As an immigrant, I believe deeply that multiculturalism is not a threat to American identity, it is one of its foundational values, and one of its greatest strengths. The story of this nation is bigger than any one of us. There is beauty in every lived experience, if we take the time to listen.
That responsibility, to nurture listening, belonging, and shared meaning, is something I carry with me as a public folklorist, artist, peacebuilder and cultural narrative practitioner. It shapes how I move through the world, and how I approach Storytelling: Gift of Hope.

​Whether building bridges across difference, curating new storytelling festivals, facilitating intimate story circles, or designing spaces for large-scale community festivals and dialogues, I have witnessed people, young and old, come alive through story. I have seen agency and voices strengthen, courage and curiosity grow. I’ve watched people recognize themselves as part of something larger and feel newly empowered to shape change.
This work is sacred to me.

​At the beginning of this year, I returned to my Telling Stories That Matter toolkit, revamping it, expanding it, adding new projects, and tools. But more importantly, I returned with new questions: ​

• What stories matter now?
• How can communities cultivate stories that help them meet this moment?
• What kinds of narrative practices can support justice, resilience, and care?

Those questions guided much of the year that followed.

In late 2024, Hurricane Helene deeply impacted our region in Appalachia. In the immediate aftermath, I wrote this blog reflecting on how the rivers that run through these mountains are powerful, and how our stories, when cultivated with care, are powerful too.

I accepted an invitation to serve as a Task Force Strategy Advisor for the Neighbor-to-Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund at the East Tennessee Foundation. Together, we worked to build trust-based strategies to distribute $6 million in support of long-term disaster recovery for communities across Appalachia.
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I was also invited to keynote and lead a community dialogue for Dogwood Health Trust’s annual convening in Asheville, supporting more than 450 nonprofits and community groups across 16 counties in Western North Carolina and the Qualla Boundary. There, I spoke about storytelling as a practice and five guiding ideas on cultivating stories for hope and healing.

I was also invited to keynote Stories That Ground Us: Building Resilience Through Memory, Place, and Imagination at the inaugural symposium of the Institute for Climate and Community Resilience at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Alongside climate scientists, ecologists, artists, funders, policy experts, and community organizations, we explored how strengthening Appalachian climate science must also mean strengthening community wisdom, cultural memory, and imagination.

Closer to home, my poet friend Jasmine Henderson and I rekindled We the Poets as part of a local arts, stories, and music collaboration with local non-profit, the Philosopher’s Tea House. We were honored to both perform and also emcee the gathering, in an effort to continue building awareness around long-term healing and recovery and support the social impact groups doing this quiet, necessary work.

This year also brought moments of deep gratitude and responsibility.

I had the honor of offering the opening keynote, Stories That Sustain, and designing a new America-250 storytelling and narrative change training for 80 national disability justice practitioners, parents, and special education advocates. Reflecting on Judith Heumann and the disability rights movement she helped spark more than 50 years ago, we explored how even moments of turmoil and challenge can be transformed into opportunity. By fostering a culture of listening, we nurture a culture of belonging and full inclusion.

I am deeply grateful to the PEAK Parent Center and Idaho Parents Unlimited for trusting me to lead that work and to fellow presenter, Melissa Akie Wiley, whose research on social rejection offered a powerful storytelling companion lens throughout the two-day gathering. 

While in Sacramento, I joined my dear friend Lorena Rodríguez and her Chicha Festival collective to harvest Colombian corn for a community chicha. Together, we co-led a sacred story circle near César Chávez Plaza, drawing from our ancestral traditions and the voices of others. We closed in song, prayer, and gratitude at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers.

In Calgary, Canada, while world leaders gathered nearby for the G7, sixteen Rotary Peace Fellows from sixteen different nations came together simply as ourselves. We shared stories, rituals, poems, laughter, grief, and questions about what peace really means: globally, personally and in our work together.
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We were welcomed by Indigenous Elders who shared the stories of the land. We walked by a glacial lake, rode a gondola up a 10,000-foot mountain, and closed with a cacao ceremony led by one of our own. None of us lead big nations. But we are leaders in our own ways, through conversation, care, and the stubborn choice to keep hope alive.

Over the summer, I returned to Washington, D.C. as a participant partner in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, themed Youth and the Future of Culture. From Indigenous skate art and lowrider culture to foodways, graffiti jams, native language reclamation, and traditional building trades, the festival explored how young people aren’t just inheriting tradition, they are reimagining it.

I had the joy of facilitating Storytelling Across Generations alongside Appalachian storytellers Malcolm and Hasan Davis, Mama Deborah Pierce Fukunle, David Fukunle, Jada Anderson, and Maryland Youth Poet Laureate Chelsea Zhu and her mentor Patrick. Chelsea told me it was her first panel discussion ever, and then she absolutely owned the National Mall on the Fourth of July!

Later that evening, over dinner with some lowrider artists from California, we joked: What if lowriders welcomed the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2028? Weeks later, one of them emailed to say conversations had begun with an official Olympic committee. That’s how imagination works, casually, relationally, and then suddenly… seriously.

Amid all of this, I also snuck in a family trip to New York City. My first time bringing my own family since my parents took me there when I was twelve. One highlight was seeing Jack Whitten’s Messenger exhibition at MoMA.

Whitten’s work is incredible, moving, personal, and highly relevant to what’s happening in our world today, and includes multiple works that explore art created out of turmoil, social unrest, and struggle. My wife (a visual artist) and I talked deeply about the work, its history, and its urgency. But what stayed with me most was watching our nine-year-old daughter encounter the art in her own way.
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Our daughter is a dancer who loves to play, loves nature, loves ideas and colors, and also cares deeply about the world. I imagined what she experienced through her eyes.

I also just love that the painting mirrored her outfit.

Later that day, we found ourselves watching her dance freely on a subway platform, as if she were carrying the art and the museum back out into the world.

If you ever get a chance to see the work of living artist Jack Whitten. It comes highly recommended from all three of us (a visual artist, a storyteller, and a dancer!)

When I asked our daughter what she thought of New York City, she said she loved it, but couldn’t understand why people don’t drink sweet tea. Our daughter is Southern!

One of the greatest honors of this year was being selected as the inaugural recipient of the Arts & Culture Alliance’s Community Artist Grant for Gather ’Round the Table – Stories of Marshalltown.

I had never been to Marshalltown before. On paper, it is a town of 27,000 in central Iowa. In practice, it feels like an international community, shaped by migration, labor, faith, and resilience. More than 60 languages are spoken in its schools. A town that was recently featured in this New York Times article

From May to November, I served as a socially engaged storytelling artist, spending time and facilitating storytelling in schools, libraries, social service projects, cafés, neighborhoods, and the Iowa Veterans Home. I asked people not how they wanted to participate, but how they wanted to help shape the work.

That question changed everything.

What emerged was a shared longing to be a fully inclusive community of welcome. That longing came alive through kitchen-table conversations, front-porch storytelling, school visits, immigrant justice potlucks, intergenerational sunset walks, and a culminating live storytelling evening, reaching more than 800 direct participants. While I am still writing up that experience, as a case study for my toolkit and other publications, I offer an overview of the project. A docuseries of the project will also be coming out soon.
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I believe deeply in the wisdom of rural and small towns. Gather ’Round the Table reaffirmed that when people are invited to imagine and speak from lived experience, storytelling becomes a powerful form of civic care.

This year also asked me to steward and help shape creative initiatives across fields, institutions, and movements.

I served as Storyteller in Residence for the Appalachia Funders Network, where I led Stories from the Front Porch, a series of civic imagining plenaries and community conversations with more than 150 funders, practitioners, artists, and changemakers from across Appalachia and beyond. I was also invited to lead the Stories That Shape Us plenary at the Appalachian Big Ideas Festival, continuing a regional conversation about imagination, power, and belonging.

Alongside this, I led a series of Creative Consultancies, exploring how public narratives contribute to democracy through arts, culture, civic-minded citizenship, and a deeper sense of belonging. Some of this work will continue into the new year and feels increasingly relevant in the moment we are in.
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I was invited to serve as a discussant for The Power of Dialogue to Build Community as part of International Development Week, hosted by the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation in partnership with Canada. I also had the honor of serving as a South Arts Cultural Advisor for Walking Together, a national philanthropy initiative funded by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, supporting cultural vitality investments across all 56 U.S. states and jurisdictions; and providing advisory input to New Pluralists Collaborative Breakthrough Fund, a multi-million-dollar effort focused on strengthening trust, belonging, and cooperation in communities across the country.

This year, I continued my service on the Board of the American Folklore Society, helping host its 137th annual meeting in Atlanta, where nearly 900 folklorists, cultural workers, and scholars gathered around the theme of restoring and restorying. As one of the nation’s oldest cultural organizations, it is an honor to help steward this work, and I’m especially excited that our 138th annual meeting will be held in Asheville in 2026, much closer to home.

I was invited by my colleague Dr. Benjamin Gatling to author Chapter One, “The Transformative Power of Storytelling – A Social Force for Social Change,” adapted from my Botkin Lecture at the Library of Congress. The chapter offers practical, everyday ways storytelling can foster dialogue, pluralism, and civic imagination. As a whole, Migration Stories: Connecting Activism, Policy, and Scholarship offers actionable ideas for how ethical storytelling can be used in everyday life, community dialogue, and cross-sector work to foster a more pluralistic society. Now available via the University of Illinois Press (with Oxford University Press/Oxford Academic). I was also deeply moved to learn that my 2016 lecture, The Transformative Power of Storytelling, has now been digitized and made publicly available as part of the American Folklife Center’s Library of Congress Botkin Lecture archive.

At the invitation of my colleague Dr. Susan Hartley, I had the honor of contributing a Storytelling: A Gift of Hope reflection to Global Voices for Peace, a powerful anthology that brings together more than 100 peacebuilders from over 50 nations to explore what peacebuilding looks like in practice across the world. This collection offers hopeful, grounded reflections that deepen conscious discourse on peace while inviting individual and collective participation in the peace process. The anthology traces the intersections of peace and conflict with urgent global realities, including climate and environmental crises, food insecurity, inequality, gender justice, migration, sport, colonialism, health, and mental health. Proceeds from Global Voices for Peace support Right to Learn Afghanistan, advancing education for Afghan women and girls, and the Rotary Peace Fellows Alumni Association, which works to mobilize a global network of more than 1,700 peace fellows in the ongoing promotion of peace worldwide.
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And finally, I was honored to contribute Every Meal is a Story- Haldi, Lune, Mirch, Masala to PeaceMeal—an anthology of culinary stories from 40 global peacebuilders, nourishing hope through food, memory, and resilient peacebuilding in times of conflict. Edited by my Australian friend, Dr. Tania Miletic, this book is a reminder that in times like these, when conflict and division weigh heavily, one of the simplest and most powerful acts we can do is share a meal, to break bread, and know that every meal is a story. Since food, like peace, is meant to be shared.

As we move into a year when this nation formally marks its 250th anniversary, I’m holding this truth close: America is a story in progress. As a 15-year immigrant to this country and since becoming a new American in 2023, I truly believe it is an experiment that holds real potential, if we are willing to listen, reckon, and imagine together. As such, I’m also deeply honored to be a recipient of the Waymakers Appalachian Futurism Liberation Fellowship, a regional BIPOC + LGBTQI+ + Working Class intersectional solidarity project rooted in the place I call home.

In 2026, I’ll be stepping into a year-long, in-depth multi-city storytelling collaboration exploring how communities across our nation are creating meaning and truth around America 250. Shaped by place and culture, and what civic identity, truth-telling, and shared stories can make possible.  I’m excited to be collaborating on this project, not just to reflect on stories of the past, but to help us explore the story of our future potential.

I’ll be on the road a lot this year, especially with the latter project, so I hope to connect with friends and colleagues along the way.

And there is more to come.

For now, I remain grateful for the stories shared with me, for the people who trusted me to listen, and for all those who hold the belief that storytelling, practiced with care, can still help us meet this moment.
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With gratitude and hope,
​
Kiran

Past Newsletters: 
February 2025. 
October 2024

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A really beautiful documentary about my friend Daniel Kish was recently released by The New Yorker. I watched it with a full heart.

Daniel and I caught up on the phone recently. He’s in California and I’m in Tennessee. We’ve known each other for years, but like many friendships, ours deepened during the pandemic. We became weekly ritual FaceTime buddies, sipping whisky and having long, wandering conversations, the kind of curious talk that helps you make sense of the world when the world itself feels somewhat unsteady. We spoke about life, storytelling, how we mentor and teach, peacebuilding, and many more shared interests and ideas. Daniel has been, and continues to be, a big influence in my life.

Many people know Daniel as the world’s leading specialist in human echolocation, the ability to create soundscapes to perceive and navigate the world, much like a bat. Through clicks of the tongue and attentive listening, Daniel and those he teaches learn to read space, distance, texture, and movement. What looks impossible to most of us becomes not only possible, but deeply freeing.

For years, Daniel has worked with people, particularly blind and visually impaired people, to help remove fear of the dark. He’s also trained marines and travelled the world over sharing what he knows with all different kinds of communities.  He does this not by denying risk or difficulty, but by cultivating deep listening, trust in one’s own perception, and an intimate relationship with the unknown.

Over time, Daniel and I have found ourselves returning to a question. If humans can literally learn to navigate darkness, learn to remove fear, what might that teach us, metaphorically, about how society could face its fear of the unknown?

What would it mean for our communities, cultures, and institutions to listen more carefully? and what would that do to help imagine possibilities, together. To move through uncertainty not with panic or paralysis, but with curiosity, imagination, and care?

Daniel once wrote:
“We essentially remove fear from ourselves and our lives. Life then becomes an intriguing tapestry of puzzles, adventures, and discoveries.”
He has also described echolocation as “establishing the knowns within the unknowns, something like navigating by the stars.” You don’t need to see everything at once. You chart your way by listening, by noticing patterns, by creating reference points as you go. In his words, it’s “a bit like making it into a story.”

That framing idea, making it into a story, is where Daniel’s work and my own storytelling practice most clearly connect. (Daniel is also a brilliant storyteller, singer, and artist). Stories don’t eliminate uncertainty. They help us move through it. They give us bearings. They allow us to imagine beyond the present moment, to glimpse into futures that aren’t yet visible, or even fully real, but are still possible.

A few years back, Daniel came to stay with me for a week. We hiked on the Appalachian Trail. He met my friends and family. We ate local BBQ. We talked late into the night, about listening, about trust, about what it means to be human in a world that can feel fragmented and afraid.
I wrote about that time, and some of what Daniel taught me, here: The Art of Deep Listening

Watching The New Yorker documentary brought all of this back. Daniel himself told me he appreciated what they created, and I do too. The film captures not only the extraordinary nature of his work, but also the care, generosity, and love he brings to it, and into the world.

​At a time when so much of our collective life is shaped by fear, fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of one another, fear of futures we don’t yet understand, I find Daniel’s work deeply poignant. It reminds us that the answer isn’t to harden ourselves or build a tough exterior of so-called “resilience,” but to listen more closely. To build new ways of sensing the world together. And to trust that step by step, we can navigate what lies ahead.

I hope you’ll watch the documentary and spend time with Daniel’s work. I hope it offers you, as it continues to offer me, a sense of inspiration and a reminder that even in dark times, there are ways we can imagine, personally and collectively, how to move forward together.
 
I keep returning to it as a reminder that fear doesn’t have to be the thing that defines our next steps. With care, curiosity, and deep listening, even the dark can become a place of discovery.
 
That feels like something worth holding onto right now.
 
Watch the New Yorker documentary here:

Kiran Singh Sirah
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This blog is part of Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, a curated initiative and blog series that explores the art of storytelling and its tremendous power to transform how we see ourselves and each other, not just despite our differences, but because of them. ​

The Arts & Culture Alliance identified Building Bridges as the guiding theme for the Community Artist Grant, one of five priorities outlined in Marshalltown’s Arts & Culture Master Plan. The Alliance articulated this theme as:

• Authentically connecting different communities
• Building infrastructure for access to neighborhoods and assets
• Bridging past, present, and future
• Restoring trust between individuals, communities, and organizations
• Creating pathways toward economic sustainability
• Connecting people to causes they care about

This framework aligned deeply with my own work as a cultural narrative storyteller, public folklorist, peacebuilder, and socially engaged artist. Drawing from my research on the aesthetics of home and years of practice using storytelling to foster dialogue and understanding, I approached the residency as a relational process rooted in care, listening, and co-creation.

I believe community members are already storytellers. They carry traditions, personal histories, and cultural practices that often need only to be seen, heard, and validated through public recognition. ACA’s vision offered a clear entry point to explore storytelling as heritage, creative expression, and community vitality.

Over two weeks, the residency included six major public events, along with extensive youth and educational engagement. More than 800 people participated overall.
Core Public Events:

• Storytelling: A Gift of Hope – Iowa Veterans Home (50 attendees)
• Home Is a Story We Tell Together – ACA Main Street Space (80 attendees)
• Stories That Shape Us, Stories That Free Us – Mowry Irvine Mansion (35 attendees)
• Every Meal Is a Story – Immigrant Allies 15th Anniversary Potluck (150 attendees)
• One Home, Many Stories – Intergenerational Sunset Walk with YMCA–YWCA (25 attendees)
• Humans of Marshalltown: Stories Told Live – Culminating Event (100 attendees)

The final event featured five local storytellers representing different sectors of the community. I worked closely with each participant through one-on-one coaching and preparation, hosting the evening as a facilitated, front-porch-style conversation that wove past, present, and future.

Youth, Education & Media Engagement
Additional engagements included:

• Marshalltown High School assembly (300 students)
• Writing workshops with 10th graders (25 students)
• Library “Learn Over Lunch” sessions (35 attendees)
• Rotary Club presentation (30 attendees)
• Interactive Story Wall exhibit (100+ contributors)
• Local radio and newspaper coverage

As arts leaders, visionaries, and advocates, we are trained to celebrate the "wins." We post about the prestigious grants, the sold-out events, and the major awards. We draft press releases for the achievements that validate our hard work. But there is a quiet, collective reluctance to talk about the projects that didn't go as planned, the applications that were rejected, or the ideas that seemingly backfired.

There is still a lingering taboo around failure. However, when I reflect on the most significant milestones of my career, I realize that what we often label as "rejection" is actually a vital opportunity to refine our vision.

In my experience, some of the most successful projects, including an award-winning digital media initiative and a major partnership with a regional hospital, didn't start with a "yes." They began as unsuccessful grant proposals. Those initial rejections weren't dead ends; they were catalysts. They forced us to sharpen our ideas, ask harder questions, and eventually execute a much stronger version of the original concept. This dynamic isn't just professional; it’s personal. Years ago, after receiving my first green card to the United States at 19, I was forced to return to the UK due to my mother’s sudden passing. At the time, it felt like a crushing professional setback on top of a personal tragedy. But that "failure" of timing led to a second chance later in life, one I was far better prepared to handle.

Similarly, my first application to a major international fellowship was rejected. But that "no" opened a dialogue. The feedback I received encouraged me to lean into my passion for storytelling and folklore, which ultimately defined my entire career path. "Failure" is often just a signal that we are on the right track, but we still have a little more work to do.

Whether you are leading an arts organization, a community initiative, or a personal passion project, taking the "long view" is essential. In the heat of a crisis or a budget shortfall, setbacks feel urgent and terminal. But when we look back, we often see that our most challenging periods were actually times of intense personal growth and the forging of lifelong connections.

Being vulnerable about these setbacks is just as important as celebrating the wins. It helps us feel less alone and reveals that "wins" and "losses" are simply two different parts of the same creative process.

Recently, I led a team through a grueling three-stage application process for a grant from a major national foundation. We made it to the final round, an incredible feat, and then, we didn’t get it.

I won't lie, it was a disappointment. But as the dust settled, the perspective shifted. Being considered in the final round was a massive validation of our shared mission. That "failed" application led to an invitation to present work directly to the foundation’s senior leadership. We were able to go deeper than the pages of an application, sharing decades of experience in cultural preservation and storytelling.

We would never have had that seat at the table without the "failed" application.

In recent years, we have all had to become more agile, more responsive, and more creative in how we reach our audiences and advocate for our causes. We’ve learned to explore new applications for our work, from healthcare to social justice, often because the "traditional" paths were temporarily closed to us.

By all means, let’s acknowledge our wins. But let’s also be thankful for the setbacks we experience along the way. They almost always help us come back stronger.

Kiran Singh Sirah
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This blog is part of Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, a curated initiative that explores the art of storytelling and its tremendous power to transform how we see ourselves and each other, not just despite our differences, but because of them. 
 

Storytelling is steeped in tradition, which is why many people associate it with the distant past. But I always remind others that stories are just as much about the present and the future. They are powerful tools that help us make sense of what’s happening around us and allow us to envision a better tomorrow.

Stories empower us to move through fear and uncertainty. The simple act of telling—or even listening to—a story creates a little distance between ourselves and our struggles, opening space for reflection and healing.

Too often we think of stories only as polished performances on a stage. But stories also live in the small, everyday moments: the conversations that help us be honest with ourselves and one another. I was reminded of this during a recent conversation with a colleague, a trauma-informed care specialist at the local university. Trauma-informed care takes into account the whole person—their history, context, and lived experience. This perspective feels especially vital in our current moment, when so many are carrying the weight of personal and collective trauma.

Together, we began exploring the idea of trauma-informed storytelling: using the tools of storytelling to help people make sense of difficult situations. Fear of the unknown, after all, can be one of the hardest things to talk about. And yet, through story, even the unspeakable can sometimes find voice.

Not long after, she invited me to speak with her graduate students in social work. We designed the session around a series of prompts the students could later adapt in their own practice.

The first prompt was a simple icebreaker. Trauma often feels overwhelming—more like a dark cloud than a story with a beginning and end. Asking people to tell a complete story right away can be daunting. So I asked the students instead: What have you learned about yourself over the last two weeks?

The answers were small and personal—someone had learned TikTok from their child, another had picked up new cooking skills—but they carried lightness. These brief vignettes showed how even in difficult times, small discoveries can open windows for connection. And they proved a key point: you don’t always need a long or detailed account. Sometimes a snapshot is enough.

The second exercise was to share the story of your name or nickname. My own name, Kiran, means “light from the sun” in Sanskrit. (I was born in the middle of a heat wave.) A simple invitation like this creates effortless opportunities to connect.

Finally, I asked the class to recall a turning point in their lives: What led you to become a social worker? Questions like these can be adapted for anyone—what led you to become a teacher, a parent, an artist? They help us remember who we are, what we value, and the choices that have shaped us. In moments of crisis, these reminders of agency and identity are deeply grounding.

These small storytelling practices can strengthen our relationships with others, but they are also invaluable in professional settings. For social workers, reframing questions can help clients talk about trauma in new ways. Instead of asking someone to recount a crisis directly, you might ask what helped them cope, or what they learned from the experience. This shift can give people a greater sense of ownership over their story.

Life stories aren’t neat or self-contained. They weave together, shift, and take on new meaning as time passes. Even painful experiences shape us, and when we embrace them as part of the whole, we can begin to reframe them in ways that open possibilities. Each day is a chance to retell and reshape the story of who we are becoming.

During a recent session, I reflected on the idea of reframing crisis as a launch pad for transformation. Consider the metaphor of birth: labor is often described as “pain with a purpose.” Though intense and unavoidable, it leads to new life. Could the collective traumas we face now be understood as labor pains for a better world?

In Mandarin, the word for crisis is composed of two characters: one means “danger,” the other “opportunity.” Even in the hardest circumstances, both are present. And imagining what opportunities might emerge is, in itself, an act of storytelling.
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Every story starts somewhere. Sometimes it begins with a small question, sometimes with a difficult memory, sometimes with a name. Wherever it begins, it carries the possibility of becoming something larger. And in these uncertain times, that small, radical act of imagining where our stories might take us may be one of the most powerful tools we have.

Kiran Singh Sirah

This article is part of Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, a curated initiative that explores the art of storytelling and its tremendous power to transform how we see ourselves and each other, not just despite our differences, but because of them.

My dear friend, Jimmy Neil Smith, who was my predecessor and the founder of the International Storytelling Center, passed away this weekend. There are many people who have stories about Jimmy, and I want to encourage folks to read those and continue to share the love that Jimmy gave to the world. However, I want to share my own personal tribute to someone whom I consider a true pioneer, creative genius, and champion for the art of storytelling.

Jimmy Neil Smith retired as president of the International Storytelling Center in 2012 after 40 years of service. When I was hired as president, I stepped into big shoes. In addition to founding the institution, Jimmy Neil was the visionary behind the National Storytelling Festival.

We all have people in our lives who have influenced us, directly or indirectly, including teachers, parents, friends, colleagues, or even strangers we admire. They are the people who have shaped our thinking, passions, and work. Jimmy Neil is someone who has influenced me greatly and whose incredible life and work touched the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people and communities worldwide.

​More than just my predecessor, he was also my friend.

When I arrived in August 2013, Jimmy Neil invited me to breakfast at the Courthouse Diner in Jonesborough. We’re both talkers, so naturally, our breakfast turned into a three-hour-plus conversation—one of many meals and meetings we’ve shared over the years. In addition to our love for the art form, we shared a love for bacon, talking politics, history, and breaking the rules. On a few occasions, I even sneaked in some bacon along with the latest gossip from Tennessee’s oldest town when Jimmy Neil was in the hospital. Of course, the bacon was Jonesborough-made! Sometimes, we’d do our own prayer to storytelling while hanging out at Cracker Barrel.

I’ve had many early-morning conversations over breakfast with Jimmy Neil. When the Courthouse Diner closed, we moved to the Pancake House. You’ll find it right on the corner of Boone Street as you enter downtown Jonesborough. I recall one day, as we were eating, Jimmy Neil looked out the window and described how much Jonesborough had changed over the years. In his early career, there was no traffic and many fewer traffic lights. Jonesborough has thrived, in large part due to his vision and care.

Over the years, I got to know him well. It’s amusing how much we had in common. Many of our staff, who have worked with us both, noted that we shared many characteristics and quirks, including how we both chewed our pens as we’d think up new ideas to put into action. And one time, I showed Jimmy Neil the large sketchbook where I noted my ideas—and he had the exact same notebook for the exact same purpose.

What I loved about Jimmy Neil from the start was that he had the mind of a folklorist. He was always asking questions, always present and curious as he listened. He would ask about my family, the places and experiences that shaped me in childhood. But I soon discovered this was just who Jimmy was with everyone.

When he met my 15-year-old nephew visiting from England, I took him to the Pancake House to meet Jimmy. Jimmy, ever curious, wanted to know everything, including how events had shaped his life and his opinions on world affairs. He was always interested in hearing everyone’s stories.
When I say Jimmy has had an impact on many people, he truly has. That is the legacy of someone who has poured so much heart into developing not only an institution but an idea.

“Think of a big idea and take steps to make it happen.” That’s what he’d say; it was his mantra. And then, in his beautiful Southern drawl, he’d add, “Well, I’m just a country boy with a big dream.” And I’d jokingly reply, “Well, I’m just a city kid, now turned country.” Occasionally, we’d swap hats and try each other’s accents out.

Another fascinating coincidence, we were both admirers of Bill Strickland, a creative genius who advised both the Bush and Obama administrations. Strickland believes that if you create a beautiful place, beautiful things will happen. I remember returning to Jonesborough from a work trip, excited to tell Jimmy about meeting Strickland in Nashville and hearing that philosophy firsthand. Jimmy Neil just smiled and said he had heard Strickland give a similar talk years ago. In fact, that talk was what inspired him to create the International Storytelling Center in the first place, to build a beautiful place where beautiful things could happen.

As we know, ISC and the National Storytelling Festival have brought international acclaim to Jonesborough and the region, elevating storytelling from an everyday folk art into a thriving professional and creative industry across the nation and around the world.

As Jimmy said, “Think of a big idea and take steps to make it happen.” This was the early 1970s when Jonesborough, like many small towns in the South, was struggling and in need of revitalization. It was Jimmy Neil who had the bold idea to give that first humble gathering of storytellers the grand name of the National Storytelling Festival. And, as we all know, that idea grew into its name over time.

But Jimmy also talked about storytelling as a revolution—something that has the power and potential to meet the challenges of the world.
During my tenure leading the International Storytelling Center, these were the ideas I wanted us to keep, evolve, and develop. As we built partnerships with many peacebuilding and humanitarian agencies around the world, I remember those conversations and ideas, much of which was put into research, booklets, papers, and notes that I have read many times, as well as hundreds of conversations with Jimmy Neil, over the years.

And again, you take steps to make that happen. Jimmy did just that. He built on research and projects with the Harvard School of Education, helped put storytelling theory into practice through partnerships with NASA, the United Way, regional healthcare institutions, UNESCO, and the Smithsonian Institution. He helped establish storytelling’s role in education, healthcare, literacy, conflict resolution, international diplomacy, and collaboration.

One of the things that made Jimmy Neil a creative genius, in my eyes, was his dedication to preservation and documentation. Early recordings of the festival that he ensured were recorded now form one of the largest single collections held at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
When I think of Jimmy Neil’s legacy, he will be remembered for developing the art of storytelling in service to the world, as a vehicle to bring people together, champion causes, foster dialogue, and empower individuals. Jimmy believed that if there are 8 billion people on the planet, then there are at least 8 billion stories to make the world a better place.

He may have called himself just a country boy with a big dream, but I can say, without a doubt—that country boy changed the world. And his creative legacy, ideas, and tangible projects, will live on for years, in benefit for generations to come.

I am grateful for everything Jimmy Neil gave to the storytelling, for the movement at large, and for what he gave me personally. But most of all, I will always treasure having the chance to call him my friend. I will be miss him dearly.

Kiran Singh Sirah.
 

For those interested in learning more about Jimmy Neil Smith, I encourage you also to read the tribute story on the International Storytelling Center website, as well as the beautiful obituary written by his family, as well as the many other writings about his work and interests.

 

2025 is complicated. The world is complicated. I always feel like people roll their eyes a little when I say things like, “stories, to build a better world.” And I get it! It’s a lofty idea… sounds impossible. A little daunting, even. But I think it’s important to remember that cultivating stories for hope and change isn’t just a feeling—it’s a practice. It’s a project we can chip away at, a little every day.

As the late storyteller Syd Lieberman once said, “Storytelling isn’t about technique. It’s about being fully human.” And as NEA Heritage Fellow Mama Linda Goss often says, “Storytelling is medicine for the spirit and healing for the soul.”

Storytelling is a true collaboration, a call-and-response tradition rather than a hierarchy. It’s our superpower, and each time we use it, we grow stronger. And behind every story is a desire to love and be loved. If our elected leaders fail to understand this, then we must lead ourselves.
On that note, I am honored to share a labor of love with you all: Telling Stories that Matter: Cultivating Our Stories to Meet This Moment—a storytelling toolkit. Whether you are an educator, peacebuilder, community organizer, student, or an everyday human working to protect democracy and human rights, this toolkit is designed to offer creative methods to explore compassionate storytelling. Use it in conversations with neighbors, friends, and family, or to support the people and causes you love.

My goal has been to make this toolkit less theoretical and more practical—something practitioners can readily use. It incorporates activities like photography, spoken word, and oral history as tools for healing and community-building. I’m also pairing it with my blog, Storytelling: A Gift of Hope.

By understanding the art of storytelling, we can center the stories that have existed on the margins for far too long—while ensuring we also make space for the ones that have yet to be told.

Storytelling: A Gift of Hope, is a curated initiative that explores the art of storytelling and its tremendous power to transform how we see ourselves and each other—not just despite our differences, but because of them. Offerings include story blogs, tools, reflections, podcasts, and ideas, with occasional guest posts from community members, and more. 

I keep thinking about the idea that we’re all just blips in the history of the universe. I pondered it recently, sitting by the bed of a river near my house, watching the flow of the stream that will eventually deposit into the Tennessee River, on to the Ohio River, and ultimately down to the Mississippi. In the beginning it’s just a trickle of water. Each one of us is like the little trickles. 
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Watching the water, I thought about Siddhartha, one of my favorite books. It’s about a young man who goes on a long journey. On his quest for happiness, he meets a merchant and has a relationship with a woman. Then along the journey he meets a fisherman whose job it is to run a ferry that takes people across the river. One night the river current is too swift to cross safely, so the young man sits and talks to the ferryman. The ferryman tells him that all the things he needs to know about life, he can learn by watching the river. The man looks into the river and he sees ripples. The ferryman tells him that the ripples are teachers. Each individual ripple that comes to the surface lasts for just a moment before it vanishes back into the flow. Every life form follows a similar pattern, moment to moment. We’re all part of a continual flow.

My friend, Gwenda Ledbetter, a 93-year-old storyteller from Asheville, has a philosophy that I like about continually paying attention. Every day, she writes a story or a poem and emails it to her entire network. She tells us what’s happening with the Canadian geese that she observes through her condo window. She discusses the change of colors in the leaves in the trees, and the relationships between the animals. She shares reflections. Sometimes she relates the subject to bigger issues like climate change. 

I thought about Gwenda’s emails as I walked alongside the river in the woods near my house. The moss reminds me of the kind I’d see on rocks back in Scotland when I would go for walks. When you see moss attached to rocks or trees, you know the air is good because it can create a surface where moss can grow. I think of a walk I took a couple of years ago in the forest near here, a two-day hike along the Appalachian Trail.  It rained the whole time. Some carried food, while others carried the large tarp for the group’s campfire. It took the entire team working together to make our way. Doug Elliott, a storyteller and expert forager, joined us for part of the hike. He told us stories about the lore of the forest, and stories about the animals and life in Appalachia. At one point, we passed a spot that had been devastated by a forest wildfire. The sides of the trees were blackened. The open space looked like a barren valley, scarred and worn through. But Doug encouraged us to look closer and see even in this very spot, there was life emerging. Nature was renewing itself.
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In Appalachia, we have a tree called the Table Mountain pine. It’s a type of “fire pine,” one of several species that rely in part on fires or the aftermath of fires to propagate. The pine cones are almost glued shut with resin, even after the seeds inside mature. The intense heat of a forest fire can melt the resin, which releases seeds that are then distributed by thermal winds. Other pine species have tough coatings that can lay dormant for years waiting for fire to release their seeds, either through fire itself or a chemical reaction in the soil.
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In nature and in life, the destruction of one thing can mean the growth of another. It’s all ultimately part of the same story if we take the time to observe. Sometimes our moments of greatest struggle can be the memories we cherish most. Like my friend Gwenda Ledbetter and the ferryman in Siddhartha, I’ve been trying to pay attention.