“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges he is a liar” to quote Mark Twain.
And we’re looking for a few good fibbers to compete in the telling of tall tales.
The best tall tales can start with a kernel of truth, but that truth is then stretched, and stretched, and then stretched some more until it becomes a whopper of a yarn.
Long a tradition in storytelling, the tall tale is making its official debut at the Florida Storytelling Festival in the form of a Liars’ Contest on Friday, January 27, 2023, from 3 to 4 pm on the Main Concert Stage.
If you’ve got a good story to share, enter your name by January 7 for one of four randomly chosen early bird spots. We will fill two more slots at the festival.
You could become Florida’s Exaggerator Extraordinaire, the Sunshine State’s most Fantastic Fibber, or the Mt. Dora Prince or Princess of Prevarication.
These “lies” are told for fun. The goal is to entertain and honor the tradition of the tall tale.
Tall tales have a rich history in America and date back to the frontier days when folks gathered around the campfire and did a lot of bragging as well as recounting various stories and adventures with heroes that were larger than life.
There were real and fictional characters who became heroes of tall tales such as Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, Casey Jones, Davy Crockett, and Johnny Appleseed.
Take woodsman and lumberjack Paul Bunyan, for example. We hear that Paul was born in Bangor, Maine. And it took five giant storks to deliver him to his parents. As a newborn, he could holler so loud he scared all the fish out of the rivers and streams.
All the local frogs started wearing earmuffs so they wouldn’t go deaf when Paul screamed for his breakfast. His parents had to milk two dozen cows morning and night to keep his milk bottle full, and his mother had to feed him ten barrels of porridge every two hours to keep his stomach from rumbling and knocking the house down.
You get the idea?
This tradition continues to this day with Liars’ Contests at folk and storytelling festivals.
Famed teller Bil Lepp started his storytelling career in the early 1990s by becoming a five-time winner of the annual West Virginia Liars’ Contest. Lepp has joked that he continues to lie for a living, standing in front of huge crowds, telling lies, and getting standing ovations.
Some notable annual Liars Contests around the country take place at the Stone Soup Storytelling Festival and the Hagood Mill Storytelling and Liars Contest in South Carolina; the annual Peg Leg Smith Liar’s Contest in Borrego Springs, Calif. (honors Thomas ‘Peg Leg’ Smith, a gold prospector and master in the Western tradition of telling tall tales); the Susquehanna Folk Festival in York, PA., and the Ark Storytelling Festival in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire contest in Sacramento, Calif.
We want to make our Liars’ Contest at the Florida Storytelling Festival the best in the state.
Join us at the Florida Storytelling Festival
Tall Tale Liar’s Contest
Friday, January 27, 2023
3pm – 4pm
Get your name in the hat: Tall Tale Liar’s Contest – Florida Storytelling Association (flstory.com)