"WOMEN: FINDING YOUR VOICE" - Fall Series begins Tues., Sept. 25

Award-winning storyteller and actress Judith Black will lead off this season’s sessions of WOMEN: FINDING YOUR VOICE on Tuesday, September 25, at 7 p.m. in the meeting room at Abbot Library, 235 Pleasant Street in Marblehead.

In this entertaining and interactive session, Black will introduce the audience to Lucy Stone, a Massachusetts peer of Elizabeth Cadey Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who used her voice to change the world she was born into. Stone was an outspoken abolitionist and warrior in the struggle for women’s rights. She was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree, keep her name in marriage, refuse to pay property taxes, and be publicly hailed as the ‘shining star’ of the Woman’s Rights Movement.

Using Stone as a base line, Black invites audience members to think about what prevents and what motivates us to speak out on issues we feel passionately about. She will explore situations in which we feel ourselves unwelcome or unable to speak our truth among others. Each participant will have the opportunity to create a new version in which they discover how to access their true thoughts and feelings in similar scenarios.

Retellings of history from new perspectives, tickling familial dysfunction, explorations of aging, and stories that address our quickly warming world, are all fodder for Judith Black’s tales. Featured on stages from the Montreal Comedy Festival to The Smithsonian Institution to the Art Museum of Cape Town, Black has appeared 12 times at the National Storytelling Festival, and is the winner of the Oracle Award, storytelling’s most coveted laurel. She is on the faculty of the JSE Institute. Locally she is a Rotarian, sings with Calla Lilly, is a founding member of Sustainable Marblehead, works with 350.org, gardens fanatically and teaches the art of storytelling.

Following the formal program, there will be light refreshments and an opportunity for conversation.

This session is the first event in the fall series. Two more are scheduled for Tuesday, October 16, focusing on women’s legal issues with Ellen Winkler and Trista Christensen, and Tuesday, November 13, focusing on making sound financial decisions with Becky Linhart. These programs are co-sponsored by Abbot Library, The League of Women Voters and MHTV.

For more information about Black, visit her websites at www.storiesalive.com,www.tellingstoriestochildren.comand http://www.storiesalive.com/making-stories-from-your-life/.

For more information about 3 Voices, contact 3voicesmhd@gmail.com or visit 3voices.org.