Stories By The Sea

Storyteller Linda Goodman to Be Featured at Virginia Beach Festival

Virginia Beach United Methodist Church continues to promote the art of storytelling as it hosts its 6th annual Stories by the Sea, a storytelling festival with something for everyone. This year, the festival will be held on Friday, January 14 through Sunday, January 16, 2011. Appalachian storyteller, author, and playwright Linda Goodman, currently a resident of Chesterfield, Virginia, will be the featured storyteller.

The festival will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Friday with Goodman’s program Memories of a Former Kid, which features stories that Goodman heard as a child and personal stories from her own life. This 1 ½ half hour performance is appropriate for ages 6 years through adult, and admission is free. Free childcare will also be provided.

On Saturday from 9:00 until noon, Goodman will lead a workshop titled Your Story – Pass It Along. Participants in this workshop will learn to mine their own lives for anecdotes and craft them into finished stories that will appeal to their intended audiences. This workshop is intended for teens and adults who want to learn or hone storytelling skills. The cost of the workshop is $25.00 per person, with special rates for families. Childcare will not be provided for the workshop.

“There is a saying that when an old person dies, it is as if a library has burned down,” says Goodman. “My father passed away in 1987, but he still lives in my heart through the stories that he told of his life adventures. My goal with this workshop is to encourage folks to polish and share their own life stories now so that their loved will always have a piece of them in their hearts.”

On Saturday evening from 7:00 to 9:00 Goodman will share stories for adults and teenagers from her program Tales from the Tapestry, which will include stories from Goodman’s book Daughter of the Appalachians, as well as personal stories written by Goodman. These stories will take listeners to another time and place where life, though simpler, presents challenges, blessings, and lessons gleaned from experience. Just as for the Friday night concert, admission is free and free childcare will be provided.

Goodman will also be delivering her story sermon The Mustard Seed at the 8:00 a.m., 9:30 a.m., and 11:00 a.m. services on Sunday, January 16. The Mustard Seed is a humorous yet touching tale of a young girl who is inspired by a minister at a mountain church to “move a mountain.”

“Storytelling is a powerful tool for entertaining, enlightening, and teaching the principles by which we try, not always successfully, to live,” enthuses Goodman. “People are hungry for stories. As a storyteller, I seek to satisfy this hunger by sharing what I have learned from life through stories that touch the hearts of everyone.”

While Goodman is a native of Wise County, Virginia, she has been a resident of Chesterfield County for the past twelve years and has performed at various venues around the country. This is her third appearance at Stories by the Sea. Her stories have been published in both the Chicken Soup for the Soul and the Stories for the Heart series. Her book Daughters of the Appalachians won a Storytelling World Honor Award and has been performed as a play in Massachusetts, California, and Virginia.

Dr. Gwendolyn Nowlan, Artistic Director of the Storytelling Institute at Southern Connecticut State University, which presented Goodman with the Excellence in Storytelling Award, has written to Goodman, “We have many excellent storytellers coming to my institutes, but it seems quite apparent that you are the highlight. You are the storyteller that sweeps listeners off their feet…You strike a chord in every listener’s heart.”

Both the storytelling concerts and the workshop will be held at Virginia Beach United Methodist Church, located at 212 Nineteenth Street. For further details and information, please contact Betty Bridges at blbridg@cox.net or Norris Spencer at tellspence@cox.net. Workshop registrations forms are available at www.vbumc.org or by calling 757-428-7727.