Professional storyteller and UW-Eau Claire senior lecturer Rob Reid has organized and will emcee the University’s upcoming storytelling festival. This year, the festival is part of UWEC’s centennial celebrations.

Rob Reid is a local legend for his efforts with children’s literacy and storytelling, his work as a senior lecturer at UW-Eau Claire, and his many books and articles (including contributions to Volume One).

Reid often says, “Storytelling is the oldest art form.” I remember him saying this back when I was an undergraduate student in his Literature for Adolescents class at the university.

With UW-Eau Claire’s centennial approaching, Reid’s strong belief in storytelling led him to propose the idea of the College of Education and Human Sciences participating in the celebration in part through a storytelling festival.

Though the event has been on a brief hiatus, the college has previously  held storytelling festivals with professional storytellers. With the festival resurrected for the centennial and hopefully beyond, Reid says, “Instead of professional storytellers, I’ve asked 12 storytellers who have a connection with the university. All 12 are current or former students, faculty, and staff. I have three current UWEC students who have done exceptional storytelling in the past, and I have some former students. And some of my colleagues on campus.”

The storytellers include Chancellor James Schmidt; UWEC alumni Catherine Emmanuel of the Eau Claire City Council, Mike Paulus of Volume One Magazine, and Psia Mou and Khoua Vang of the Eau Claire school district; faculty members Eric Torres (Education Studies) and Kristin Rossi (Special Education); professor emeritus August Rubrecht (English); and current students Mai Lee Kha, Kayla Patterson, and Sergei Raspel. Carmen Manning, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences, will welcome the crowd. The band Pit Wagon (Matt Vold, Matthew Mabis, Emily Jensen, Matthew Haapala, and Josh Ingersoll) which includes three College of Education and Human Sciences alumni (Mabis, Jensen, and Ingersoll) will play before the festival and during intermission.

The festival is targeted mostly at adults, but mature kids and young adults can also attend.

“Some of the stories are going to be kind of in the style of Moth Radio, where people tell real-life stories about themselves, and some of them are going to be from folklore tradition,” Reid said. “I’m really happy we have three Hmong storytellers with Hmong folktales, and Dr. Torres is doing a Peruvian folktale.”

Reid himself will act as emcee and will introduce all the storytellers.

“Even if we don’t all think of ourselves as storytellers, we are all storytellers,” Reid says. “We all share our experiences with others and learn from others through their stories. We are about the wide world and diversity, so we tie that in as well. When we express ourselves through stories and when we hear other people’s stories, we learn more about ourselves, and we learn more about them.”

UW-Eau Claire Storytelling Festival is free and open to the entire community and will be Friday, Sept. 16, at 7pm in the Dakota Ballroom of Davies Center on the UW-Eau Claire campus. The doors will open at 6:30pm for the music of Pit Wagon.