Featured at the 24th annual Forest Storytelling Festival, Oct. 19-21, 2018…

Minton Sparks

Minton Sparks is a new breed of southern storyteller. Her performances are a fusion of storytelling, spoken word poetry, and music. Though her spoken word/honky-tonk hybrid performances elicit whoops, hollers, and general hell-raising from beer-swilling good ole boys and latte-sipping intellectuals alike; and though she’s been dubbed everything from the lovechild of Flannery O’Connor and Hank Williams to a backwoods Lucinda Williams, no one knows exactly what or who Minton Sparks really is.

On the one hand, she’s a decorated poet, playwright, and author that’s been invited to prestigious events like the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and Berry College’s Southern Women Writer’s Conference (alongside Maya Angelou and Kaye Gibbons). On the other hand, she’s a blue-collar troubadour that’s performed in the American Songbook Series at the Lincoln Center, appeared at the venerable Old Towne School of Folk Music, and served as teller-in-residence at the Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival.

A Tennessee native, former social worker, divinity school dropout, first-ever Spoken Word Award recipient at the Conference on Southern Literature, and founder of The Nashville Writing and Performance Institute, Minton established herself as Nashville’s first non-singing country singer with the release of 2001’s Middlin’ Sisters, where she had a chance to collaborate with the legendary Waylon Jennings.

Noa Baum

Noa Baum is an award-winning storyteller, educator and public speaker performing internationally with diverse audiences ranging from the World Bank and prestigious universities and congregations, to festivals, government agencies, schools, and detention centers.

Born and raised in Israel, she was an actress at Jerusalem Khan Theater, studied with Uta Hagen in NYC and holds an M.A. from NYU. Noa offers a unique combination of performance art and practical workshops that focus on the power of narrative to heal across the divides of identity. In a world where peace is a challenge in the schoolyard and beyond, Noa’s work builds bridges of understanding and compassion.

Noa’s book, A Land Twice Promised – An Israeli Woman’s Quest for Peace,  – a winner of the Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award – is an introspective memoir that mines the depths of the chasm between the Israeli and Palestinian experiences, the torment of family loss and conflict, and the therapy of storytelling as a cleansing art. With her storytelling background, Noa captures the drama of a nation at war and her own discovery of humanity in the enemy.

Decee Cornish

Decee Cornish is an oral Historian, Writer, Griot Storyteller, Educator, Multi-Cultural Program Provider Consultant, Keynote Speaker. He joined the military and served over a decade, traveling and attending colleges and universities worldwide.  Traveling in places like the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, Australia, Alaska, and the desert tribes of the Southwest. In the process, he experienced different cultures and learned their stories.

His stories of Love, Peace & Soul  form an entertaining, informative program that combines story with the music of the eras that helped to define American culture. Great People of Color shares stories of great men and women of color in world culture, for example Mary Seacole, Eugene Chan,  Thomas-Alexander Dumas, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, Candice, Ya Asantewaa.

Rachel Dunstan Muller

Rachel never outgrew her fascination with words and the worlds they create. She studied English and French Literature in University, was a newspaper columnist, and worked as a technical writer.  While accompanying her husband on a teaching exchange to Northern Ireland, she took the plunge and started writing fiction. To date she has four trade-published juvenile novels under her belt. Her first, When The Curtain Rises, was translated into Swedish and Norwegian.

Since 2010 she has also been a professional oral storyteller to audiences of all ages. She shares her original stories in schools, libraries, churches, coffee houses, retirement homes, concerts and festivals.

When she’s not reading, writing or performing, she spends as much time as she can exploring the wild spaces around her Vancouver Island home. From her own fir-tree covered yard she has watched owls, eagles, bats, squirrels, rabbits, racoons, deer and a young bear.

Jeff Doyle

Jeff started telling stories around the campfire at the family campout when his kids were elementary age.

His first story was The Blue Ape, which the kids asked to hear over and over again.  Before long, the kids were requesting new material and Jeff eagerly took to the task, eventually becoming the hit of campfire time. Jeff enjoys telling all types of tales, but specializes in funny stories and scary stories, which range from the somewhat scary to the truly terrifying. Jeff is an ardent believer that his audience should have fun and be entertained. His dedication to your satisfaction is what makes Jeff Doyle a premier storyteller.