Barbara McBride-Smith

Barbara McBride-Smith wears many hats – simultaneously! For more than 40 years, she has worked as a teacher, a school library media specialist, a theological seminary instructor, a writer, and a traveling storyteller. In each of these professions, she has employed storytelling as an integral educational tool and a compelling art form. From the varied places she has lived – from Texas to Massachusetts to New Jersey to Oklahoma and now Tennessee – she has absorbed wit, wisdom, and wonder. She weaves it all into stories and brings them to the stage with humor and poignancy. She credits her skill as a storyteller to her parents, who were natural-born down-home wordsmiths, and to her two deaf sisters, who “communicated with their entire beings.” Barbara is a recipient of both the John Henry Faulk Award for outstanding contributions to storytelling and the Circle of Excellence Award for stage performance. She has headlined 14 times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, and, more importantly, has recently taken up "stream-of-consciousness quilting."