Creating a Personal Legacy Story By Debra Weller, Storyteller @debstoryteller  https://story-tellingcourses.com      As I was viewing family, photo scrapbooks, I realized how the photos brought back memories filled with emotions. Each photo helped me to recall the precious moments of raising my two children, family celebrations and vacations.  The older black and white photos of […]

Plans are underway to keep storytelling as a part of the spring and fall Barberville Pioneer festivals as well as making storytelling a part of the monthly “Playing on the Porches” events held there. In May of 2022, the Florida Storytelling Association blog recounted how storytelling has been a part of the Barberville festivals for

“It is going to be non-stop excitement,” says Debra Weller, FSA board member who will be flying to Marrakech, Morocco this month to share stories at the Marrakech International Storytelling Festival set for Feb.12-19. She is one of four storytellers from the United States who will join an entourage of 80 international storytellers at this

The annual Florida Storytelling Festival gives our in-state tellers a chance to share and shine. As we gather once again at the Lakeside Inn in Mt. Dora for storytelling (Jan, 26 to 29), tellers from throughout the state will take the stages as tellers or emcees. Two Florida featured tellers in concert in the main

In the coming days before our annual Storytelling Festival in Mt. Dora, we are profiling our featured tellers. This blog focuses on Andy Hedges, Jessica Piscitelli Robinson, and Alton Chung.  A subsequent blog will profile our Florida tellers: Robin Schulte and Mitchell O’Rear.  Come meet them at the festival Jan. 26 -29 at the Lakeside

“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

Of course, you don’t have to tell storytellers why storytelling is important. We know. But how often do you meet people who have never heard of what we do?  They don’t know about the storytelling guilds throughout Florida, the annual Florida Storytelling Festival, our Florida Storytelling Association, or the state festivals throughout America, or various

Yvette D. Thomas loved to tell stories. Over the years, she attended many Florida Storytelling Festivals, and she was a faithful member of the Northside Storytellers in Jacksonville, Fl. She had been preparing for the 23rd annual “Bean Soup & Stories Festival” that was held in November when she passed away in September at age

What is a Florida Cracker? Popular folk lore explains that the term came from the “cracking” of the whips used by the pioneer cattle wranglers in Florida, known as cowmen or cow hunters. In the 1500s in Elizabethan England, a “cracker” described a person who engaged in entertaining conversation (as in “to crack a joke”). 

Storytellers throughout Florida are in demand this month as Halloween looms ahead and ghost stories abound. One of the longest-running events is the Haunting Tales night on Friday, Oct. 28, at the Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando, featuring many of our Florida Storytelling Association members. This marks the 29th year for this spine-tingling collection