Shelley Ferguson
Shelley first started telling stories at the age of four, when she told a Parks & Rec employee she could sing. In her adult years, she started by writing calendar blurbs and little color pieces for Monthly Detroit magazine. Inexplicably, she left journalism to try out a career in HR, but realized job descriptions and employee communications were limited in creative scope and personal reward. Off to grad school then, to study English lit; then came running away to film school. Here, Shelley started storytelling in earnest, writing both make-believe and factual scripts for narrative films and documentaries. She continued to do so for fun and profit for a few years. Then life took a plot took a twist in the form of children to raise, and she shifted professions to teaching English and Philosophy to younger students; in a sense. introducing students to stories, showing them how they are told, and exploring why they are told. Throughout, Shelley attended poetry slams and oral storytelling performances, but only first tried her hand at spoken storytelling after a recent move to Ann Arbor. She also does things not having to do with storytelling, like gardening, playing music, supporting music organizations and community organizations, and reminding herself not to curse at her daft geriatric cat. It is quite possible she freely curses at other things; she will neither confirm nor deny, dangnabit.