Ralph Chatham

2631 Kirklyn St. Falls Church, VA 22043
ralph.chatham@verizon.net
703-698-5456

Introduction: 

Ralph Chatham started formal storytelling in 1979 300 feet underwater to a submarine crew who had not seen even arctic sunlight for six weeks. Surfaced now, he has been telling stories ever since to more critical audiences. In 2003 he and his storytelling wife Margaret received a National Storytelling Network Oracle award. Ralph has been chosen to present at the NSN Conference three times including a Sea Story Showcase in 1999, a storytelling survival workshop: OOPS and Other Storytelling Disasters in 2001, and Industrial Strength Storytelling (with a digression about storytelling and the brain) in 2008. He has three cassette tapes and five CDs of newfangled folktales, defrosted for the microwave age, featuring Jack and Clever Jill and a supporting cast of several other strong women (more on the tapes below). Ralph and Margaret, are both past Presidents of  Voices in the Glen. Both were twice featured tellers at the MidAtlantic Storytellers Gathering and were workshop leaders numerous times. Ralph supports his storytelling habit as a Technical Hand-waver and Private Insultant on technology and technology for training, which allows him to tell technical stories, too. He regularly performs at local Celtic and Folk and Story festivals. He tells stories at the drop of a hat from here to Hawaii. He brings his own hat to make sure.

Programs Offered

Ralph presents programs in New England folk stories, sea stories, Celtic folktales, and literary stories ranging from Mark Twain to science fiction. He also tells his own stories for children and long folktales that enchant (how’s that for hyperbolic language) both children and adults. Solo, or tandem-telling with his wife Margaret, he also performs stories by the English writer Saki and a Christmas program including Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

He has told to professional meetings the story of how he came to be on the dedication page of the novel The Hunt for Red October, starting with the MX-Basing-Scheme-of-the-Month-Club and ending with how, based upon a comparison of the money earned subsequent to their first meeting, Ralph must be several thousand times more inspiring than Tom Clancy. This program often includes how Ralph was told by NASA’s 1980 Astronaut selection committee that he was too susceptible to motion sickness and could go back to sea. Ralph usually titles this program “the Wrong Stuff.”

Curmudgeon Story and Whistle Works Presents:

The Chatham Tapes (not to be confused with the Nixon Tapes)

Jack and the Good Old Things

Clever Jill and the Peach Tree of Doom, and

Jack and Bess and Me

$6 each including postage

The Compact Disks

Release the storyteller trapped in a plastic box by buying and listening to:

Celtic Tales I: The Weaver’s Son and the Giant of the White Hill + Goldtree and Silvertree

Celtic Tales II: The Black Thief + Jack and his Comrades

Celtic Tales III: Coldfeet and the Queen of Lonesome Island + Jack and the Grateful Beasts

The Time Jack Herded Cats

The Woman Who Sold Winds and Other Stories on or Near the Sea

$12 each including postage.

This is our bond:
If you are not entertained amused, &/or edified by these tapes, you may return them. Period.

This offer void where prohibited by law. Not available in Canada or after October 15, 1948

Testimonials

Unsolicited praise for Jack and the Good Old Things:

“Absolutely hysterical. I keep the tape in my car for long rides. My son who is four and a half loves it too, even though he doesn’t understand the half of it.”

- Shari Lynn

“My wife asked why I was laughing so hard down in my study.”

- Richard Martin, Germany

“I want my money back!”

- Bill Mayhew (Engrossed in listening to Jack he went 5 miles past his familiar exit and had to pay the Baltimore tunnel toll twice to get back.)

Solicited praise for Clever Jill and the Peach Tree of Doom:

“Ralph’s best tape since Jack and the Good Old Things!”

- R.C.

“A very nice box.”

- John Chatham

AND unsolicited praise, too:

“I liked it a lot. It’s quirky, erudite, full of surprises, and, TA-DAH fun!”

- Michael Parent

“I really like your CD (Coldfeet and the Queen of Lonesome Island). I think it has just the right mix of smart alec tongue in cheek remarks and timeless story. The voices for the characters are really well presented. The stories have a good energy arc–a hard thing to do with a long story that has several episodes in it.  You have done a great job.”

-Elizabeth Ellis

“You do much to further the consideration of women. … It is done in such an entertaining manner and with such wit and humor that the message is easily received.”

- Mary Lambert