FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Maddy Elledge
(706) 379-5319, [email protected]
Young Harris College to Host Third Annual Storytelling Festival
YOUNG HARRIS, Ga. – Young Harris College will host the third annual Georgia Mountain Storytelling Festival (GMSF) Friday, March 31- Saturday, April 1. The festival showcases the art of Southern storytelling with a particular focus on Appalachian stories, both traditional and contemporary.
The GMSF offers storytelling and musical performances, children’s events, and workshops so that community members, visitors, and students of all ages and from all disciplines will not only learn about the tradition and history of our region through storytelling, but also have the opportunity to become part of its preservation.
Thanks to a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, this year’s festival will feature many notable performers including acclaimed folksinger John McCutcheon; award-winning children’s author Carmen Agra Deedy, whose tales are a delightful blend of her Cuban heritage and her upbringing in Georgia; Cherokee teller Lloyd Arneach; Sheila Arnold Jones, creator of History’s Alive!; and master of the tall tale, the hilarious Bil Lepp.
This year, the festival will include a special presentation about local poet and novelist Byron Herbert Reese. It will also host the first-ever open mic event on Friday evening where the audience is invited to share a five-minute story of their own. The Marketplace will be open to shop for unique gifts and organic produce and children will have the opportunity to receive a free book from The Craddock Center’s Storytelling Express Bus.
The festival begins at 9 a.m. on Friday with various storytelling workshops and performances in which students and community members will have the opportunity to learn how to realize, claim, and tell their own stories. A question and answer session with the featured storytellers will follow.
Purchasing tickets in advance is strongly recommended. You may purchase tickets in advance by mailing your ticket order and check to: Dr. Ruth Looper, Department of English, Young Harris College, 1 College Street, Young Harris, GA 30582. Make your check payable to Young Harris College. Please notate “storytelling festival” in the subject line.
For more information, including the festival’s schedule, contact [email protected].
About Young Harris College
Young Harris College is a private, baccalaureate degree-granting college located in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia. Founded in 1886 and historically affiliated with The United Methodist Church, Young Harris College educates, inspires and empowers students through the highest quality liberal arts education. The College currently has more than 1,100 students across five divisions—Education, Fine Arts, Humanities, Mathematics and Science, and Social and Behavioral Sciences. The historic campus in Young Harris, Ga., has completed major campus improvements to accommodate the College’s growth. Recent LEED-certified campus improvements include the 121,000-square-foot Rollins Campus Center, new residence facilities, and a 57,000-square-foot recreation and fitness center. The College is an active member of NCAA Division II and remains a fierce competitor in the prestigious Peach Belt Conference. YHC is among fewer than 300 colleges and universities nationwide named to the 2016-2017 list of Colleges of Distinction and is listed as a “Best National Liberal Arts College” by U.S. News & World Report. For more information, visit yhc.edu.
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