ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 25, 1996 TAG: 9608230104
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LARRY TIMBS SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
All of us hunger for a powerful story. Whether it's uplifting, sad, grisly, scary or funny, we just love a good yarn.
That's been the central lesson learned the last 23 years in Jonesborough, Tenn., site again this fall - Oct. 4-6 - of what some people call storytelling at its most magical.
That weekend, tiny Jonesborough (population 3,292), the oldest town in Tennessee, hosts the 24th annual National Storytelling Festival - the largest and most prestigious event of its kind in the United States. Housed in five huge tents in Jonesborough, the festival will feature such renowned tellers of tall tales as Kathryn Windham, Ray Hicks and Dovie Thomason, and is expected to attract about 8,500 people.
Windham, author of cookbooks, history books and story books and a commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," lives in a house in Selma, Ala., with a friendly apparition. Enough said about where she gets fodder for her ghost stories.
Hicks, from Roan Mountain, Tenn., told tales at Jonesborough's first storytelling gathering in 1973, has been invited back every year, and today is called the patriarch of traditional storytelling. His specialty is enthralling listeners with mountain legends and Jack tales.
Thomason, from Virginia, often performs at American Indian powwows and storytelling events throughout the United States. Her narratives, many of them passed on to her from her grandmother, have a Lakota and Kiowa Apache background.
Representing North Carolina at the National Storytellihe radio (in late 1972) telling a story about coon-hunting in Mississippi," Smith recalls. "It was hilarious."
Upon hearing that broadcast and sensing that everyone loves a good story, Smith figured Jonesborough could find a calling. Why, he reasoned, couldn't his historic, quaint (but then very sleepy) hometown help fill a need that all of us crave?
While the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough is not the only event of its kind in the United States, it boasts of being America's oldest, largest and most dynamic celebration of the oral tradition.
"For what New Orleans is to jazz ... Jonesborough is to storytelling," the Los Angeles Times recently observed.
The Jonesborough festival has also helped spark a renewed interest in storytelling throughout the United States. Smith notes, for example, that many smaller festivals akin to the celebration in his hometown have sprung up across the country.
In the past 23 years, festival organizers in Jonesborough have learned a few things about the public's appetite and made some changes. For example, what began as a Southern Appalachian event has become much more diverse.
It's gotten more representative of storytelling throughout the United States," Smith said.
As the festival has grown, so, too, has public interest in the National Storytelling Association, a nonprofit organization founded in 1975. Dedicated to encouraging the practice and application of storytelling, the NSA headquarters is now in a former day-care center just outside of Jonesborough. If all goes well, the association will be relocated by October 1998 in an $8 million new building in Jonesborough that has been designed to blend in with the historic character of the town.
In that new building will be an interpretation center, according to Smith, helping tell the story of storytelling.
A scale model of the project is at the NSA's information center at the Chester Inn. Also at the Inn are videotapes, audiotapes, literature and other material on storytelling and the National Storytelling Festival.
Expect to leave Jonesborough in a different frame of mind than when you arrived for the National Storytelling Festival, according to Erika Cruz, owner of Combread's Coffeehouse and General Store on East Main Street in Jonesborough.
Cruz, a resident of the town for the past five years, said that happens after a weekend of hearing skilled storytellers spin tales on everything from witches and ghosts to folklore and legends from a variety of cultures.
"On the first day of the festival, [festival-goers] are used to their normal pace wherever they live," Cruz said. "It's funny to see them come in on Friday on the first day of the festival and they're all stressed out. But by the end of the weekend, they're really relaxed."
Linda Flanagan, who discovered Jonesborough about eight years ago and who has lived in the town for almost three years, says the National Storytelling Festival still has a hold on people.
Especially if you love a good tale.
"I really believe it's a gathering of kindred spirits," said Flanagan, who moved to Jonesborough from northern California. "People from all over the nation come to it. ... There are people who have come for over 20 years who keep coming back to the festival.
"It's just very magical. ... They have the top tellers here. They have people who are very experienced and you get a real variety of tellers. . . It's wonderful. The town just kind of transforms. The people come together. There's really nothing like it. It's very moving."
While Flanagan has attended storytelling festivals elsewhere, she says Jonesborough's big splash in October is unparalleled: It's an incredible phenomenon. It really is magical. ... It just gives you goosebumps. I've been to storytelling festivals in northern California, but this one is the cream of the crop."
Planning to go to the festival?
Jonesborough, about 190 miles from Roanoke, is in the northeastern corner of Tennessee six miles south of Johnson City, just off Tennessee 11-E.
A preregistration fee schedule and other information about the festival can be obtained by calling the National Storytelling Association at 1-800-525-4514 or 423-753-2171. The NSA's address is P.O. Box 309, Jonesborough, Tenn. 37659. Preregistration (encouraged, at lower rates than regular registration) is by individual adult, children (6-12) or senior citizens (over 65). Children under 5 are admitted free. Preregistrations must be postmarked by Sept. 27. Preregistration for an adult for the full weekend is $90. The registration fee for families (parents with children under 18) is no more than $275 for regular festival events.
Lodging in Jonesborough is hard to come by during the festival, but might be found in nearby Johnson City, Greenville, Kingsport, Elizabethton or Bristol.
LENGTH: Long : 135 linesby CNB