As we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season in December, it’s not too early to make plans to attend the annual Florida Storytelling Festival on the last weekend in January at the historic Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora.
Tickets to the Festival make great holiday gifts.
There will be four days of storytelling performances, including concerts by our featured professional storytellers, stories from Florida tellers, workshops, ghost tales, story swaps, a liar’s contest and a story slam offering cash prizes. Dates are Jan. 23-26.
In addition, there will be a Youthful Voices concert featuring young tellers from throughout the state. For more information checkout the program so far on this website.
Three Florida tellers will present 45-miniute late-night “Fringe” performances on Friday. Also, some of our Florida tellers will be sharing stories on the front porch of the Lakeside Inn on Friday and Saturday mornings.
This marks the festival’s 41st year. The Florida Storytelling Festival is a premier storytelling event, known nationally for its unique combination of workshops, concerts, youthful voices, and sense of community. People come from across the state and around the globe to explore and savor the art of storytelling.
Featured professional tellers this year include Paul Strickland, Carol Birch, Johnny Thomas Fowler, Tamara Green and Linda Chancey Guice.
Admission: Full Festival Pass $185, Full Festival Pass for FSA Members $140 (all events, except banquet)
Listeners Pass $60 (all events, except workshops and banquet)
Banquet $35
Individual Concerts $10 – $20; Individual Workshops $35
FREE: Porch Telling (Friday & Saturday Mornings on the Lakeside Inn’s porch).
Ways to Tell Your Story: Member Showcase – At our festival, members are chosen to represent FSA on the main stage with our Featured Tellers each year.
Ghost Stories: Friday night Open Mic.
Tall Tales Liar’s Contest – 5-minute tall tales bend the truth. Put your name in the hat to become the Champion Liar of the Festival.
Swaps – Just show up and get on the list to tell your story. Names drawn at random. Swaps 5 – 7 minute stories.
Story Slam – It’s a contest. Give us your best 5-minute story on the theme “Easier Said Than Done.” Show up and enter. Win cash prizes!
More about our featured tellers:
TELLER DETAILS: The 2025 Featured Tellers
Paul Strickland is a multi-award-winning storyteller and theatre artist from Kentucky. His stories are always a touch surreal but always find a way to touch your heart. Adept at adapting to whatever listeners are in front of him, Paul has told stories Off-Broadway, at Fringe Festivals, with Lincoln’s Symphony Orchestra, on Sirius/XM Radio and has been a Featured Teller at the National Storytelling Festival.
Carol Birch is renowned for a conversational style that is eloquent but never scripted, and dramatic but never overtly theatrical. She has received an Oracle Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Network and National Endowment for the Humanities grants to develop a storytelling program for television. She’s toured nationwide with multiple appearances at the National Storytelling Festival. Her two books and eight recordings earned multiple awards.
Johnny Thomas Fowler from the foothills of upcountry South Carolina, is a captivating storyteller, award winning musician, and author. He is a recipient of the state’s Folk Heritage Award, the pinnacle of recognition for folk artists in South Carolina. He is also one of seventeen national storytellers featured in the book Southern Appalachian Storytellers and co-hosts a weekly storytelling program on a North Carolina public radio station He is the host of the annual Hagood Mill Storytelling Festival in South Carolina.
Tamara Green, a retired educator with over 30 years of teaching experience, has a Master of Fine Arts in Performing Arts. She is an award-winning storyteller, workshop presenter, author, and producer. She was the 2014 Hillsborough County Ida S. Baker Diversity Educator of the Year. A member of the Florida Storytelling Association, she served as Youthful Voices Director from 2011-2015 and received the Distinguished Service Award in 2015. Tamara was the 2023 featured storyteller at the 43rd Tampa- Hillsborough County Storytelling Festival. She now serves as an artist in residence with the Hillsborough County Arts-in-Education Program.
Linda Chancey Guice is a retired Children’s Librarian and Library Director. Introduced to the world of storytelling when she attended college, she grew up in tiny Homeland, Florida, and loves to tell tales of growing up as a phosphate miner’s daughter. Linda attended the very first Florida Storytelling Festival (formerly called the Florida Storytellers Guild) and has only missed a handful of Florida Storytelling festivals throughout the years,
Thank you Walt for highlighting the festival!