Bio

Arthi Anand Navaneeth is a marketing professional who on weekends becomes the voice of Art’s Tales. It is here she brings together her love for stories, song, dance and of course, children. Have You Seen This? and Ranganna are her picture books from Tulika Publishers.

Bio

Brenton McKenna is a young indigenous writer/Illustrator from Broome, in the far North West of Australia. Ever since he can remember, Brenton has been passionate about art and telling stories. He first developed his love of comic books and this style of drawing when he was very young. Since then, Brenton has been immersed in the world of comic art, cartooning and graphic novels. He is inspired by the multicultural history of his hometown and draws on Aboriginal and foreign mythologies in his stories. Brenton studied visual arts for two years at Goldburn TAFE and in 2009 was one of twenty successful applicants to be awarded a highly sought after mentorship with the Australian Society of Authors. Brenton was a Deadly Award nominee in 2011, guest panelist at Dromkeen Literary Lunch for Graphic Novelists and winner of Kullarri NAIDOC award for Literature. UBBY’S UNDERDOGS is his first graphic novel.

Bio

Leila Seth retired as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh in 1992, was appointed in 1995 as the one-member commission to examine the death in custody of Rajan Pillai, and from 1997 to 2000 was a member of the 15th Law Commission of India. She does arbitration work and is involved in human rights activities. She lives in Noida with her husband Premo, son Shantum, daughter-in-law Gitanjali and granddaughter Nandini.

Bio

Priya Muthukumar is a learner, an educator and a passionate storyteller who delights in the simple pleasures of life. She is the founder of the ten plus-yr-old storytelling company, Storipur® in Bengaluru. She tells stories of all kinds from different places, across age-groups from toddlers to grown-ups. She’s been telling stories in parks, literature festivals, corporate offices, schools, colleges etc. She makes sure to include nuggets of environmental wisdom in her storytelling, for her love for Nature. She has written ‘sustainability stories’ for magazines. She is a translator working in the children’s literature space with around a dozen books in print to her credit. She works closely as a Story-Coach with teachers, facilitators and educators in using storytelling in their teaching & learning. She performed & highlighted the significance of Storytelling in Teaching in Maitri-2023 attended by educators & Montessorians from all over the country. Currently, she works with the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bengaluru as their Expert-Faculty handling storytelling as a General Elective subject. Also, she is a Resource Faculty with SL Bhatia History of Medicine Museum (at St.John’s Medical Coll., Blr) exploring Medical Storytelling, Narrative Medicine, stories from medical history etc.
She strongly believes that sharing relevant stories are important, as stories can mould & reshape mindsets

Bio

Storywallahs is a Bangalore based organisation which believes that stories are the best way to inspire, motivate, and teach. Driven by this belief, they not only work with schools and help them leverage the power of stories in teaching, but also work with organisations and help them discover and use the power of stories in their personal and professional lives. You can also catch them entertaining children and adults alike with their stories at various cultural spaces and literature festivals across the country.

Bio

Venita Coelho worked in the TV industry as a writer and director. She is also a painter. She has written three books so far, Soap! Writing and Surviving Television in India (non-fiction), Dungeon Tales (fiction) and The Washer of the Dead: A Collection of Ghost Stories (fiction).

Venita had begun her career with UTV on DD. She had written the award-winning soap Trikaal and written the script for Dharma Productions’ We are Family.

Along with this she has also written children’s plays, documentaries, ad films and multimedia stage shows.

Bio

Vikram Sridhar is a performance storyteller and theatre practitioner based in Bangalore. He has been working with a number of theatre groups across India for about a decade now is the co-founder Tahatto , a Bangalore-based theatre group. Tahatto performs regularly in Banagalore and in festivals across India. He has volunteered and worked with different organisations in the conservation space and also consults and works with organisations in the social sector. He combines the three in his storytelling to make a difference. Around the Story Tree is his initiative to reach out to children and adults from different backgrounds through storytelling, using stories and folk tales in a contemporary form as a strong medium for conservation to connect listeners to their environment. To know more about his work, see facebook.com/AroundTheStoryTree