National Storytelling Laureate was 'selective mute' as a child

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A Birmingham woman who had "issues with language" as child has been appointed the National Storytelling Laureate.

Katrice Horsley said: "I would have been classed as a selective mute by today's standards I suppose."

She said that telling stories became "her salvation" and she planned to make people aware of the importance of storytelling and language in child development.

She will begin work after a ceremony at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Her appointment comes at the start of national storytelling week, which runs until 4 February.

She said: "I want to raise the status of storytelling as a performance art, equal to dance and theatre and I want to push its uses in developing communities."

She is the second person to take up the honorary post, which she will hold for two years.

The first Storytelling Laureate was the Cumbria-based storyteller Taffy Thomas.