higher Education from Indiana University Bloomington. Academic and technical writing has now given way to poetry, essays and fiction appearing in Parabola, SageWoman, PanGaia, and various annuals for Llewellyn. She began reading at the Seanchai Library soon after joining Second Life in 2008.
Shandon Loring was Seanchai Library’s first storyteller in our original incarnation as The West of Ireland Library & Cultural Center back in March of 2008. Shandon brings a rich respect for Irish Literature, a love of the Land, and a keen sense of whimsy to everything from Ancient Irish Myths to Ghost Stories and Adventures from around the world.
Dubhna Rhiadra With degrees in Theology and Welsh, folklorist Dubhna Rhiadra / Catherine Blackfeather shares folk-tales from around the world and writes her own new folk tales for 21st century audiences. She has a unique and soulful style that brings her tales to life. Catherine Blackfeather was born in Canada but grew up in England. She is a dancer, live storyteller and poet. She has self-published a couple of books to Amazon under her RL name, but finds the whole process of doing that so tedious she’d rather just make new stories and poems and share them in Second Life.
Caledonia Skytower’s real world background, both academically and professionally, includes over 30 years in non-profit arts management and production in theater and opera. Over six years ago she tripped into virtual worlds while in pursuit of venues for arts advocacy and discovered that after decades in theater she had a certain talent for performing. Hundreds of hours and thousands of stories later she has been inspired to self-publish her own short stories under her real name, Judith Cullen, as well as explore further avenues to use virtual worlds as tools for creative expression and education.