Cincinnati’s favorite storyteller, Paul Strickland, has been invited to serve as Master of Ceremonies at the prestigious National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, next week. The popular three-day event is the largest and oldest storytelling festival in America and draws thousands of visitors from all over the globe.
Last year was Paul’s debut as a featured teller at the National Storytelling Festival. It is an honor to be asked to return as an MC the following year. In 2023, Paul performed for audiences of up to two thousand people at a time and drew standing-room only crowds to his tale-telling tents. It is experiences like this that inspired Paul to found a storytelling festival in Cincinnati, and the thriving fourth-year Cincinnati Storytelling Festival will be held this November in the center of Westwood.
Every October since 1973, thousands of travelers have visited Tennessee’s oldest town. They come for one purpose–to hear stories and to tell them at the National Storytelling Festival. This celebration of America’s rich and varied storytelling tradition, the oldest and most respected gathering anywhere in America devoted to storytelling, has in turn spawned a national revival of this venerable art.
Cincinnati audiences know Paul Strickland for his award-winning performances at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, including Ain’t True & Uncle False (2013 All-Access Pick-of-the-Fringe Award winner) and Balls of Yarns (2017 Critics’ Pick-of-the-Fringe Award winner).
Paul is also one of the co-founders of the Cincinnati Storytelling Festival which has brought nationally-recognized storytellers including Bil Lepp, Sheila Arnold, Adam Booth, Megan Hicks and Antonio Rocha to Cincinnati audiences. The Cincinnati Storytelling Festival will be returning for a fourth year in the Westwood neighborhood of Cincinnati this November 14-16, featuring national storytellers Lyn Ford and Andy Offutt Irwin.
National Sotorytelling Festival