The Woodstock Story Festival returns October 24–26 to Mountain View Studio with three days of myth, memoir, and medicine, bringing together fifteen presenters in celebration of storytelling’s oldest promise: to heal, connect, and renew. As festival founder Peter Blum puts it, “Having always loved hearing and telling stories, it was my great pleasure to produce the first Woodstock Story Festival in 2016. Now, nine years later, we have assembled an extraordinary line-up of raconteurs and tale-spinners for the next go-round. This weekend is a celebration of the timeless magic and healing power of oral storytelling.”
Among the lineup, two figures stand out for their local roots. Sparrow, longtime Chronogram contributor, has spent decades mapping the borderlands of poetry, satire, and song. His writing—both whimsical and piercing—has been a fixture in the magazine and beyond, turning Hudson Valley minutiae into cosmic koans. Live, Sparrow brings that same unpredictability, his storytelling a mix of humor, humility, and sudden depth.
Paul McMahon is, quite simply, a Woodstock legend. His career sprawls across music, visual art, and performance. He’s released many, many albums and exhibited work that now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over the years he has curated, presented, and performed in projects that have become part of Woodstock’s cultural DNA—most famously The Mothership, his long-running experimental art and performance space. At the Story Festival, McMahon brings the eclectic energy of a true town elder whose work has shaped the creative landscape.
They’ll be joined by a constellation of voices: Jim Brule, weaving wisdom and wonder; Matoaka Little Eagle, accompanied by harpist Julia Haines; physician and storyteller Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona with hypnotherapist Shelley Stockwell; Laura Simms, an internationally recognized storyteller; hypnotist Doug O’Brien; and Peter Rogen, among others. Each brings a different tradition—oral, musical, ceremonial, comedic—but all share an understanding of story as a vessel for transformation.
Blum has described story as “the default setting of the brain,” a way of making sense that comes more naturally than meditation. That idea runs through the Festival’s programming: that narrative is not just entertainment, but the way human beings orient themselves in the world.
For a town that has long blurred the line between art, life, and myth, Woodstock is an apt home for a gathering like this. Across the weekend, audiences will find themselves listening, laughing, remembering, and perhaps recognizing in these stories their own. Tickets are available.
