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On Sunday, Pretty Good Books in LaGrange will play host to the April gathering of the Azalea Storytelling’s Stories with Friends.

The mostly monthly gathering organized by the Lafayette Society of the Performing Arts (LSPA) is an opportunity for local tellers to practice their work or for new tellers to learn and put forward their best tales.

Unlike the annual storytelling festival with professional storytellers, the monthly event is free of charge.

“Stories with Friends is available to anybody. So you can just come watch, or if you want to try your hand at storytelling, you get 12 minutes. It’s an open mic, so it’s first come, first served,” said Krista O’Connor, Sales and Marketing Manager for LSPA. “They only have so many slots, so get there early.”

“We do it once a month, except for March, because that’s the Azalea Storytelling Festival and October, where they do Stories in the Gardens, which is another free event but it’s not open mic,” O’Connor said. The event also takes off December for the holidays.

Stories with Friends has been held for many years, almost as long as the Azalea Storytelling Festival itself, which is the longest-running storytelling festival in Georgia at 29 years and counting.

LSPA Storytelling Director Kirsten Dunn said both events predate when she started in 2023, the year they started holding Stories with Friends on a mostly monthly basis. They were doing them quarterly before, she said.

“We did it nine out of 12 months, trying to keep it consistent to build up the audience, and give the community an opportunity to be more active and present in storytelling,” Dunn said.

“Stories with Friends is for anybody. So if you’re planning to tell a story, it doesn’t matter your level, if you’re new or experienced or somewhere in the middle, and it doesn’t matter your age,” Dunn said.

“We have people who come and tell different types of stories, as long as it’s family friendly, because we do have children that come,” she said. “We encourage anybody to come, even if you just want to come and support the art of storytelling and just come through and watch.”

Sometimes there are refreshments, Dunn said, noting that when they’ve been at Truitt Vanderbilt Club, Copper Carrot Bakery worked with them to provide snacks.

“This month at Pretty Good Books, we don’t necessarily want much food and drink around the books,” she said. 

 “It’s always a two-hour-long event. There are eight slots. It’s first come, first served. If you want to tell, be there at two o’clock, and the limit for storytelling is 12 minutes,” Dunn said.

This month’s Stories with Friends will be held at Pretty Good Books at 118 Church Street in  LaGrange on Sunday, April 27, from 2 to 4 p.m.