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Featured Speakers

Saroj Ghoting

Saroj Ghoting is an Early Childhood Literacy Consultant. She is currently a consultant for the Public Library Association and the Association for Library Service to Children of the American Library Association on the Every Child Ready to Read @ your library® early literacy initiative. She presents early literacy training and information sessions at national, regional, and state conferences, and training for library staff and their partners.

She is a co-author of Early Literacy Storytimes @ your library: Partnering with Caregivers for Success published by ALA Editions. This book applies the information from the Every Child Ready to Read @ your library workshops to the storytime setting.

In over 25 years as a children's librarian in several Maryland library systems, her broad experience ranges from doing storytimes for children ages newborn through six-years-old to training library staff in programming. She has presented workshops for parents and child care providers on ways to share books and language with young children, and has trained library staff to present similar workshops. 

As the Early Childhood Services Coordinator for Montgomery County (MD) Public Libraries, Saroj developed partnerships with government agencies, businesses, early childhood organizations, and the faith communities. She also managed the Every Child Ready to Read Project @ your library® for Montgomery County, one of 14 national demonstration sites.

J'miah Nabawi

J'miah Nabawi is a multifaceted storyteller whoseprofessional career as a performance artist storyteller began after having met Linda Goss, a best-selling author and the Official Storyteller of Philadelphia (PA), in 1986. It was through Linda's early influences and guidance that led J'miah to the oral traditions of West Africa that would later shape his style of presentations. Brought up on Bruh Rabbit tales and the likes of Dolamite and the Signifyin' Monkey rhyming genres, his storytelling today is reflective of the "story-dance-musical drama" found throughout Africa and its Diaspora. 

J'miah engages his audience with rhythm, found-sounds, silence and song accompanied by a  variety of hand-held instruments; recreational games and folktale-songs (mmoguo); colorful textiles; movement and the many languages found in distant lands.

As his stories are spun, sung, danced to and drummed, J'miah spontaneously creates impromptu “storytelling ensembles” as volunteers from the audience eagerly join his band of bards, singers and rhythm makers on stage or around the theater, room, or park. His ANANSESEM Improvisational Theatre, a collection of folktale dramas, has been showcased as childrens theater across the U.S. during artist-in-residencies and in Guadalajara, Mexico as English language teaching tools. 

As a storyteller, he has frequently served as cultural ambassador and program host for international performing arts events and children’s causes. J'miah's historical narratives, storytelling and voice talents have been accompanied by concert pianists, European classical chamber music players and professional improvisational music (jazz) ensembles. He has appeared on National Public Radio (NPR) and have written and sung jingles to promote family literacy via radio and television commercials. 

J'miah's childhood storytelling and oral literature impressions and influences come from his maternal aunts and uncles and from the repetitive listening to Bill Cosby's recordings during elementary school. These home-grown storytelling nuances along with his family's musical heritage and dance traditions have been embellished with improvisational (jazz) music studies at the Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA) and through associations and friendships with world-renown Ghanahian ethnomusicologist, Dr. Kwasi Aduonum, award-winning Afro-Cuban dance/dance choreography sensation, Neri Torres, and internationally acclaimed improvisational singer/songwriter, poet and play-write, Oscar Brown, Jr. 

J'miah's 20 plus years of experience as a teaching artist and arts-in-education consultant include professional development seminars and workshops supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Schools Transformation and Character Through The Arts (ST:CTTA)education intiatives that have been provided by the Leonard Bernstein Center for Learning and Pioneer RESA leadership training. J'miah has also attended The Kennedy Center's "Artists As Teachers" training seminar.

Bi-lingual in Spanish, J'miah also enjoys the telling of folktales and stories from around the world. Whenever he sings or chants useful story-related phrases in Yoruba, Twi, Ki-Swahili, Hindi, Japanese, Igbo, French, Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese as story starters and recreational folktale-song interludes, he is saying to his audience, young and old, who may still be getting accustomed to American culture and life and/or the English language: "I see you. Thank you for joining me. I appreciate you. Your languages, heritage, traditions and culture are as equally important and valid as the English we all live in. We all have our stories to tell. . . ."
--The Elijah Agency