Judith Black brings to her storytelling a varied background in education, theater, and creative writing. Having studied early childhood education at Wheelock College, Ms Black taught for three years before moving to London, where she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Later she toured as an actress for two years with Little Flags Theater Company.

Judith was a founder and ten year board member of The Three Apples Storytelling Festival. She helped to initiate and produce “Storytellers in Concert,” the first, longest running storytelling series for adults in the nation. Her award winning original stories have been commissioned by the U.S. Department of the Interior, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Old South Church, The Artist’s Foundation, The U.S.S. Constitution Museum, the North Shore Symphony and others. She has created three television series for Massachusetts Cable Educational Television, worked with organizations dedicated to preventing domestic violence, and is presently working on a new piece about that path we will all tread; “Making Peace With The Pit Bull: Discovering New Possibilities Within Life’s Last Journey.”

Judith’s stories include explorations into the mythic and dissections of the minuscule, with traditional and original material available for all age groups. Well known for stories sculpted from her own observed life, subjects such as patient (or the attempt at it) parenting, disasters in dating land, and even helping elders through their last journey, are no strangers to her repertoire. She speaks about relationships and religion, life and death, hope and fear. She recounts people’s shared cultural heritages by relating traditional stories, trickster and fairy tales, and a wide array of redeeming personal stories from her life as well as others.

As many of you know, Judith’s son, Solomon, recently returned from an eight-month tour of duty in Iraq. But even before his time in combat, Solomon gave his mother a lot to think about. To a post-feminist vegetarian pacifist, Solomon’s path through the ranks of football playing into the U.S. Marines was the source of much comedy and a template for human growth and development. (One of the Solomon tales appears in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and many of them are on her recordings.) As it happens, there’s a biblical story that sheds light on this relationship, and it’s made its way into a new piece called “Esau My Son.” Judith explains:

“Esau” is about learning how to support and nurture the child you were not expecting. The core myth, from the Torah, is about the brothers Esau and Jacob. Though Esau, a hard-working, earthy, hairy fellow, is beloved of his father, it is Becky’s boy, Jacob, a man of intellect, who will inherit it all. In my tribe, every mother and father assume they will have a little Jacob. In honor of that future I purchased my newborn a tiny Harvard sweatshirt that was supposed to inform his entire future. What happens when your Jacob turns out to be an Esau?

“Esau” is a profound journey of appreciation where one parent learns that not everything of value in this life can be measured on a cognitive learning profile.

Judith will also be sharing a brand-new tale called “Ode to Marblehead,” which features many familiar scenes from this storied old town.

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