Winter is a good time to curl up by the fire with a book and a cat or two, but it’s also a good time to get out and listen to stories from cultures around the world.

Bards by the Bay provides just such an opportunity Jan. 28 with “Stories for a Winter’s Night” at the Jewel Box Theatre in Poulsbo, featuring four storytellers.

Sharing the stage for the evening will be Elizabeth Shepherd, from Bainbridge Island; Elizabeth Erving, Marrowstone Island; Jill Johnson, Whidbey Island and Elizabeth Falconer, Seattle.

Bards by the Bay director Kathy Currie said the storytellers were chosen for the cultural diversity they bring to the performance.

“These people represent different cultures and they have diverse storytelling styles, so the program is really quite varied,” she said.

Falconer tells stories from and about Japan called “Koto Tales,” as she accompanies them with melodies on the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument.

Falconer said she fell in love with Japan, her husband-to-be and koto, in that chronological order.

She first went to Japan as a summer exchange student in 1973 and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Japanese Studies, a master’s in Japanese Pedagogy and a Ph.D. in International Education, meeting and marrying her husband along the way, and learning to play the koto.

Falconer began combining storytelling with playing the koto, and was amazed at the effect it had on audiences.

“My very first ‘Koto Tale’ was ‘Issunboshi,’ and when I performed it at our local library and saw the look of intense involvement on the faces of the audience, I was amazed. My koto and I had never had people listen so well to what we had to say! I realized then that, instead of playing koto and giving talks about Japan, that Japanese culture can be found in the stories themselves, and that listeners could understand how the koto works by watching me play as I told the stories,” Falconer explains on her Web site.

Erving is an Irish immigrant, in America for 20 years, who began telling stories to her son, then to the Frog Rock Story Circle. She likes to tell stories that “touch the soul and remind us what it is to be human.”

Shepherd is well known to Bainbridge audiences, having been a featured teller at the Bainbridge library’s Family Night Out, local schools and Frog Rock Story Circle events.

Her stories feature strong heroes and heroines who see obstacles on every side but confidently confront and surmount them.

Johnson has performed at festivals and workshops across the country and overseas, and was a finalist in the National Storytelling Competition in Hillsboro, Ohio.

She recently returned from Africa, where she performed in Cameroon and South Africa.

“The core of my storytelling comes from teaching and training — in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific. I love using storytelling to build a sense of community: in a classroom, a library, a meeting, a theater, wherever!” she wrote in her bio.

Johnson has also developed “Little, But Oh My!” the story of the first female ferry boat captain on Puget Sound, Berte Olson.

“Stories for a Winter’s Night” takes place 7 p.m. Jan. 28 at Jewel Box Theatre, 225 Iverson St., Poulsbo.

Tickets are $10 at the door. wu