About Patti

About Patti Christensen

I am a professional storyteller with a rich, diverse background. I work in many different venues, including libraries, bookstores, museums, religious groups, festivals, scouting groups, senior centers, as well as other school and social service settings. I believe in the power of storytelling for all ages - preschoolers through Seniors - both in listening and telling stories. I have been involved with a pilot project using storytelling to teach children about the healthy expression of anger. I am a teaching artist and drama specialist for the Literacy Services at the Escondido Public Library. I have also worked as an artist in residence with the SUAVE Program, a cultural and professional development program using the arts to work with classroom teachers and students, through the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. I have also taught in the All the Arts for All the Kids Program in Fullerton, CA.

I developed my storytelling and dramatic art skills beginning as a drama student in high school and have been involved in many theatre productions throughout the years. My BA in History taught me the magic of making history come alive which I continue in my storytelling, including my living history characterization of Louisa May Alcott, as well as my True Tales of California program. My drama work continues in my performances with The Patchwork Players.

My Masters of Theology and Masters of Social Work degrees make me uniquely qualified for work in different settings using story to speak to important spiritual and value issues.

My work in social service agencies has given me opportunity to use theatre arts as a powerful modality for teaching, healing and self-expression. I worked in a school violence prevention project which used drama, storytelling and video making in a school setting. I was a counselor in a domestic violence program. I have also worked in child abuse prevention, AIDS, family counseling, mentoring and sexual assault. I am a storyteller who is also a social worker.

I am an active teacher and workshop leader, including teaching storytelling and drama skills for teachers, students, parents and grandparents, as well as to other storytellers.

I live in Oceanside, California (in North San Diego County), a very happy transplant from Minnesota. My storytelling takes me throughout the Southern California Region, and beyond...wherever the muse leads me.

Learn more about Patti

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
- Maya Angelou

I am a storyteller. The type that went from place to place, gathered people in the square and transported them, inspired them, woke them up, shook their insides around so that they could resettle in a new pattern, a new way of being. It is a tradition that believes that the story speaks to the soul, not the ego . . . to the heart, not the head. In today's world, we yearn so to "understand," to conquer with our mind, but it is not in the mind that a mythic story dwells.
- Donna Jacobs Sife

Contact Patti at
patti@pattistory.com
(760) 732-0117