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Willy Claflin
The nationally acclaimed Azalea Storytelling Festival will return for its 14th year March 5-7.
The event spotlights some of the country’s most renowned storytellers and is a past winner of the National Storytelling Membership Leadership Award.
This year’s participants are new to the Azalea stage at LaGrange College’s Callaway Auditorium, and all come with impressive storytelling credentials.
— Willy Claflin grew up in Wolfeboro, N.H., where he spent his days dreaming. By high school, he became a rock ‘n’ roll singer while also learning hundreds of folk songs. At Harvard University, he studied American and French literature, but made time for performing music and comedy in the Boston-Cambridge folk music scene. He has been a hit at regional festivals across the country and at the International Storytelling Festival in Cape Clear, Ireland. Returning to performing in the 1980s, Claflin had collected a wealth of stories and ballads, criss-crossing the country from Maine to Hawaii as a storytelling performer and master teacher.
He moved to San Francisco in 1984. In 2001, he was in Indonesia for a residency at the International School. That fall he was a headliner at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., where he has returned as a featured teller in 2002, 2004 and 2006. In 2007, he headlined National Story Night that kicks off the festival.
— MaryGay Ducey was raised in New Orleans and has been trafficking in stories from the time she was born. She has been a children’s librarian for Oakland (Calif.) Public Library for more than 25 years and is the staff trainer for Books for Wider Horizons, a program that sends volunteers into local Head Start centers to present story times.
A storytelling educator, she has taught storytelling in University of California Berkeley’s graduate division and Dominican University, among others, and has traveled the United States and to Canada and Ireland, telling stories. She has been a commissioned artist at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History and was named an “Outstanding Woman of Berkeley.” Ducey is the artistic director of the Bay Area Storytelling Festival and is the 2007 winner of the Circle of Excellence award.
— Dan Keding is known for his telling of traditional world folktales, narratives of his boyhood in Chicago, ghost stories and dark tales, and crafted original pieces. As a child he learned the traditional stories his grandmother brought to this country from Croatia. A respected ballad singer, he accompanies himself on guitar, banjo and spoons. This combination of storytelling and ballad singing has made him a festival and concert favorite throughout the United States, Great Britain and Ireland.
In the summer of 2000, Keding was presented the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Network. He writes a column on storytelling for the folk music magazine Sing Out and has appeared on television and radio shows.
— Fourth-generation storyteller Lynette Ford shares tales rooted in her family’s multicultural African-American storytelling traditions.
Ford is an Ohio teaching artist who has led workshops for literacy, early childhood education, storytelling and diversity events across the country. She calls her stories “Home-Fried Tales” to honor her father, who was a terrible cook and the best storyteller she ever heard. Ford learned to “stir up, season and simmer” her folktale adaptations and stories with elders who passed their own gifts from the oral tradition.
Hogansville native Carol Cain returns as master of ceremonies. She became involved in storytelling more than 20 years ago when asked to perform at La-Grange Memorial Library’s summer story time. Since then, she has performed for numerous school and civic audiences. Cain has performed as Rosie the Riveter for the past 15 years, sharing the story of women workers in World War II for audiences of all ages.
In 2007, her Rosie the Riveter was the opening act at the national convention of the American Legion Auxiliary in Reno, Nev. During the summer of 2008 she served as emcee and a teller for the Georgia Showcase at the National Storytelling Network Conference in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Cain appeared at the 1999 Azalea Storytelling Festival and remains a favorite teller for local venues.
The festival begins at 5:30 p.m. March 5 with registration, followed by storytelling at 7:30 p.m.
Events on March 6 begin at 9 a.m. with registration, with the first storytelling concert at 10 a.m., followed by concerts at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
The final day of the festival will be March 7, beginning with coffee and doughnuts at 8:30 a.m., followed by sacred storytelling and music at 9:30 and 10:50 a.m.
This year’s Azalea Storytelling Festival is sponsored by LaGrange College, Lafayette Society for Performing Arts, LaGrange Downtown Development Authority, LaGrange-Troup County Chamber of Commerce, Troup County School System, West Georgia Technical College and LaGrange Memorial Library.
Tickets are $35 for adults and $20 for students for the full festival, $15 for adults and $10 for students for March 5, $30 for adults and $15 for all day March 6, $10 for adults and $5 for students for morning or afternoon or evening of March 6. Admission is free March 7. LaGrange College students will be admitted free. The deadline for advance reservations is Friday.
For ticket reservations, questions or to request a brochure, call Lafayette Society for Performing Arts at (706) 882-9909 or go to www.lagrange.edu/azalea.
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