Cynthia Millhorn, a communication and storytelling studies graduate student, hosted a storytelling event alongside fellow grad students Cory Howard and Irene Poulton, both from the same program as Millhorn.
This event featured ten different students from the communication and storytelling studies graduate program, including Howard as the evening’s emcee.
Each student’s stories included a variety of different genres, including personal stories, folktales and original stories of fiction all themed around transition and change.
Millhorn said, “Students based their stories off of the theme ‘changing of the seasons.”
This was a great opportunity for each student to be able to step out of the box and express their stories to a larger audience while also learning how to practice public speaking. Other students, faculty, friends and members of the community attended the concert and cheered on the performers.
“The concert was a great opportunity for connection, community, fun and to see professional and emerging entertainers. Therefore, helping support storytelling in Johnson City and at ETSU,” said Millhorn. “This is the first on-campus, in-person telling since COVID, also the first event only structured and produced in this way and by these specific student producers.”
For students interested in coming out to more events like this one, more events are being planned for the spring semester.
“The ETSU storytelling students are creating ongoing opportunities and performing outreach in a variety of settings including festivals, such as the Fall Tipton Haynes Festival and the upcoming Christmas Tipton Haynes event,” Millhorn said. “Storytelling is thriving at ETSU! Storytelling is much more than children’s books read in libraries – it’s stories for adults in all ages and seasons of life. It’s stories that move people, entertain them, make them laugh, cry and heal.”
