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occupation - author, storyteller/dancer*, illustrator, librarian *description: I used to talk in my dances, now I dance in my stories born & raised - in Arlington Heights, Illinois...so long ago that we played in barns and the construction sites of hundreds of new neighborhood houses. They piled up dirt from the new foundations and they waited so long that for years we had prairie-covered hills and tadpole-filled creeks and a bicycle route to the park over those hills. I write about that in my first novel, Maddy, which still isn't published, but I'm still trying. I've had several publishers tell me that they're certain I will "place" it (which means they're certain some publisher will eventually publish it.) I hope so. current home - We recently moved from the countryside in central Illinois, away from prairie, creek, pond and woods, into town. Into Champaign-Urbana. family - husband, Morgan Powell (he's a composer and jazz trombonist); one yellow lab, Jazzabelle, and one fat cat who looks like a raccoon, Billie (named after Billie Holiday). |
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family living elsewhere
two wonderful parents (two of them, thank heavens)
one big brother, and his daughter (who does this website)
one big sister, her son (snow board champ), and her daughter (soccer champ)
6 cousins who live all over the world
2 step-daughters and their families
places I’ve lived
Paros, Greece - I traveled to this this Greek island to dance, the summer I turned 20 and lived there for the summer.
London, England -
I lived in London for 2 and a half years to study at the London School of Contemporary Dance and started my professional dance career there.
New York City -
I moved to New York and lived there for a year, but it seemed like seven. Alvin Ailey had given me a scholarship to the American Dance Center where I studied while producing my own concerts and dancing with the Rudy Perez Dance Theatre.
Winnipeg -
I apprenticed with the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers for a long hard winter of 20 below zero weather.
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois -
I’ve lived in Urbana-Champaign, since 1975,
except for two years in Philadelphia when I was getting my masters degree
in dance at Temple University; and for fourteen years out in the country
of east central Illinois. That’s a lot, isn’t it.
education
diploma from London School of Contemporary Dance
BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign
MFA in Dance from Temple University in Philadelphia
MS in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois
other careers
dancer/choreographer in London, Winnipeg, and New York City, and with my own dance company ONE PLUS ONE which traveled all over the Americas (North, Central, and South America), Europe, the Caribbean, and allowed me many adventures...some of which I can write about.
lithographer
(printing from large stone slabs)
trapeze artist
ballet teacher,
modern dance teacher,
composition teacher,
mime
dancer; I still dance in my stories, some of them. I also play percussion instruments. And many of my stories are about dancing.
storyteller
- click here to go to my storytelling pages
illustrator. I llustrated the first picture book manuscripts I submitted:
Frog Plus Frog
and
Gramma Lilac. Walter Lorraine at Houghton Mifflin said, "your frogs are terrific" as have many other people, but they remain unpublished.
awards and fellowships - from the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, Ragdale Foundation, Illinois State Library, Temple University, Creative Arts Institute.
days I don't tell stories - I walk to the park or around our in-town lake with Jazzabelle and tell her my new stories (she's not critical at all, so I don't feel intimidated by her hearing the stories that I'm just learning). I do Yoga and T'ai Chi. Some days I skate (in-line) at Meadowbrook, which is prairie with paved paths. Or better yet are the days I get to think. Usually I think about what I'm going to write that day. Then I write. I also do administration for storytelling. And I work on many various projects, like designing this website.
current project - I'm working on a "young adult" (YA) novel about a fourteen- year-old boy who finds the entryway to the Amazonian rainforest in his attic. It started as a dream, as many of my projects do. I visited the rainforest while in South America with my dance company. And I did loads of research on a collection of folklore and mythology from Amazonian Peoples (which isn't published) plus loads of research about the rainforest. The novel is set in New Bedford, Massachusetts, so I visited there to do research. New Bedford has a shipping and whaling history that is perfect for the plot of my novel. The title will be Waiting for Rain.
Write me at
phpowell@talesforallages.com
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