Event Spotlight: 29th Annual Storytelling Festival

“Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller, waiting to be released.” ― Robin Moore

This year, Weber State hosted its 29th Annual Storytelling Festival. That is 29 years of storytelling, stories, and storytellers at Weber State campus—twenty-nine years of inspiration, excitement, and collaboration across school districts, Utah, and even the U.S.

This year the theme of the festival was Promoting Literacy through the Art of Storytelling. We were delighted to host and feature four national storytellers: Bil Lepp, Lyn Ford, Kim Weitkamp and Antonio Sacre. In addition to many regional storytellers, we also had 81 youth tellers from Weber, Ogden, Morgan, Davis and Salt Lake City school districts. We were also pleased to feature Darren Perry, former chair of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation at our Storytelling Symposium on the second day of the festival. The festival took place at the Student Union at Weber State campus over a period of three days from February 24 to 26, 2025.

Visit the Fox 13 website for their interview with Sam Payne, Weber State University's storytelling Fellow.

How to become one of the youth storytellers in 2026

The above-mentioned school districts will have district storytelling festivals in January 2026 to help youth qualify for the 2026 Weber Storytelling Festival, which will be held from March 9 to 12, 2026. If you or your child are interested, please talk to your school and sign up! We would love to have you join us next year for our jubilee 30th Annual Storytelling Festival at Weber State!