This is New York - Laura Simms: Storyteller and Author

STORYTELLER: Laura Simms in one of her many performances. When listening to a story, the mind is clarified, she says. (Courtesy of Kent Miles )

NEW YORK—Laura Simms is a storyteller. More than just her profession, storytelling is woven into the fabric of her personality. Even when answering simple questions she draws the listener into her world, usually annotating her point with a story.

“What I do as a story teller is probably only possible in a city like New York,” she said, quoting a Maori chief that once told her, “I love New York. In New York you have excellence.”

Her storytelling takes her to places like Haiti, Poland, and Nepal. Simms is also involved in educational projects. She is a published author, with a second book soon to be in print.

Her interest in storytelling started after “accidentally” telling a story on a spring day about 40 years ago. It was a life-changing event for her. Through that structured situation, she felt that all the barriers between her and the audience had been broken.

The Epoch Times: What do people gain from listening to stories?

Ms. Laura Simms: When you listen to a story your mind is settled, almost like meditation practice. You, naturally, are listening to what is happening in the time and content of the story at the same time you imagine the story. Every part of you is awake. There is a holistic internal activity of imagining, feeling, being intellectually involved. The mind is somewhat clarified.

Epoch Times: How was your interaction with the audience in Haiti?

Laura Simms: The first time I went to the Petionville Camp [in Haiti] it was shocking. It was like ocean waves of blue tarp. The International Medical Corp had a tent. Women came to that tent; they were trained to work with their children. The women fell against the tarp, exhausted, looking almost lifeless. I told a story.

The first story I told was a very little story. Suddenly I could see them really looking at me. ... At some point I could see them getting caught in the images. One after another they started singing the actual song that went with the story. Little by little they started giving me pieces of the story so I started putting it together. By the end they had gone from leaning, almost as if they were dust or vapor, to sitting up straight and participating, and then to talking to me and telling me their stories. There was a brilliant physical relief from preoccupation and a sense of remembering something before the earthquake that is not associated with loss and devastation.

Epoch Times: How do you collect stories?

Laura Simms: Sometimes I just see things I see on the street. If you pay attention, the whole world is filled with unusual things. Manhattan is a land of fairy tales. Sometimes I read a story and I begin working on it. It could take me a between a month and 15 years before I tell it. I have to do enough research that I am not manipulating the story based on my own assumptions.