It is now October, and with Halloween a few weeks away, the town of Jonesborough put on a thrilling National Storytelling Festival. For the 48th year in a row, the National Storytelling Festival was conducted quite differently as viewers traded in seats in a tent for a seat on their couch.
The festival moved completely online this year as it would be impossible to have large numbers of people in tents to listen to the storytellers and maintain health and safety protocols, such as social distancing.
“This year, for the first time in the festival’s history, we can’t be together in Jonesborough, Tennessee, our state’s oldest town,” said International Storytelling Center President Kiran Singh Sirah. “We all wish that was different, but it is an honor and an opportunity for us to meet you where you are, wherever you might be.”
The festival offered prerecorded videos of the storytellers that were available at scheduled intervals throughout the festival, as well as special events where viewers logged into Zoom. Storytellers from all over the country shared tales — some of their lives, some of myths and some of haunting events.
“When we started back in 1973, it was all about the stories. It had to be. We didn’t have a lot to look at back then. We only had a few dozen people in the audience that year,” said Sirah. “In the years that followed, folks came together on front porches, in church basements, in a local graveyard to hear legends, folk tales, tall tales, ghost stories and tales from everyday life.”
Storytellers included Len Cabral, Dolores Hydock, Donna Washington and Simon Brooks. During a special Zoom event, Astronaut Fred Haise told stories from the Apollo 13 space mission, in which he was a pilot, and participants in the Zoom had the opportunity to ask Haise questions afterwards.
The festival ended, as is the tradition, with a sing-a-long performed on the banjo by Ed Stivender. The song titled, “Yankee Come Home,” tells of his love for the town of Jonesborough, and it invited listeners to visit and share their stories.
