Adam Booth, Appalachian Storyteller, Musician, and Recording Artist, will be delivering our Keynote Address, leading a workshop, and providing an hour-long performance on Friday night entitled “The Heron's Journey.”

Adam Booth is the 2022 West Virginia Folk Artist of the Year, awarded at the Governor’s Arts Awards. His original stories blend traditional mountain folklore, music, and an awareness of contemporary Appalachia. As a nationally touring artist, his professional telling appearances include premiere storytelling events across the United States, including the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the International Storytelling Center, the National Storytelling Festival, the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, the Appalachian Studies Association Conference, the National Storytelling Conference, the National Academy of Medicine, and as a Spoken Word Resident at the Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada). He is a member of the Recording Academy and serves as the inaugural Storyteller-In-Residence at Shepherd University. Also a producer and advocate for storytelling, Adam is founder of the Speak Story Series which is now in its tenth season.

Charlotte Blake Alston, Storyteller, Narrator, and Librettist, will provide a special performance on Sunday. 

For over 30 years, Charlotte Blake Alston has graced stages in venues throughout North America and abroad. Venues are wide and include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Symphony Orchestra Narrations and at regional, national and international Storytelling Festivals. She is a frequent guest artist in universities, grade schools, museums and cultural arts institutions around the country but this former elementary school teacher also presents in Day Care Centers, for Special Needs populations as well as prisons and youth detention centers. 

Ms. Alston has received numerous honors including the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She was selected as Philadelphia Magazine’s “Best of Philly” and was the recipient of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Artist Of The Year Award (The Hazlett Memorial Award), which recognizes individual artists “for excellence in the Commonwealth.” She holds two honorary PhDs and received the Circle of Excellence Award from the National Storytelling Association. She is a recipient of the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the highest award bestowed by the National Association of Black Storytellers. In 2021 she was named the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Official Storyteller, Narrator and Host” marking an association that has spanned over 30 years.