Kate Campbell

Kate Campbell

As the daughter of a Baptist preacher from Sledge, Mississippi, Kate’s formative years were spent in the very core of the civil rights movement of the 1960′s, and the indelible experiences of those years have shaped her heart, character and convictions ever since. As a child of the South, her musical tastes were forged in the dampered, smoky fires of soul, R&B, Southern rock, country, and folk music. Kate Campbell’s music continues to inspire and enthuse a growing audience. Ballet Memphis featured songs from each of Campbell’s six CDs as well as a live performance by Kate and band at a ballet entitled South Of Everywhere. Campbell continues to impress audiences across the US and overseas and tours extensively in support of her CDs including tours to the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Carol Cain

Carol Cain

She first discovered the power of storytelling thirty years ago, as a new mother, when her 12th grade English students begged for stories about her son as a way to get her off the topic of British literature. She continued to tell stories in her classroom until her retirement last summer, after thirty years of teaching language arts and theatre arts with the Troup County School System in LaGrange, Georgia. In addition to being her school system’s Teacher of the Year for 2000, Carol was named a top five finalist for Georgia’s 2001 Teacher of the Year. Carol has been a member of the Azalea Storytelling Festival planning committee since the festival’s inception in 1997. She has been the emcee of the Azalea Festival for the past eleven years and was a featured teller in 2015. In addition to her work at museums, schools, churches, senior centers, and libraries throughout the Southeast, Carol performed at the 2011 Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Orem, Utah. She is featured on the Donald Davis workshop video entitled “What’s Your Story?” which has been broadcast on both BYU-TV and North Carolina Public Broadcasting. More recently, Carol portrayed Captain Nancy Hill Morgan, organizer of a female Civil War militia, in a documentary called “The Nancy Hart Militia: Women of Uncommon Courage” which debuted on Georgia Public Broadcasting. For the past twenty-four years, Carol has performed as Rosie the Riveter at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia and other locations throughout the U.S.

Milbre Burch

Milbre Burch

An award-winning, internationally known performer and recording artist, as well as a monologist, playwright and teacher of her craft, Milbre Burch is a storyteller in every sense of the word. Bridging the mythic and the personal, Milbre creates original works that bring the power of story into contemporary performances of power and grace.

Geraldine Buckley

Geraldine Buckley

Known primarily for personal stories that make people laugh and think, award winning, internationally-known, Geraldine Buckley teaches and performs in conferences, colleges, schools, corporations, and house-concerts. She has appeared as a featured teller in festivals throughout the US, including twice at the Timpanogos Stortelling Festival, and three times at the National Storytelling Festival, in Jonesborough, TN. An ordained minister, Geraldine was the Protestant Chaplain at the largest men’s prison in Maryland, until January 2010. Since then she has conducted storytelling workshops in US prisons, and also in Rimutaka, New Zealand’s largest men’s prison, as well as in many less restrictive settings! Currently she is Hospice Chaplain at Bridging Life Hospice in Westminster, Maryland. During the Pandemic Geraldine was a Resident Chaplain at her local hospital in Frederick, Maryland. She wrote a very well received Facebook blog called “Pandemic Parables” that documented the heroism, fear and bravery that flooded the corridors of a hospital where, with few exceptions, visitors were not allowed to enter. This has been successfully performed several times as a virtual storytelling show, including at the National Storytelling Virtual Festival of 2020. It will shortly be available in book form. Geraldine is frequently heard on NPR, and Sirius radio, and is the recipient of three gold awards from Storytelling World. Find out more on her website.

Carol Birch

Carol Birch

In 1998 Carol Birch received the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award given to storytellers recognized as master tellers by their peers, setting standards for excellence, and demonstrating a commitment and dedication to the art over a significant period of time. Thirty years of experience have earned her a respected place in the forefront of the revival of platform storytelling: teaching at Southern Connecticut State University; lecturing at forty-one universities across the nation, as well as professional and corporate organizations; producing nine audio-anthologies for the National Storytelling Association; directing seventeen audio-cassettes for independent storytellers as well as August House, Lightyear Entertainment, and Weston Woods Studios; writing THE WHOLE STORY HANDBOOK: USING IMAGERY TO COMPLETE THE STORY EXPERIENCE; co-editing WHO SAYS? ESSAYS ON PIVOTAL ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY STORYTELLING, the first book on the aesthetics of storytelling; serving as a chairperson of the Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award; and producing three award-winning audio-cassettes of her own stories.

Media appearances include ABC’s NIGHTLINE and CBS, THIS MORNING, Channel 5 in Boston, National Public Radio, Glamour Magazine and the New York Times. She’s been a featured storyteller six times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and in videos of America’s foremost storytellers produced by the Cotsen Storytelling Project; McFeely-Rogers Foundation, The Storytelling Channel for Cable Vision’s Rainbow Programming, Hometown Entertainment, and the H. W. Wilson Company. Her storytelling includes invitational events in Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Singapore, as well as theater concerts for adults, festivals for families, and school residencies throughout the United States.

Known for a compelling blend of energy, warmth, vulnerability, and directness, Carol restores orality and spontaneity to the fixed silence of stories found in print, but as a third-grader in North Carolina pointed out: “She knows that story ’cause she was there!”