Why are we here?

In the mid 1980s, Stone Soup Storytelling was the dream of two ladies - one a visionary librarian,
Dixie Page, the other an educator and storyteller, Judy Wyatt. Their sweet hometown Woodruff, SC,
a small textile, farming town was dying. These two ladies were out to bring back the life of their
city. How would they do that...through the power and camaraderie of stories.


How they did it.

These two ladies had been to one of the storytelling festivals in Jonesborough, TN. They were
taken aback by the impact that the performances and stories they heard had made on them.
They felt like they had the answer to their challenge of their city on the drive home. Dixie and
Judy began to make plans.


The birth of the National Storytelling Festival- the Capital of Storytelling around the
world.

The Jonesborough festival began in October 1973 with an old farm wagon and hay bales
as seating- a group of not more than 60. In just a few years with expert guidance from Jimmy
Neil Smith, the storytelling festival became the national leader, and now the global experience in
the art of storytelling.

Now the National Storytelling Festival annually attracts 11,000 festival visitors with the approx
economic impact of $4million. The organization has built the International Storytelling Center
and hosts storytellers and performances throughout the year along with the Festival.

How did Stone Soup Storytelling develop and grow?

Dixie and Judy held meetings, developed a board of advisors, and located funding and support.
Stone Soup garnered support from the city, local schools, and local state legislators. In 1988,
Stone Soup Storytelling became a charitable organization and the South Carolina General
Assembly designated the Stone Soup Storytelling Festival as the official storytelling festival of
South Carolina. The Stone Soup Storytelling Festival became an approved 501(c)3 in 1989.

The beginning and growth, diversity in story genres

The first gathering of storytellers began in 1985. The Stone Soup Storytelling Festival was
fashioned primarily from traditional Appalachian tales and folktales with well-known tellers like:
Heather Forest, Jackson Gilman, David Holt, Jon Spelman, Kathryn Windham and Tommy
Scott Young.

This tradition continued into the early 2000s.
As time passed, storytelling leadership, support, and attendance began to alter. Stone Soup
Storytelling began to falter.

In the late 2000s a group from Greenville attended one of the Woodruff Rural Council meetings.
They were proposing to take the Stone Soup Storytelling Festival to Greenville. The Festival
had not been held in Woodruff for 2 consecutive years. I was attending the Council meeting.
When the Greenville visitors made the proposal, I stood up and said that we were having a
festival that year. I did not have any experience producing an event like the festival but felt the
passion for storytelling and knowing the impact that stories had on me as a child was bound to
make this happen. I called my cousin, Dixie Page, and asked her to be my mentor. We started
out slowly with only a half day festival and since then have developed into a three day amazing
gathering of magical stories and wonderful people.

We have expanded the genres from traditional Appalachian stories into personal stories,
variations of folktales and fairy tales and also include the Muses of yesterday. We love to
integrate poetry, art, history, music, dance, science, and theater- to reach out to all of the Muses.

Our New Voices event is special.
Stone Soup has developed its own nuance through the years of stories.

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We not only hold dear the ancient tradition of cave drawings and oral narrative but incorporate
and integrate other arts and embrace cultures from all over the world.

Taking care of our tellers and visitors like family
New Voices
Small audiences
Intimacy
Togetherness
Promoting cultural sustainability, community connection, and compassion for others
Developing events that promote experiences to make a better world.

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