Sharon Jordan Holley is a storyteller and retired librarian in Buffalo, New York, who hails from High Springs, FL. She is a founding member of Spin-A-Story Tellers of Western New York and a Co-founder of Tradition Keepers: Black Storytellers of Western New York. She is also a Life Member of the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. where she received the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the Association’s highest award given for excellence in storytelling. She occasionally performs with Karima Amin as “We All Storytellers.”
Her storytelling experience has taken her throughout Western New York and many other areas of the country, where she has performed at libraries, schools, community events, colleges, and other venues. Publications include ”African American History Rap” anthologized in Talk that Talk: An Anthology of African American Storytelling by Linda Goss and Maria-n Barnes (Simon and Schuster, 1989) and in The African American Book of Values edited by Steven Barboza (Doubleday, 1998). Her retelling of ”Stagecoach Mary is included in Many Voices: True Tales from America’s Past by the National Storytelling Association (National Storytelling Press, 1995). Her-chat, ”S-T-O-R-Y’ and-traditional telling of the story ”Why Lizards Don’t Hop” are anthologized in Sayin’ Somethin’: Stories from the National Association of Black Storytellers edited by Linda Goss, Dylan Prichett, and Caroliese Frink Reed (NABS, 2006).