Festival venue is INDOORS with chairs provided and free parking. Tickets on sale NOW. Food available all weekend.
​April 3-4, 2020
Regi Carpenter  *  Lyn Ford  *  Andy Offutt Irwin  *  Tim Lowry

Regi Carpenter

For over twenty years Regi Carpenter has brought songs and stories to audiences of all ages throughout the world in schools, theaters, libraries, festivals, conferences, and in people’s back yards. An award winning performer, Regi has toured her solo shows and workshops in theaters, festivals and schools, nationally and internationally. Regi is the youngest daughter in a family that pulsates with contradictions: religious and raucous, tender but terrible, unfortunate yet irrepressible. These tales celebrate the glorious and gut–wrenching lives of four generations of Carpenters raised on the Saint Lawrence River in Clayton, New York. Tales of underwater tea parties, drowning lessons, and drives to the dump give voice to multi-generations of family life in a small river town with an undercurrent.

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Lyn Ford

• Lyn Ford is a fourth-generation, nationally recognized, Affrilachian* storyteller. She is a teaching artist with the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, and workshop facilitator with both OAAE and the Ohio State-Based Collaborative Initiative of the Kennedy Center. Lyn is also: a Thurber House mentor; a writer, published in storytelling magazines and newsletters; a recording artist with award-winning CDs; a Laughter Yoga Teacher and breath mechanic; a storytelling, creative-writing workshop, and interactive keynote presenter; a happy partner-in-life, mama, grandmama, great-grandmama, and good cook!

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Andy Offutt Irwin

With a silly putty voice, hilarious heart-filled stories, and amazing mouth noises (arguably, the greatest whistler in the world) one-person-showman, Andy Offutt Irwin is equal parts mischievous schoolboy and the Marx Brothers, peppered with a touch of the Southern balladeer.  Andy’s character-filled, one-person shows and storytelling performances center around the adventures of his eighty-five-year-old-widowed-newly-minted-physician-aunt, Marguerite Van Camp, a woman who is keeping her finger on the pulse of the changing world around her as she seeks to grow – even at her advanced age – in these United States and the New South. Every show includes original songs, and of course, whistling.

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​Tim Lowry

Tim Lowry, aka "Sweet Tea Commentator" writes, "A well-told story is the pure cane sugar in the Sweet Tea of Life." Tim serves up a refreshing brew of historic facts, regional folk tales, and personal narratives garnished with poetic language that is never saccharine but unmistakably Southern. Tim Lowry is too irreverent for church and not nasty enough for a night club, so here he is at our Sounds of the Mountains Festival! 

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Our festival is held at Camp Bethel (in Fincastle) located in Virginia's Blue Ridge. The Jefferson National Forest adjoins our 470 acres of forests, streams, open meadows, and hiking trails. Conveniently located 5 miles off I-81 at exit 156, 10 miles north of Roanoke, we offer a beautiful spring setting for a storytelling festival.  Driving directions here.

FOOD: Snacks and drinks (sodas/water, coffee) available all weekend. Friday night hot soups and fresh salads available. Saturday’s fare includes homemade soups, chili, with vegetarian options and gluten-free snacks too! Food trucks and other food vendors for Saturday lunch and dinner.

Our festival is a fundraiser for the outdoor ministries of Camp Bethel, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  Sponsorships are tax-deductible.

Save the Dates: April 3-4, 2020; April 16-17, 2021