WinCity turns out for storytelling

Joyce Morton killed it. There’s no question. 

In a night packed with fun, infor­ma­tive, enter­tain­ing, humor­ous, and chal­leng­ing sto­ry­tellers, Joyce man­aged to do all of those things with one mas­ter­ful sto­ry. Opening her piece, “Where’s my GPS?” with a light, self-dep­re­cat­ing sto­ry of her strug­gles with being direc­tion­al­ly chal­lenged, she soon piv­ot­ed to the sto­ry of Winchester native and for­mer enslaved per­son, Peter Bruner. Her spell­bind­ing and emo­tion-packed nar­ra­tive of Peter’s self-described “adven­ture” from a boy born into slav­ery under the whip of his own father to a free man rais­ing a fam­i­ly in Oxford, Ohio held the 100 or so audi­ence mem­bers enrap­tured for the dura­tion of her talk. 

Seven oth­er sto­ry­tellers, all Clark Countians, spun yarns of trav­el adven­tures, child­hood mem­o­ries, his­tor­i­cal sketch­es, per­son­al nar­ra­tives, and humor­ous tales. Erin Smith not only spoke but per­formed with cre­ative move­ment her sto­ry about a cre­ation myth that had every­one on the edge of their seats. 

The mas­ter of cer­e­monies for the event was the well-known Winchester man-about-town Brett Cheuvront, who kept the audi­ence engaged and entertained. 

Other sto­ry­tellers includ­ed Jeff Brandt, Ron Kibbey, Mike Caldwell, Pete Koutoulas, Harry Enoch, and Chuck Witt. Turns out, in addi­tion to his oth­er tal­ents, Chuck is a fun­ny guy!

Lashana Harney, a mem­ber of the advi­so­ry board of the event sponsor,WinCity Media, explained the rea­son for a sto­ry­telling event at this time. 

“Everyone has a sto­ry. And at our core, humans are sto­ry­tellers. Since the begin­ning of time, we have told sto­ries. It start­ed with the spo­ken word and with art — think of ora­tors and oral tra­di­tion as well as the first cave draw­ings. Over time, we start­ed telling sto­ries in oth­er ways — through the writ­ten word, through dance, through per­for­mance, and through music. Stories have a trans­for­ma­tive pow­er to allow us to see the world in a dif­fer­ent way than we do if we just encounter it on our own. 

“And while we are main­ly focus­ing on oral sto­ry­telling as well as art at this event, as an orga­ni­za­tion, WinCity Media cel­e­brates sto­ry­telling in all its forms, and this is one way to show our appre­ci­a­tion for the art of storytelling.”

Besides oral sto­ry­telling, there were visu­al sto­ries on dis­play, with works from local artists. And music. And food! 

Artists with work on dis­play includ­ed Mischelle Hodgkin, SueZ Q Early, Nancy Gift, Adra Fisher, Lisa Johns, Chuck Witt, and Wes Moody. Music was pro­vid­ed by Ben Brown. 

And at the end, all of the WinCity Media board mem­bers gath­ered on stage to reveal our new brand­ing, includ­ing our name, logo, vision state­ment, and core values. 

All in all, it was a fine way to enjoy a mild October evening in down­town Winchester.