2019 Shoals Front Porch Pop-up & Storytelling Festival

Shoals Front Porch Storytelling Festival 2019 

March 5, 2019, 11:30-1PM, 2019  Dolores Hydock Through the Back Door ~ The Music that Bridged the Bayou. Mardi Gras luncheon, Sheffield Public Library, Sheffield, AL

May 6, 2019, 2-3PM, 2019  Dolores Hydock Helen Keller Library 511 N Main St. Tuscumbia, Al 

Literary Treason the Writings of Bess Streeter Aldrich 

This program looks at the life and work of Bess Streeter Aldridge a Nebraska Writer of the 1930s who accomplished what a few others did:

While she raised her family as a single mother, she had a successful, self-supporting career as a female writer during the first half of the 20th century.

The program describes her early life and later career success and includes a telling of “Jundo Swans,” Aldrich’s funny touching short story that’s a reminder that there.

S no disaster like an elementary school play and no friend as important as your best friend when you’re ten years old.

May 16, 2019, 10-11AM Dishing the dirt Cypress Lake Golf & Tennis Club 1311 E Sixth St. Muscle Shoals, Al Sponsored by Muscle Shoals Public Library Tickets are $5 including a light brunch before the program call 256-386-9212 

Whether you’ve got the greenest thumb since Johnny Appleseed or you managed to kill a rock garden, you’ll enjoy these stories about Mother Nature, Frederic the French Yard-Man, and people who grow philosophy as well s phlox on their little piece of earth. 

May 16, 2019, 4-5PM Pop-UP Concert with Josh Goforth Florence-Lauderdale Public Library

350 N Wood Ave, Florence, AL  

 Storyteller, ballad singer, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Goforth is a native of Madison County in western North Carolina. Situated deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this area is known for its keeping of unbroken ballad and storytelling traditions brought by early Scots-Irish and English settlers in the mid-17th century. It was also fertile ground for the rise of American string band music played on fiddle, banjo, and guitar. Proud to share his Appalachian heritage with audiences near and far, Josh Goforth draws from each of these wellsprings. Join us for a FREE pop-up concert with Josh at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 16 to kick off the Shoals Storytelling Festival!  

May 17, 8:45 AM – 5 PM (with lunch break) The Shoals Storytelling Festival featuring: Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, and Josh Goforth

8:50-9:00 Welcome

9:00-9:30 Bil Lep

9:30-10:30 Josh Goforth

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-11:30 Dolores Hydock

11:30-12:00 Donald Davis 

12:00—2:00 Lunch

2:00-2:30 Josh Goforth

2:30-3:30 Bil Lep

3:30-3:50 Break

3:50-5:00 Donald Davis (Went home at 5pm)

5:00-7:00 Dinner 

7-9 PM–Storyteller Showcase with Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, and Josh Goforth

May 18, 9AM – 5:15 PM (with lunch break) The Shoals Storytelling Festival featuring: Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, Bil Lepp, Eric Kirkman, and Josh Goforth

9:00-9:30 Donald Davis 

9:30-10:30 Eric Kirkman

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-12:00 Dolores Hydock

12:00—2:00 Lunch

2:00-2:30 Bil Lep

2:30-3:00 Josh Goforth

3:00-3:50 Eric Kirkman 

3:50-4:15 Break

4:15-4:45 Dolores Hydock

4:45-5:15 5:00 Donald Davis (Went home at 5pm)

5:15-7:00 Dinner

7-9PM – Performance with Firekid, Dillon Hodges, and Heidi Feek

For the past two, days I have enjoyed spending time with my friends at the Shoals Theater Storytelling Festival.

Friday, we ate lunch at Legends(I think everyone ate lunch there) I enjoyed a plate of fried okra, fried shrimp, and Jack Danial's apples. 

Saturday, my friend and I shared a bowl of white cheese dip and chicken and steak feta for lunch. We topped it off with a cup of their complimentary ice cream.

On Friday and Saturday, we enjoyed listening to the following entertainers
Josh Goforth, Bill Lepp, Donald Davis, Dolores Hydock, and Dr. Eric Kirkman.
Josh Goforth is a multi-talented storyteller who uses a variety of stringed instruments for his ballads and stories.
His stories included friends and relatives, many about his tobacco chewing, never taking the shortcut to hard work grand-paw.
Bill Lepp's believe it or not Paul Bunyon tall tales!
Donald Davis's school days growing up and his jokester father.
Dolores's stories included a white cat, (Huck) a black cat, a speckled cat, and a one-eyed cat and the lessons she learned from them.
Audry Williams her side of the story of fame.
Dr. Eric Kirkman sings and uses musical instruments to tell the African American influence on American music.

Thursday Pop-up Shows 

Cypress Lake Golf & Tennis Club Dolores Hydock told stories about Dishing the Dirt from the Garden and we were served ham, sausage biscuits, fruit, pastries, muffins, orange juice, coffee, and water. There were door prizes.

Florence Library Josh Goforth played the guitar, a banjo, and fiddle, sang ballads, & told stories about life in Madison Couty North Carolina.

The storytelling festival has come to a bittersweet end and cannot wait until next year.

2014, Wednesday, May 15, Workshop Florence Library with Bill Huddleson UNA Front Porch Storytelling Festival

12:30-3:30PM

I attended a workshop with Bill at the Florence Library. Bill said, I am not Dolores and he was right he was not, but that did not mean he was not good.  

He used a different approach to storytelling and he made it fun. 

We broke up into several groups and did several different activities.

One activity was” Making the Right Move.”

This was an activity that involved two people A & B. 

The next activity including doing the following singing, mimicking, reading looking at one another, reading standing back to back, reading while sitting, reading while standing, we whispered the words, and we lip read the following:

Dropkick me sweet Jesus over the goalpost of life!

All my ex-s live in Texas so I live in Tennessee!

It’s been so lonesome in the saddle since my horse died!

Another activity we were given was to read a story and re-tale it to our partner.

King Solomon and Fate was the story that I had to re-tale to my partner. The moral of my story was when death looks you in the face; no matter how hard you try, you cannot outrun your fate. 

The story my partner re-told was about a bird and a Turtle.

The bird and the turtle needed to go east for the winter but the turtle could not fly so, the bird said, I will help you but you must not let go of the stick. 

When the two animals were in the air flying, they looked down at their friends and the turtle thought I am flying! 

So, the turtle lets go, to tell his friend goodbye, and when the turtle lets go, he fell to the ground. 

The moral of this story is you cannot fly without wings!!!!!!

We were told to tell a story about growing up.

We split into a large group and re-told our story to everyone in our group.

One woman told me about growing up and going to a one-room school, about not getting her favorite teacher until the third grade. 

Another told about growing up in Canada, how cold it was, and her father was a Canadian Soldier. 

Another woman told me about family ties. How some of the relatives had moved up north to work, but always came home for family gatherings. 

She told a story about a young couple who were expecting their first child and it died shortly after birth. 

Her relatives did not have the money to come home but came home anyway. They packed as many as possible into their small car and drove all the way home just, to find that the infant had already been buried.

I had fun and was given a certificate of attendance. Those three hours went by fast and I would love to do it again.