On 8th July the Zoela's Stories book was launched in the City of Culture offices, Derry ~ Londonderry. During the event three children read stories from the book to the gathered audience of parents, grandparents and children. The author, Dr. Helena Schlindwein was introduced by Noella McAlinden from the City of Culture. Helena spoke about the background to the stories and their healing purpose and gave a number of examples of who and how the stories were being used in a variety of contexts with children.

As part of Derry's bid for the UK City of Culture 2013, the evening went with a bang and further highlighted the city's cultural potential and talent.

Orla and Emer Devlin get their copies of Zoela's Stories signed by the author Dr Helena Schlindwein during Derry's City of Culture 2013 bid.

Author Dr Helena Schlindwein participating in Derry's City of Culture 2013 bid with her book launch, Zoela's Stories.

Author Dr Helena Schlindwein and members of the general public at the book launch her children's therapeutic stories, entitled Zoela's Stories.

The conference was held on 8th May 2010 and attended by 450 people. Zoela's Stories ran a workshop with 110 participants involving the importance of language and the stimulation of the imagination of children, particularly to a healing purpose.

Trials of Zoela’s stories were carried out at the University of Ulster to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of the calming and relaxation affects of Zoela’s stories.

These stories normally have a visible calming and relaxing effect on the listeners and it is hypothesized that the stories can be used as a therapeutic tool, especially for children. The purpose of the current study was to develop an experimental protocol involving measurement and analysis of brain activity levels via brainwaves recordings i.e., the electroencephalogram (EEG). It was expected that assessing a person’s level of relaxation through EEG may enable us to determine, qualitatively and quantitatively, the effects of Zoela’s stories on children. The results did indicate that Zoela’s stories did have a calming and relaxing affect on the study participants.

The results show that there was substantial slowing of EEG beta activity and an increase in EEG alpha band activity across the subjects whilst listening to Zoela’s children’s stories and the subjects reported that they experienced a transition into a more relaxed state during the stories. These findings support the hypothesis that Zoela’s stories do have calming and relaxing qualities however further trials are required across a large group of study participants to determine if there is a significant difference in the calming/relaxation qualities of Zoela’s stories compared to other stories for children.

Co-hosted by the Chamber of Commerce and Women in Enterprise, the launch of Zoela's Stories took place at the Chamber of Commerce House, Derry City, on 10th June 2008. The event took place to launch the CD and thank those individuals and companies who assisted in the production and promotion of the product.

Pictured above (from left to right): Janice Tracey, Chamber of Commerce and Chair of Women in Enterprise, Dr. Helena Schlindwein, author of Zoela's Stories, Louise Magee and husband John, International Business Initiative.



Readers on the day: pictured above with Dr. Helena Schlindwein are Aoife Schlindwein and Mary Murphy, well know writer and broadcaster, who gave the first public readings of a selection of the stories.



A satisfied customer aged three enjoys the buffet whilst listening to the stories.

The Zoela's Stories CD is now available in Derry and Dublin at the following locations:
Shipquay Books
Angelic Light,The Craft Village
Easons, Foyleside,
Healing Arts, London St.
The Donegal Shop
The Gate Lodge
The Gift Box
Tower Records, Dublin

We are currently submitting the content to Amazon and iTunes among others. We shall let all our readers know when the content is available at these stores in a downloadable format.