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Liz Weir is a professional storyteller and writer from Northern Ireland. Formerly children’s librarian for the city of Belfast, she now travels the world telling stories to adults and children. She organizes workshops, appears at major international festivals (including the National Storytelling Festival in Tennessee and the Australian National Storytelling Festival) and has performed in Israel, Germany, Australia. Other festivals in the United States include Timpanogos, the Hoosier, and the Bay Area. Weir was the first winner of the International Storybridge Award from the National Storytelling Network which cited her “exemplary work promoting the art of storytelling within Ireland and between other countries.” and in 2006 was nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Award.Weir is the author of two collections of stories for children, Boom Chicka Boom and Here There and Everywhere and having worked extensively in prisons has just completed When Dad Went Away, a picture book about a child whose father is in jail. She has presented The Gift of the Gab, a storytelling series for BBC Radio Ulster, and has recently written scripts for four television animations aimed at young children in Northern Ireland. The latter project was created by the Media Initiative for Children, a joint effort by the Early Years Organisation in Northern Ireland, and the Peace Initiatives Institute in Colorado. These adverts use mass media and classroom experience to teach young children the value of respecting - and including - others who are different. Weir firmly believes in the power of storytelling to promote understanding and aid conflict resolution.Highlights of 2006 include being a featured teller at the first Winnipeg Storytelling Festival in Canada, and performances at the San Juan Capistrano Festival and the Forest Festival in Port Angeles. In 2007 she will once again be a participant at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado and in July will present a workshop at the National Storytelling Conference in St Louis.