National Storytelling Festival

National Storytelling Festival Celebrates 35th Anniversary

(Jonesborough, Tenn.)—Big hair, glittery clothing, smiley-faced tattoos, and platform shoes are but a memory for those seasoned enough to recall the trends of 1973, but for a handful of those fortunate enough to have been in Jonesborough, Tennessee in October of that year a different memory warms the heart.

The first annual National Storytelling Festival began on a crisp October day when sixty people gathered around a hay wagon on Jonesborough’s courthouse lawn to hear a banker, a farmer, a professor, and a former congressman spin yarns about familiar and faraway people and places. The listeners returned the next year and the next, until now, 10,000 storytelling aficionados make the pilgrimage to Tennessee’s oldest town every October.

Some of the early tellers are still performing and crowd favorites. Doc McConnell, one of America’s longstanding and premier storytellers, offers his legendary Old-Time Medicine Show—a blend of mountain music and stories of old time medical “miracles.” And eighty-eight year old Kathryn Windham, every generation’s favorite storyteller, still shares the stories of the deep South she grew up in and loves. These voices are joined by an array of other internationally known performers, bringing an extensive and diverse line-up of talent to what U.S. News and World Report refers to as a “21st century sensation.”

The festival is sponsored in part by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and August House Publishers. Storytelling concerts begin at 10 a.m. on Friday, with events continuing until 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. The ever-popular Midnight Cabaret will be held at 10:30 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday evenings as well as the Ghost Story Concerts held at 8 p.m. both nights.

For information and ticket prices, call 800-952-8392 or visit www.storytellingcenter.net