Construction Notice

The Clark Family Branch (formerly Headquarters) is closed for construction. Patrons can visit the Oak Bend Branch during construction.

Featured Storytellers

Jitesh Jaggi smiling and wearing a white shirt with a dark red button down shirt over it

Jitesh Jaggi

Jitesh Jaggi is a two-time Moth StorySLAM winner who believes that by harnessing our personal stories we can communicate effectively across barriers. Having traveled the world Jitesh Jaggi teaches how despite our backgrounds, our fears and hopes are surprisingly common! He is an immigrant storyteller from India, poet and dancer currently living in Chicago.

 

 

Bill Lepp wearing a blue and white hat, dark colored tshirt and he is pointing at the camera with both index finders and thumbs out

Bill Lepp

Bil Lepp is an award-winning storyteller, author, and recording artist. Bil’s humorous, family friendly tall-tales and stories have earned the appreciation of listeners of all ages and from all walks of life. Though a five time champion of the WV Liars’s Contest, Lepp’s stories often contain morsels of truth which present universal themes in clever and witty ways. He is also the recipient of the Vandalia Award, West Virginia’s highest folk honor.

 

 

Rev. Robert B. Jones, Sr. performing on stage at a microphone while playing a silver guitar

Rev. Robert B. Jones, Sr.

For more than 20 years, nationally recognized storyteller, Rev. Robert Jones, has been featured in venues across the country including the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. Whether he's telling stories about growing up in his native Detroit, sharing tales about old blues musicians, or sharing inspirational stories drawn from history, Rev. Robert Jones loves telling stories that reach both the mind and the heart.

 

 

Crom Saunders smiling wearing glasses and a maroon button down dress shirt against red painted walls.

Crom Saunders

Crom is a performer, presenter, writer and teacher. His stories include autobiographical references to pop and deaf culture mixed in with humor. Crom has performed with the ASL Comedy Tour circuit and has performed internationally with his one-man show, “Cromania!”. He has interpreted and translated dozens of plays, from children’s theater to Broadway musicals, and has taught dozens of ASL linguistics and theatrical workshops across the country. 

 

 

Black and white close up of Dovie Thomason smiling.

Dovie Thomason

Award-winning storyteller, Dovie Thomason, a Lakota and Kiowa Apache, utilizes the art form of traditional Native storytelling for the preservation and continuation of Native cultural arts. When Dovie tells stories from her own life and from her people’s experience, the result is a contemporary vision of the rich cultures of the First Nations of North America.

 

 

Charlotte Black Alston smiling with red lipstick and a black top sitting in a room with posters on the wall behind her

Charlotte Blake Alston

Canceled due to health reasons

For over 30 years, Charlotte Blake Alston has graced stages in venues throughout North America and abroad. She is an award-winning storyteller and performer that has performed at venues including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institute and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. In 1991, Charlotte became the first storyteller to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra on both their Family and Student concert series. Thirty seasons later, in 2021 she was named: The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Official Storyteller, Narrator and Host.