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Joe Hayes
Author of The Day It Snowed Tortillas
Joe Hayes is one of America's premier storytellers, a nationally recognized teller of tales from the Hispanic, Native American and Anglo cultures. His bilingual Spanish-English tellings have earned him a distinctive place among America's storytellers.
Joe grew up in a small town in southern Arizona. His schoolmates and friends, many of whom were Mexican-American, taught him how to speak Spanish. As Joe got older, he began reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists and gathering the old stories from the region that he calls home, the Southwestern United States. When his own children were young, Joe enjoyed telling them stories. He decided that this would be the way he would earn a living. He also decided to use both Spanish and English when telling his stories to children so that they could learn and love both languages, just like he did when he was a child.
Joe's tales are a combination of the traditional lore of the American Southwest and his own imagination. The traditional part is based on things people have told him and on what he has learned from reading the work of folklorists and anthropologists. Joe's own contribution is based on his instincts as a storyteller and what his experience tells him listeners need in order to feel satisfied with a story.
Joe Hayes is the resident storyteller at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. He has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
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