Sheila Wee

Professional Storyteller | Storytelling Educator | Community Builder

Professional Profile

Sheila Wee is a Singapore-based professional storyteller and storytelling educator with over 27 years of experience. Together with Kiran Shah, she launched and nurtured the modern revival of oral storytelling in Singapore, helping establish storytelling as a professional practice and build a community in which storytellers could meet, learn, exchange knowledge and support one another.

Her core practice is oral storytelling, with a repertoire rooted largely in oral traditions and folktales that she researches and adapts for performance. Her work spans education from preschool through primary and secondary schools to tertiary institutions, museums and heritage, and organisational storytelling for influence, connection and leadership. She has trained thousands of educators, mentored storytellers and helped create learning opportunities across Asia through FEAST. Early childhood education is a particular focus, alongside a long record of work with educators and learners across the education spectrum.

Areas of Practice

• Oral storytelling

• Researching and adapting Asian and world folktales from oral traditions

• Storytelling across the education spectrum, from preschool to tertiary education

• Professional development for educators, with a particular focus on preschool

• Reading aloud workshops for preschool teachers

• Story-led literacy, retelling and children’s writing

• Organisational storytelling for influence, connection and leadership

• Storytelling for museums, galleries and heritage

• Mentoring storytellers and building storytelling communities

Career, Leadership and Community Building

Modern Storytelling Revival in Singapore

From 1998, Sheila and Kiran Shah played a leading role in launching and nurturing Singapore’s modern oral storytelling revival. Through performances, training and opportunities for storytellers to meet, practise and exchange knowledge, they helped establish oral storytelling as a professional practice and nurtured a community that continues today.

1999 | Storytellers’ Circle

Co-founded Singapore’s first storytelling circle with Kiran Shah, giving storytellers a place to practise, exchange knowledge and learn from one another.

2000 | Singapore’s First Professional Storytelling Company

Co-founded the company with Kiran Shah, creating opportunities for performances, education programmes and professional development.

2000 – 2006 | Asian Congress of Storytellers

Played a leading role in organising the Congress and its accompanying showcases, helping shape programmes and coordinate with storytellers and workshop leaders from around the world. Named Co-Congress Director in 2006.

2006 – present | Storytelling Association (Singapore)

Founding member. Served three terms as President, three terms as Vice-President and two terms as Workshop Chair; continues to serve on the Executive Committee.

2009 – present | Storywise

Founded Storywise to deliver storytelling performances, workshops and professional development for educators, organisations, community groups, museums and heritage institutions.

March 2017 – July 2022 | Story Connection

Co-founded Story Connection with Roger Jenkins to develop community storytelling initiatives, including the 398.2 Storytelling Festival and the Story Carnival at Enabling Village. The Carnival celebrated diversity and inclusion through storytelling performances, workshops and personal-story sharing, featuring performers with visual and hearing impairments alongside other storytellers. It also involved secondary school students trained to lead tours of Enabling Village.

Federation of Asian Storytellers (FEAST)

Sheila co-founded FEAST, a volunteer-run non-profit company that brings together an international community of storytellers for learning, mentorship, cultural exchange and collaboration. As a founding director, she contributes to organisational development, professional learning, international collaboration and community initiatives.

International Conferences

FEAST has organised five international storytelling conferences in Singapore (2018), Bangalore (2019), Jakarta (2023), Suwon, South Korea (2024), and Chennai (2026). As a core organiser of all five, Sheila has contributed to programme planning, liaison with workshop leaders, coordination of information required for international participants’ conference approvals and visa arrangements, and the design of conference materials.

Professional Development and Learning Communities

Sheila has a leading role in FEAST’s ten-week Fundamentals of Oral Storytelling (FOOS) course, teaching three of the ten modules in its third run in 2026. She conceived and drove the Learning Communities initiative and planned and co-facilitated the inaugural community on Teaching Storytelling in 2026. Through monthly group sessions, storytellers learn from one another and explore the entire workshop process, from understanding potential clients’ needs and managing client relationships to preparing proposals, designing workshops and facilitating them effectively.

She also contributes to FEAST’s wider work in learning, mentorship, exchange and collaboration alongside other volunteers who lead individual initiatives.

Oral Traditions, Heritage, Museums and Galleries

Researching and Adapting Folktales from Oral Traditions

Most of Sheila’s repertoire draws on oral traditions. Her practice includes researching source material and adapting Asian and world folktales for oral performance, while respecting their cultural contexts and making the stories accessible to contemporary audiences.

Words of My Youth: Passing on Our Oral Heritage, an NAC Silver Arts Project, encouraged seniors to collect, perform and share Chinese dialect nursery rhymes and the memories, games and childhood experiences associated with them. The project supported participants in becoming active custodians of their own oral traditions.

Storytelling in Museums, Galleries and Heritage

Sheila has trained docents across multiple museums and heritage institutions in using storytelling to interpret artworks, artefacts and exhibitions and engage visitors. She was the introductory trainer for National Gallery Singapore’s inaugural docent training programme and has delivered storytelling training for docents across various museums. Her wider work includes developing exhibition-specific performances and storytelling programmes for National Heritage Board museums, as well as creating the original story “Mei Ling’s War” from eyewitness accounts held by the National Archives of Singapore.

Education and Educator Development

Sheila has trained thousands of educators across the education spectrum, from preschool teachers and primary and secondary school teachers to tertiary lecturers. Early childhood education is a particular focus: she trains preschool educators to tell stories to young children. She uses oral storytelling and reading aloud to develop language and the foundations of literacy, while nurturing imagination, thinking, confidence and social-emotional development.

Her storytelling programmes have been endorsed in every cycle of the National Arts Council Arts Education
Programme (NAC AEP) since 2003, spanning more than two decades of work through her storytelling practice
and Storywise. She and Kiran Shah were the first storytelling practitioners invited by NAC to apply, following the
Council’s observation of their work.

ECDA Professional Development and Projects

Sheila delivered professional development courses for the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) over a period of approximately ten years. Her work also included collaborative projects integrating storytelling into literacy and creative writing, including one undertaken in partnership with the National Arts Council (NAC) and another with the National Library Board (NLB).

Star Learners Childcare Group | 2017- present

Sheila worked with Star Learners to review and refine Write a Rainbow™, its story-based writing curriculum, making it easier for teachers to use and implement. Since 2017, she has conducted two workshops each year: one helps teachers retell folktales and other existing stories as a foundation for children’s writing; the other helps teachers guide children in creating their own stories and developing them into written work.

National Arts Council Arts Education Programme (NAC AEP) | 2025-2026

During 2025–2026, Sheila delivered 73 preschool storytelling sessions under NAC AEP and also conducted Playing with Story workshops for preschools under the programme.

Professional Development in Early Childhood Education

Recent professional development engagements with practising educators have included full-day workshops at MOE Kindergarten at Temasek, Little Oxford Schoolhouse and Orange Tree Preschool; a workshop at MOE Kindergarten at Bendemeer; a workshop for 120 teachers at 7Oaks Preschool; and a workshop at Angsana MOE Kindergarten on extending and deepening learning beyond the story.

Sheila has also worked with those studying early childhood education, conducting a workshop for the SUSS Early Childhood Education Interest Group and delivering an interactive lecture for NIEC early childhood diploma students.

Singapore Book Council | Introduction to Storytelling

Sheila has been involved in the Singapore Book Council’s Introduction to Storytelling course since its inception in 1999, initially helping to organise it, then teaching part of the course from 2001 before taking on the teaching of the entire course. She continues to lead it as an annual one-day course in partnership with the Council, introducing participants to the principles and practice of oral storytelling.

Organisational Storytelling: Influence, Connection and Leadership

Sheila began exploring organisational storytelling in 2004. She designs practical workshops that help leaders and teams use stories to build influence and connection, make ideas memorable, share organisational knowledge and support leadership. Her work has included military commanders, public service leaders, educators, sales teams and executives. She has also delivered storytelling-for-interviews workshops for postgraduate students at NUS Business School, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Yale-NUS College.

ST Engineering Centre for Management Development

Sheila has been a long-standing learning partner of ST Engineering Centre for Management Development, delivering organisational storytelling workshops for military personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Housing & Development Board (HDB), via Aventis | 2026

Delivered three Strategic Storytelling Skills workshops on workplace stories, story collection, influence, connection and organisational values.

Selected Engagements and Long-Term Partnerships

North London Collegiate School | 2024–2026

Sheila and her storytelling team collaborated with North London Collegiate School for three consecutive Book Weeks, delivering storytelling sessions and workshops adapted to different age groups: Grade 6 in 2024, Grades 4 and 5 in 2025, and preschool and Grade 1 in 2026.

Hwa Chong Institution | 2024–2026

Invited for three consecutive years to work with Secondary 1 students. In August 2026, Sheila delivered a 50-minute storytelling session and mini-workshop for approximately 400 students.

Civica | 2022 and 2026

Delivered professional development workshops for school library assistants and HQ staff in 2022. In June 2026, delivered three 3.5-hour workshops for primary and secondary school library assistants. The primary-level workshops focused on reading aloud skills to bring books to life, while the secondary-level workshop developed these skills further and explored ways to engage teenage readers.

Public and Family Storytelling

Delivered a 30-minute storytelling performance for the READ SG launch at the National Library on 6 September 2026 and a storytelling engagement at Jewel Changi Airport on 3 October 2026. Also led Fantastical Stories I Can Tell for children aged 3–5 at National Gallery Singapore with the Singapore Writers Festival in November 2025.

Storytellers’ Conference, Chennai | September 2026

Co-presented with Kiran Shah the 90-minute workshop Rhythm, Repetition, Action: Storytelling for Children Aged Two to Three.

Representative Clients and Organisations

The following examples represent the breadth of Sheila’s work across education, organisational learning, libraries, arts, heritage and community settings.

Corporate, Government and Organisational Learning

ST Engineering (Army, Navy and Air Force); Housing & Development Board; Aventis Learning Group; Ministry of Digital Development and Information; Prime Minister’s Office, Public Service Division; AIA; Johnson & Johnson; Singapore Press Holdings; NParks; Sentosa Development Corporation; Changi General Hospital.

Early Childhood Education and Educator Development

MOE Preschool Unit; Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA); National Institute of Early Childhood Development (NIEC); PCF; SEED Institute; Asian International College; Association for Early Childhood Educators; Association of Muslim Professionals; KLC International Institute; Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Early Childhood Diploma); Temasek Polytechnic (Early Childhood faculty); Early Intervention Centre; YMCA Singapore; Star Learners; Little Oxford Schoolhouse; Orange Tree Preschool; E-Bridge; Skool4Kidz; 7Oaks Preschool; Arts Kidz Child Development Centres; Eton House; Life Kindergarten; Little Skool-House International; Chatsworth Kindergarten (Piccadilly); Overseas Family School; Knowledge Universe, Singapore; Pertapis Childcare Centres; Sarada Kindergarten; Seventh-day Adventist Kindergarten; St James’ Church Kindergarten; The Learning Ladder Kindergarten.

Primary and Secondary Schools

Over more than 27 years, Sheila has worked with more than 100 primary and secondary schools across Singapore, delivering storytelling performances, school assemblies, student workshops and professional development for teachers. Her long-standing school engagements include seven consecutive years of workshops at CHIJ Toa Payoh Secondary and a three-year relationship with Hwa Chong Institution (2024–2026), where she has worked with Secondary 1 students.

Libraries and Reading Initiatives

National Library Board (NLB)
Civica

Special Education and Inclusive Storytelling

Sheila has worked with children with additional needs through storytelling performances and workshops, and has conducted professional development for educators on using storytelling with children with special educational needs.

Selected Workshops

Singapore International Storytelling Festival (SISF), 2011: Telling Together: Interactive Storytelling for Children with Special Needs.
MOE SPED Conference, 2012: Workshop on storytelling for children with special needs.
Manila, Philippines: Workshops for teachers and student teachers on inclusive storytelling.

Schools and Organisations

AWWA Resource Centre
AWWA Special School (now AWWA School)
Cerebral Palsy Alliance School
Lee Kong Chian Gardens School
MINDS Guillemard Gardens School
Canossian School for the Hearing Impaired
Singapore School for the Visually Handicapped

Arts, Heritage and Cultural Institutions

Sheila has worked with arts, heritage and cultural organisations through storytelling performances, exhibition-related programmes and professional development. Her work has included developing stories around museum exhibits and training museum docents to use storytelling to engage visitors with artworks, artefacts and cultural heritage.

National Arts Council (NAC)
National Gallery Singapore
Asian Civilisations Museum
Friends of the Museums
National Heritage Board
Singapore Tourism Board
Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay
National Archives of Singapore

Non-profits and Community Organisations

Sheila’s work with non-profit and community organisations includes storytelling programmes, educational initiatives and volunteer leadership. She co-founded Story Connection and the Federation of Asian Storytellers (FEAST), and has held leadership roles in the Storytelling Association (Singapore).

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
Jane Goodall Foundation
Singapore Book Council
Chinese Development Assistance Council (CDAC)
Story Connection
International Baccalaureate Organization
Federation of Asian Storytellers (FEAST)
Storytelling Association (Singapore)
Girls’ Brigade Singapore

International Festivals, Conferences and Overseas Work

Sheila has performed, led workshops, delivered keynotes and presented at storytelling festivals and conferences across Asia, Australia, Africa and Europe. Her international work has also included training teachers and students, judging storytelling competitions, contributing to conference programmes and working with storytellers across cultures.

Asian Congress of Storytellers / Singapore International Storytelling Festival, Singapore

Helped develop and organise the Asian Congress of Storytellers until 2007. The Congress brought storytellers together for performances, workshops and professional exchange, and later became part of the Singapore International Storytelling Festival. Sheila continued to contribute to the festival as a performer through 2013.

Selected International Festivals and Conferences

Scottish International Storytelling Festival, Scotland (2004) Performed at an evening concert at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, and in schools and libraries.

Skye and Lochalsh Storytelling Festival, Scotland (2005, 2006)

Storytelling in schools, community settings and festival events.

Sydney International Storytelling Conference, Australia (2005–2023) Workshop leader.

Engage Festival and Chester Literature Festival, UK (2010) Collaborative storytelling performances with Cassandra Wye.

Penang International Kids Storytelling Festival (PINKS), Malaysia (2010, 2012, 2017) Featured storyteller, keynote speaker and workshop leader.

Malaysia International Storytelling Festival, Kuala Lumpur (2011, 2012) Festival performances and workshops.

Tell a Story Day, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2013) Featured storyteller and workshop leader.

Mahasarakham International Storytelling Festival, Thailand (2013) Featured storyteller, workshop leader and storytelling competition judge.

Asian English Olympics, Jakarta, Indonesia (2013) Storytelling competition judge and workshop leader

Under the Aalamaram International Storytelling Festival, India (2015) Featured storyteller and workshop leader, with events in Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.

Festival Dongeng Internasional Indonesia, Indonesia (2015, 2016) Performances, workshops and professional exchanges in schools and cultural institutions

Thai International Storytelling Festival and Peace Tales Festival, Thailand (2016, 2017) Featured storyteller, workshop leader and panel speaker.

Spotlight on Storytelling, Mahasarakham University, Thailand (2016) Keynote speaker and panellist.

Imaginatory, Jakarta, Indonesia (2017) Delivered workshops on organisational storytelling, training trainers and early childhood educators.

International Storytelling Festival, Thailand (2018) Storytelling performances and activities for students, including engagements at Silpakorn University and the Institute of Physical Education.

2nd Korea International Storytelling Festival, South Korea (2019) Storytelling performances and workshops in Gyeongju and Seoul.

FEAST Storytellers’ Conference, Bangalore, India (2019) Workshop leader.

Mumbai International Storytelling Festival, India (2020) Performances, panel discussions and workshops.

Sarawak Children’s Festival, Miri, Malaysia (2023) Storytelling performances and workshop

FEAST Storytellers’ Conference, Chennai, India (2026) Co-led a workshop with Kiran Shah.

Overseas Training and Professional Engagements

Hong Kong Bureau of Education (SCOLAR), through S4All Hong Kong (2011–2014)
Delivered a two-day storytelling workshop for English language teachers in 2011. Developed a storytelling handbook, story anthology and instructional DVD for teachers in 2011–2012. In July 2012, led two 15-hour storytelling workshops for primary and secondary students preparing for performances at the English is Everywhere Festival. Also delivered kamishibai storytelling workshops under the English Alliance programme, Short Rides in a Story Machine, in 2013–2014.

Mique International Conference and Event Planners (MICEP), Manila, Philippines (2013)
Conducted workshops for preschool educators and teachers, with approximately 80–300 participants per workshop. In January, these comprised two half-day workshops and one full-day workshop. In August, conducted three half-day workshops for lecturers, teachers and student teachers.

Philippine Association for the Career Advancement of Educators (PACAE), Philippines (2017)
Delivered keynote presentations at two seminars on storytelling for values education, held in Baguio in April and Davao in May. Each seminar attracted approximately 300 participants.

Golaeli Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia (2010)
Conducted workshops for teachers.

International Young Learners TESOL Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2011)
Conducted a workshop.

Lorna Whiston TESOL Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2013)
Conducted workshops.

Mekong Capital, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2016)
Led a one-day organisational storytelling workshop for the venture capital company.

Selected Publications and Storytelling Resources

Stories in Anthologies

“Rajah Suran’s Expedition to China” Published in The World of Asian Stories (Tulika Publishers, 2007); The Singing Top: Tales from Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei (Libraries Unlimited, 2008); A River of Stories: Tales and Poems from Across the Commonwealth (Commonwealth Education Trust, 2011), where it was selected to represent Singapore, illustrated by Jan Pienkowski; and Royals, Wise and Otherwise: A Collection of 27 Asian Ready-to-Tell Folktales (Federation of Asian Storytellers, 2019, under the title “Rajah Suran”).

“The Rice Dreamer”

A FEAST of Stories: Food Tales from Asia (Federation of Asian Storytellers, 2018)

“The Day the Rains Came”
Splish! Splash! Splosh! Water Tales from Asia (Federation of Asian Storytellers, 2021).

“Watering the Neighbours’ Melons”

Kindness Tales: World Folktales to Talk About, edited by Margaret Read MacDonald (August House, 2021).

Books and Teaching Resources

Contributing Author
Storytelling Strategies for Reaching and Teaching Children with Special Needs, edited by Sherry Norfolk and Lyn Ford (Libraries Unlimited, 2018).

Stories Alive: Storytelling in the Language Classroom
Storytelling manual for Hong Kong English teachers (SCOLAR, 2012).

Stories Alive Anthology

Story anthology for Hong Kong English teachers (SCOLAR, 2012).

Stories Alive DVD
Instructional DVD accompanying the Stories Alive resources (SCOLAR, 2012).

Articles

“The Three Little Sheep: A Healing Story Redux”
Article published in Diving in the Moon, the magazine of the Healing Story Alliance, Summer 2008.

“Storytelling in Singapore”

Storytelling Magazine, USA (2002, 2008). The 2008 article explored mentoring and the growth of the storytelling ]

movement in Singapore.

“Telling Stories to Children: Practical Tips for Novice Tellers”
Society for Reading and Literacy Magazine, Singapore (2001).