MY WNY STORY
A Passion for Storytelling BY CHRISTINE A. SMYCZYNSKI
L
orna MacDonald Czarnota is a very creative woman who wears many hats: writer, singer, musician, historian, interior designer, and advocate for at-risk youth, just to name a few. However, she can best be described as a storyteller, which she has been doing professionally since 1985.
Storyteller Lorna MacDonald Czarnota Photo courtesy of the subject
Health & Wellness | Living Options | Legal & Financial | Leisure Activities
An Educational Radio Show Devoted to our Senior Community
LISTEN TO
JOE CHILLE
EVERY SATURDAY AT 11AM ON...
www.seniorradiobuffalo.com 28
www.foreveryoungwny.com | August 2017
“I guess I am a real Renaissance woman,” says MacDonald Czarnota with a laugh. “I’ve also been doing some acting, including some monologues, and I’m working on a jazz program. I’ve always been an artist, visual and performing. But, I’d call myself a storyteller first and foremost. The writing and music are just other ways for me to tell stories.” MacDonald Czarnota grew up near Corning, New York, and moved to Buffalo in 1970. She earned an associate’s degree in interior design from Bryant & Stratton and worked in the interior design field for fifteen years; ten of those years running her own business, Creative Interiors, as well as teaching interior design at Bryant & Stratton. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in creative studies for young children at Empire State College and a master’s degree in education and special education at D’Youville College. “Storytelling came to me via my interest in the Middle Ages,” says MacDonald Czarnota. “I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in 1985 and that’s when I learned about the important role storytellers played in the Middle Ages and about a local storytelling guild, Spin-a-Storytellers, which I also joined that year.” SCA is an international living history group that studies and recreates medieval European culture. This group hosts an annual medieval camping event in Pennsylvania each
summer, which attracts over 10,000 people. This event, called Pennsic War, focuses on pre-seventeenth century history, with participants dressing in medieval clothing and participating in a “war” between two large SCA groups. MacDonald Czarnota adds, “Pennsic is much like a rendezvous or powwow, in that people interested in the Middle Ages come from all around the world to learn, refresh friendships, shop, and experience the era with some modern conveniences. In the many years I’ve been attending, they have added more flush toilets, showers, RV parking, scooters for the disabled, and a medical station. Battles, archery, classes on anything and everything medieval, shops, and lots of parties abound.” She worked as a teacher in a number of positions, including being a substitute teacher, special education teacher, after school teacher at Huntington Learning Center, and a teacher at Erie 1 BOCES. “All of those experiences, especially BOCES and Huntington, put me in touch with my love for children with difficult problems,” says MacDonald Czarnota. “But the pull of story and live performance was so strong I couldn’t deny it. Instead of taking a full-time position as a classroom teacher, I decided to be a full-time storyteller, which also helped me when I did take subbing and after-school assignments. I began storytelling to entertain and share