Pleasant DeSpain

DeSpain was born in Denver, Colorado, the second son of Robert Alan and Eleanor Jane DeSpain. Early in his childhood, he learned to read and fell in love with books. "I wrote my first story in third grade. It was called 'The Mystery Artist.' I got in trouble because it was getting passed around the classroom... The teacher said, 'The story is good, but your spelling is terrible.'".[7] Forty-five years later it was published in 1996 and sold more than 200,000 copies.[11]

In 1961–1963 DeSpain attended Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado. In 1965 he graduated from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Public Speaking, continued his studies there, and earned a master's degree in Rhetoric and Public Address and the Oral Interpretation of Literature in 1966.[9]

In 1966 DeSpain started his educational career as a Speech Communication and Oral Literature instructor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In 1968 he was granted a fellowship to study for a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, Boulder. After two years of studying and teaching in Colorado, he left the doctorate program to begin his world travels. Nine months later, the University of Washington in Seattle invited DeSpain to become one of their faculty members.[1]

While sitting on a beach in Mexico at age 25, DeSpain decided that storytelling would be his life's work.[9] "I came within six months of getting my Ph.D.," he says. "Thank God I didn't. I had a dark night of the soul."[7] The road to success was not easy or quick. Pleasant worked as a house painter, short-order cook and dishwasher during the first five years as he followed his muse, but his trials were rewarded. "Storytelling, an art form as old as the human race, was being revived elsewhere around the country too. 'Twelve others were coming up with the same idea,' he remembers. 'We started hearing about each other and began to meet.'"[7]

In addition to oral storytelling at local venues, he wrote a weekly column featuring a wide range of stories for The Seattle Times. In 1975 he created Pleasant Journeys, a weekly storytelling television show for children, which aired on the NBC Seattle affiliate (KING TV), and was named “Seattle’s Resident Storyteller” by the city's mayor.[9] DeSpain wrote, produced, and hosted the show for five years until 1980.

During his storytelling career, DeSpain has traveled the world gathering traditional and true stories, and performed them along the way for audiences of all ages. “He was wonderful,” says Kim McMann, head of children's services for the Troy Public Library. “He told stories and wrapped everyone around his finger. We were on the edge of our seats."

Audiences are an essential component in his art, and DeSpain says, “Three elements – story, listener, teller – must come together as one during the experience.”[9] In all of his stories, DeSpain delivers one central message: “My main force in the telling and the writing is to point out in an entertaining way that we human beings are far more alike than we are different, no matter the culture, the time, the language, or the religion.”[9] DeSpain is also enthusiastic about sharing the art of storytelling, and often follows up his school performances by teaching children how to tell their own stories. “What I love about storytelling as a career is that every one of us is a natural-born teller of tales. Our lives are our stories and when we share our stories, we share our lives."[12]

The Dancing Turtle

• Bank Street College: Best Children's Books of the Year, 2005.
• Selected Outstanding by the Parent Council, 2005.
• Selected for the Elementary School Library Collection, 2005.

Eleven Nature Tales

• PLA/ALLS Best New Books for New Adult Readers, 1996.
• Selected for the Elementary School Library Collection, 1996.

Eleven Turtle Tales

• Selected as Outstanding by the Parent Council, 1995.

The Emerald Lizard

• NCSS/CBC: Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, 1999.
• Bank Street College: Best Children's Book of the Year, 1999.
• Selected for the Elementary School Library Collection, 1999.
• Parent’s Guide to Children’s Media: Young Adult's Choice Award, 1999.

Strongheart Jack and the Beanstalk

• Selected for The Elementary School Library Collection, 1997.

Sweet Land of Story

• NCSS/CBC: Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, 1998.

• “Grabbing Life by the Tale: Troy’s Pleasant DeSpain has made a career telling stories”
  • Published in the Times Union newspaper, Sunday, August 31, 2003.
  • Included in Artists & Activists, Making Culture in New York’s Capital Region, by Joseph Dalton, TBM Books, Troy, NY, 2008.
• The Storyteller’s Journey: An American Revival, by Joseph Daniel Sobol. University of Illinois Press, 1999. (Acknowledgements).
• "Godfather Death, A Russian Tale," The Seattle Times, December 8, 1979.
• "Old One-eye, a folktale," The Seattle Times, May 31, 1980.

• Storytelling Festival

• Pleasant DeSpain, Storyteller: Official Website
• Video Interview: "Single with a Purpose, 74-year-old Solo Traveler and Storyteller, Pleasant DeSpain," YouTube.com, May 3, 2018
• Book Review: Thirty-Three Multicultural Tales to Tell in Rambles, a cultural arts magazine
• "Pleasant DeSpain's Gentle Journey," interview with Joseph Dalton, originally appeared in the Times Union newspaper, August 31, 2003
• "Once Upon A Time," interview with Margaret Regan, September 28 – October 4, 1995, www.tucsonweekly.com.
• "Five Questions: Pleasant DeSpain," interview with Dave Canfield, August 5, 2009, www.troyrecord.com.
• "Up Close and Personal: an interview with Pleasant DeSpain," Kevin Cordi, December 6, 2019, www.kevincordi.com.
• Animated story: The Magic Pot, a Tale from China on YouTube.com