Members of the North Carolina Storytelling Guild are bringing their stories into at least one library in each of the 100 counties of North Carolina during September. This event will culminate in a two-day Heart of North Carolina Storytelling Festival in Greensboro where North Carolina tellers with national and regional acclaim will share their stories with family audiences.“We feel that children are the heart of North Carolina, and that public libraries are the heart of our communities. With all the cuts that libraries have experienced, we want to help in a tangible way.”
The Guild is offering a half-hour program by an accomplished teller to all 100 libraries free of charge in the four weeks preceding the festival which runs from September 25-26, 2015. This festival is sponsored by the North Carolina Storytelling Guild, Greensboro City Arts and the Triad Storytelling Exchange as part of the Greensboro's 17 day festival.
Fontana Regional Library will be hosting five events with two tellers across the region:
- Thursday, Sept. 3rd 6:30pm – Jackson County Library – Charlie St. Clair
- Thursday, Sept. 10th 6pm – Marianna Black Library – Charlie St. Clair
- Tuesday, Sept. 22 3:30pm – Hudson Library – Lee Lyons
- Wednesday, Sept. 23rd 6:00pm – Macon County Library – Charlie St. Clair
- Thursday, Sept. 24th 6:00pm – Cashiers Library – Lee Lyons
Charlie St. Clair has been telling stories to family and friends all his life. He has been telling stories publicly for the past eight years and performed improvisational theater with Living Story Theater for 8 years. He is currently the Treasurer of the Asheville Storytelling Circle.
Charlie has appeared at the Toe River Storytelling Festival, Blue Ridge Storyfest at Lake Junaluska, The Laurinburg Bald Face Liars Showdown, Tales of Union County at The Rose Hill Plantation in Union, SC, Tellabration! put on by the Asheville Storytelling Circle, and at the Grove Park Inn. All of his stories are true, and some of them actually happened!
Lee Lyons has been coming to Highlands all her life (65 yrs.) but moved here full time over ten years ago. She enjoys hiking, traveling, the Highland’s Writers Group, The Highlands-Cashiers Players and story telling. She became interested in story telling through her friend and teller, Nancy Reeder and is now a member of the Asheville Story Telling Guild.
Although she has taken various story telling workshops, she has no “credentials” as a story teller other than she and Robin Phillips have won the best fish story for the Three Rivers Fly Fishing contest two years in a row (theirs was the only entry)! Her thirty-minute performance will consist of a Native American folk tale, a fairy tale, a personal story and anything else she comes up with between now and then.