June 23-26, in Shakori Hills, North Carolina, Mark Yaconelli and Duane Whitcomb will be hosting three nights of storytelling at the Wild Goose Festival. Wild Goose is a new music, art, and justice festival rooted in the Christian tradition, yet open to all faith traditions. If you’re in the area join T-Bone Burnett, Michelle Shocked, David Wilcox, Jim Wallis, and hundreds of other talented musicians, activists, speakers, and storytellers for a great event. Find out more here.
Here’s a description of the storytelling nights:
Wild Tales: Real Stories by Regular Folks
Each night of the Wild Goose Festival we will host “Wild Tales: Real Stories by Regular Folks.” In this homegrown storytelling series six brave souls from the festival community will tell a true story, first person, in twelve minutes or less. Stories will be based on the evening’s theme and will be interspersed with live music by an eclectic mix of musicians gathered for the night. The whole thing will be hosted and facilitated by Mark Yaconelli, author, speaker, and founding director of the Hearth storytelling series in Southern Oregon.
We’re still looking for storytellers. This series is open to the entire festival community. If you have a true story that fits one of the evening themes email Mark at yaconelli@msn.com. Include a few sentences summarizing your story. Or show up to one of the storytelling evenings and put your name in one of our drawings. Each night we’ll select an interested audience member to get up on stage and share their own true story.
Here’s the evening themes and some of our storytelling recruits:
Thursday Night: Locked Up: Tales of Captivity. As part of its mission, the Wild Goose festival will seek to high light prison injustice. As a way of exploring the prison experience we’ll gather six festival goers tell true tales of imprisonment (physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual) and their struggle toward freedom. Tellers include Becca Stevens from Thistle Farms.
Friday Night: Changed: True Tales of Transformation Hitting bottom. Death and resurrection. Befriending an enemy. A new heart and mind. This evening’s stories include healings, breakthroughs, and unexpected conversions.
Saturday Night: I Saw the Light: Encounters with God. A night of interfaith storytelling as we seek to gather tellers from various faith traditions to tell a true experience of the Other. Listen as Samir Selmanovic, Abdullah Antepeli, Rabbi Or Rose, Frank Rogers, and other festival-goers tell true tales of religious experience.
For more information and sample stories from the true tales movement go to The Moth or The Hearth Storytelling.
Mark Yaconelli is a writer, retreat leader, spiritual director, youth worker, community activist, speaker, storyteller, disco dancer, husband, and father. He is the program director for the Center for Engaged Compassion at Claremont School of Theology and the founder and director of The Hearth: Real Stories by Regular Folks, a storytelling series produced in Ashland, Oregon. Mark has written four books including Wonder, Fear, and Longing: A Book of Prayers (Zondervan). He’s most recent book Changing the World One Heart at a Time will be released in spring of 2012.
