Bio

Americana Storyteller

Auntmama gathers audiences up in tales and tunes.  Her voice is a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains at dusk, rolling and misted sweet. These stories are conversations with memory that leap into the here and now.  As Seattle’s Entertainment reviewer once said, Auntmama whips up silver, spit-shined tales.”

Auntmama tells stories throughout the Northwest and can be heard at a Guide to Visitors, The Bent Institute, Seattle StoryTeller’s Guild, Second Tuesday Poet’s and Writers, Northwest Folklife, Pegasus Coffee Shop and on the last Thursday of EVERY month, she tell with her friends at Seattle’s Madison Avenue Starbucks.

Those who like a little music with their stories, or a little story with their music often hear Auntmama every  Sunday morning on KBCS.FM (Bellevue,WA) or catch her emcee storytelling at musical events. “The sound person realized I could cover changes between acts with my stories and I’ve been an emcee storyteller ever since,” Auntmama tells her audiences.

But you won’t stay in the past for very long before the perplexities and complexities of 21st century unfold with a touch of a blues, smoky jazz, zip of country, folk, soul or bluegrass fire.  Radio listeners have come to appreciate strong musical segues that introduce new sounds or use some of the tried and true.

Born Mary Anne Moorman, her musical tastes reflect her parent’s home.  “Growing up was like the Johnny Cash song, Papa played bass mama sang tenor only in our house it was papa played Porter Wagoner, Mama played Cole Porter, or Papa played Methodist, Mama played Episcopalian and somewhere in the middle, “bothers and I joined right in.”

The stories Auntmama tells follow Virginia’s Famous Crooked Road, home of roots music in the Old Dominion. With cousins and aunts and kissing cousin hailing from Roanoke, through Franklin County, up to Floyd and all the way over to where you can see tomorrow and North Carolina from a ridge top, these are mountain born and booming in the 21^st century.

Moorman credits her great niece for storytelling. When the first grader came home needing a family story from an elder, Moorman realized she had advanced to elder and after she supplied the one story there was another and another and five years later, she’s still going strong for her nieces and nephews of birth, of choices and the hundreds of fans who now think of her as their own Auntmama. Moorman’s colorful, cantankerous and creative family arrived in the “new country” as Quakers escaping the terror of Oliver Cromwell. Thus the tales begin.

Moorman, a former machinist, management consultant and journalist, teaches storytelling to a wide range of audiences from businesses working stories into marketing strategies to Washington State’s famous Wintergrass festival, Northwest Folklife Festival, Hugo House’s Write O Rama. She offers workshops throughout the country and is the recipient of grants from Artist Trust, 4Cultural and the City of Seattle.

Auntmama has recorded 3 CDs to date, the latest being “The Last Laugh” now available on line and through iTunes.  And yes, the book is coming.