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Throughout history, story telling was at the very beginning of life.

Our country has the oldest tradition of storytelling, and this was much before writing stories even became a norm.

I grew up in a society with a very ancient and strong oral storytelling tradition. I was told stories, as a child, by my grandmother, and my father as well.

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process.

Oral storytelling goes back so long ago, and those stories that were told orally were always layered and changed with time.

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don't go there to swim, then those young people don't have to find out by trial and error.

I think storytelling is all about children. We human beings love to hear stories being told - and it first happens when you're a kid.

I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from.

I remember, when I was at school, we would have a 10-minute storytelling session where we'd all sit on the floor cross-legged, and the teacher would read. It became something we all really looked forward to. That was part of the reason I grew to love stories.

Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls.