Jo Radner

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Joan Newlon Radner, known as Jo Radner, is an American folklorist, storyteller, and oral historian. She is Professor Emerita at American University in Washington, DC. She earned a BA, MA, and PhD from Harvard University. Her PhD looked at fragments of early Irish records and was completed in 1971. Radner began in Celtic Studies and later wrote about Irish history and literature, folklore, and feminist theory. At American University, she taught literature, American Studies, folklore, and storytelling. She created Burnt into Memory, a performance about the 1947 wildfires in Brownfield, Maine, built from more than 30 hours of interviews with local residents. Her book Feminist Messages: Coding in Women’s Folk Culture won the Elli Kongas-Maranda Prize from the American Folklore Society. She was president of the American Folklore Society from 1999 to 2000, with a Presidential Address urging more diversity in the field. She also led the National Storytelling Network, delivering a Presidential Address about the storytelling movement today. In 2013, her album Yankee Ingenuity: Stories of Headstrong and Resourceful People won a Storytelling World Award, and she received the Brother Blue and Ruth Hill Award from the League for the Advancement of New England Storytelling. In 2017, she became a Fellow of the American Folklore Society.