Back in the 1980s, when I was telling stories in the Cope Crest Conference Center in Tiger, Georgia, I heard about Eliott Wigginton, who was teaching English in the Rayburn County school system.

The Western Carolina University Mountain Heritage Center will present “Echoes Across the Smokies: A Night of Bluegrass, Ballads, and Tall Tales” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, at WCU’s Bardo Arts Center in Cullowhee. 

In a book written in a first-person, vulnerable and intimately entertaining narrative oral storytelling voice, Ken Smith takes us through his entire life — of youthful globe-trotting adventure and hardship, to an eventual life of self-sufficiency and spiritual awareness in Scotland.

Sometimes life seems too short to read every novel and author on your list. Oftentimes, I tend towards classics and literature. After all, you only live once so why would I not go straight to the greats?

As part of the “Pigeon Community Conversations with Storytellers Series,” Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8, at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center, located at 450 Pigeon St. in Waynesville. 

As part of the “Pigeon Community Conversations with Storytellers Series,” Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle will speak at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8, at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center, located at 450 Pigeon St. in Waynesville. 

Folkmoot USA is pleased to present “An African Cultural Experience,” which will feature Percussion Discussion Afrika and Chinobay at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 13, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville. 

The Cherokee Bonfire & Storytelling will be held from 7-9 p.m. Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays through Oct. 31 at the Oconaluftee Islands Park in Cherokee. 

As part of the “Pigeon Community Conversations with Storytellers Series,” author Ann Miller Woodford will interpret the legacy and culture of Western North Carolina’s African Americans at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 9, at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center, located at 450 Pigeon Street in Waynesville. 

Stories abound in these here mountains, almost as countless as the towering trees that cloak those familiar slopes. But beneath the canopy, if you look close enough and listen hard, there’s a whole other crop of them that rarely see the light of day.