November 5 – 7, 2026
Presented by the Story People of Clallam County at Field Arts & Events Hall in Port Angeles, WA.
The Story People of Clallam County are proud to welcome Andy Offutt Irwin, Megan Wells, Gene Tagaban and Ingrid Nixon to Port Angeles for this 27th Annual Forest Storytelling Festival. These are world-class tellers in the world-class venue of Field Arts and Events Hall in Port Angeles, Washington.
Offered Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon, this festival features:
- Three ensemble AND three solo performances by our renowned featured tellers.
- Pacific Northwest Showcase of skilled tellers representing Pacific Northwest Guilds
- Four workshops to choose from; you can attend two.
- A lunch-time Story Slam Light AND Open Mic
- Opportunities to dine with the featured tellers and other participants
- Networking with like-minded storytellers at our Saturday morning PNW guild open house.
Join us and experience the full goodness of storytelling talent and community in the Pacific Northwest.
Register for a Full Festival Pass to enjoy all events. Or register for specific segments. You can get the full scoop here: https://fieldhallevents.org/forest-storytelling-festival/
Our Tellers
Andy Offutt Irwin
With a Silly Putty® voice, heart-filled humor, and world-class whistling, Andy has been described as Eudora Welty meets the Marx Brothers with a touch of the Southern balladeer.
One of the most sought-after storytellers in the country, he’s best known for the unforgettable adventures of his 85-year-old Aunt Marguerite, a newly minted physician who embraces growth and love in the ever-changing New South.
Andy is a favorite at the National Storytelling Festival and has appeared twenty times as Teller in Residence at the International Storytelling Center. Among other gigs, Andy has been a performer and guest teaching artist at LaGuardia High School of Art, Music, and Performing Arts in New York (The “FAME!” School); he has been a Keynote Speaker/ Performer at the Library of Congress – Viburnum Foundation Conference on Family Literacy. Andy has held a few almost-real-jobs that include: Artist-In-Residence in Theatre at Emory University’s Oxford College from 1991 to 2012. (He continues to serve Oxford annually as Artist-in-Just-Passing-Through). A very long time ago, Andy spent five years as a performer, writer, and director with SAK Theatre at Walt Disney World.
Megan Wells
Megan fell in love with the theater arts at the ripe age of seven. She’s been devoted ever since; gathering a lifetime of plays, stories, teaching, workshops, dance and improv. She is a six-time national award winner, as well as a sought-after coach in both the Theater and Storytelling worlds. Megan is a fulltime Professor of Theater where she runs the theater program at Concordia University Chicago. She has been touring as a storyteller and historical portrayalist for over thirty-five years. Megan loves to encourage others to “jump in” and experience the purposeful joy of the expressive arts. If there is an artform simpler and more effective at community building, Megan hasn’t found it yet! STORIES! YES! www.meganwells.com
Gene Tagaban
Gene Tagaban, “One Crazy Raven” is a teller of stories that teach, entertain and heal. Through oratory, song, dance, movement and transformation Gene tells stories to audiences of all ages nationally and internationally. Gene shares traditional Native American stories as well as stories from his personal experience, family and historical events. He has traveled and worked with urban and rural communities, reservations, villages, schools, universities, youth centers, detention centers, retirement homes, camps, festivals, conferences, organizations, corporations, theater, and film. http://www.storytellingraven.com
Ingrid Nixon, Teller and MC
Ingrid is a retired National Park Service ranger and an award-winning, world-traveling storyteller, who loves to whisk away listeners on journeys of the imagination. Exploration nail-biters, lies, ghost, traditional, personal stories—she tells them all at events and festivals around the country, including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. From Antarctica to the North Pole, Ingrid’s 40+ years of work in expedition tourism has taken her on a magic carpet ride around the planet. Ingrid produces and hosts Story Borealis, the program dedicated to the art of oral storytelling, on NPR’s KBBI Public Radio in Homer, Alaska. She holds a M.A. in Storytelling from East Tennessee State University. Alaska is home. More at www.ingridnixon.com
Register for a Full Festival Pass to enjoy all events. Or register for specific segments. You can get the full scoop here: https://fieldhallevents.org/forest-storytelling-festival/
PLUS! Our Regional Showcase Tellers:
We will feature a showcase of Regional Tellers:
Fireside Storytellers League of Tacoma’s Bonnie Anderson: Bonnie has as been telling stories pretty much all her life. She even got a Girl Scout badge for it in Grade school! Her parents watched the TV show “Hee-Haw” … she heard the barber on there tell fractured fairy tales, and decided to tell Rindercella. She was too young to know it should be hard, so she just did it! She’s been telling stories ever since, to all ages, and in all sorts of situations. Her favorite stories are those that make you think, and those that make you smile. And she firmly believes that the connection between storyteller and listener is MAGIC!
Victoria Storytellers Guild’s Jennifer Ferris: Jennifer has been telling stories beside the Salish Sea and beyond for 35 years. She has performed in schools, at community events, nature sanctuaries and festivals.She has used story to engage and entertain listeners of all ages. Acutely aware of the power of humour and language, she loves to tell personal stories as well as tales of myth, magic and transformation from around the world.
She is as enthusiastic about the work of other storytellers as she is about her own. She gives workshops to adults, children, families, businesses and international students.
Portland Storytellers’ Guild’s Steven Henegar: Mid-westerner, Steven Henegar, celebrates the wonderful variety of stories we use to share our lives. He calls up the everyday and the fantastic to discover feelings and experiences that connect us all. The veteran performer and workshop leader blends the easy conversation of his family’s storytelling with incisive imagery and word play shaped by a decade in the theater. Truth & Lies mined from a long life looking around.
Seattle Storytellers Guild’s Barry McWilliams: Barry has been telling stories since the mid 1980’s with a broad variety of traditional folklore, cultural, trickster, and original tales. He especially likes tales with an unusual twist.
Barry has served on the Seattle Storytellers Guild’s board (including as President from 2016-2022) and has edited In The Wind, SSG’s Quarterly newsletter, for over a decade. He has been the Zoom host of the Guilds online story swaps and monthly StoryFests since 2020. Barry was honored with their Golden Circle certificate in 2022.
Eldrbarry’s Story Telling Page” (eldrbarry.net) has promoted the art of storytelling and the joy of story listening on the internet since 1995. Barry recently served on the National Storytelling Network’s Board representing the Producers and Organizers Special Interest Group for three years. A now retired grocery clerk and part time pastor, Barry and Marianne, his wife of 52 years, reside in Everett, WA.
South Sound Storytelling Guild’s Sandra Niman: Sandra has used storytelling to introduce the periodic table, to entertain giraffes and to explore the mysteries of existence. A retired teacher, she has also been a radio host and the director of a certificate in storytelling program. She has lived and traveled to many lands, collecting tales and searching for meaning from the muddle of memory.
Story People of Clallam County’s Erran Sharpe: Erran has been telling tales for decades. As a long-time member of the Story People, he has served as President and Treasurer and Secretary — sometimes all at the same time! We appreciate his dedication to the craft and the organization.
Register for a Full Festival Pass to enjoy all events. Or register for specific segments. You can get the full scoop here.
Workshops: Grow your storytelling
Workshops are included in the Full Festival Pass or you can purchase specific segments to attend a specific workshop.
On Friday morning, choose between these workshops:
9 – 10:15a: Concurrent Workshops, Sunset Lounge and Theater
Workshop 1:
“Pin the Tail on the Narrative, Sort of Lawn Darts meets Eudora Welty,” with Andy Offutt Irwin
Description: This raucous workshop involves the careless dropping of pens* and carefully guided steps for developing personal narratives, freeing participants to delve into the past and chip away at the unmovable stone of self-doubt to reveal the treasure of new stories.
Each participant will be paired with a partner (a stranger is best). They’ll be guided to create a list of roles they have played throughout their life, beginning in childhood, and continuing on through their high school years, work life, social life, family life, etc.
Three of these roles will be randomly and magically selected and paired with three unavoidable life experiences culled from a list of twenty. Things like Turning Point. Choice. Conflict. Loss. Challenge. Decision… Three pairs will be whittled down, and the most interesting pair will be picked by their partner.
A story will be developed using the four elements of The Hero’s Journey – Quest. Obstacle. Resolution. New wisdom.
Workshop 2:
“Story Dynamics: Connecting with Your Audience,” with Megan Wells
Description: We can know a story in our bones, AND, the magic of delivering that story to an audience requires an extra layer of skills. In this engaging hands-on workshop, Megan will lead you in exercises that will further amplify your audience impact.
On Saturday morning, choose between these workshops:
10:30 – 11:30a: Concurrent Workshops, Sunset Lounge and Theater
Workshop 1:
Storytellers Journey: Our life is a story, with Gene Tagaban
Description: We are the tellers of Personal and Historical stories, Legends or Mythic stories, cultural or tradition stories, but often we have barriers that stop us from telling the story. How do we recognize and move past these barriers in a good way?
Workshop 2:
Vividness, Verve and Vigor: Playing with Words, with Ingrid Nixon
Description: Vivid language, plus verve and vigor in delivery makes for engaging, memorable stories. In this active workshop we’ll explore creative, compelling ways to use language to enliven the tales you tell. Bring a story you are working on and leave with practical ideas you can readily put into play.
Inspired to step up to the microphone to share a story?
Share a story in our Story Slam “Light” on Friday and/or our Story Swap on Saturday. FREE to the public.
Friday: 12:15 – 1:30p: Story Slam “Light” Open Mic, Sunset Lounge Stage
- Teller’s names will be pulled at random for the opportunity to tell a five-minute true, personal story on the theme: “Second Chances”.
- Show up a few minutes before to put your name in the hat.
- We will pull the names of as many tellers as we can until 1:30p.
- There is no judging. (That’s the “light” part.)
Saturday: 12:15 – 1:30p: Open Mic, Sunset Lounge
- Tellers can sign up to tell any kind of story, 8-minute time limit.
Saturday Morning: Storytelling Community Open House
We are so excited to host a Storytelling Community Open House on Saturday morning. This is an opportunity to meet tellers throughout the Pacific Northwest and to find out what the various guilds are up to. Join us for this informal gathering. FREE to the public.
9 – 10:15a: Pacific Northwest Storytelling Community Open House, Sunset Lounge
- All guilds invited to host tables and informal communication about guild happenings, upcoming events, etc.
Register for a Full Festival Pass to enjoy all events. Or register for specific segments. You can get the full scoop here.
