Story Fest 26 puts community out front
With its third-annual festival landing at Theatre Project May 1-3, Baltimore Story Fest’s 2026 incarnation offers a new twist on their usual routine. Rather than simply showcase the finished work of accomplished local storytellers, Creative Director Phill Branch has decided to open up the process and the results directly to the community at large. The entrance fee this year doesn’t just get you a seat as audience; instead, it provides full and truly hands-on access to a weekend of storytelling workshops.
Whether you’re interested in pursuing personal narrative, longer memoir, or some other facet of story-shaping; whether you want to focus on the writing craft on the page or try your hand at stepping up to the mic, under the lights, to share your story aloud with a crowd, the workshops will aim to offer something for anyone at any experience level or point of entry.
This year’s festival expands into a three-day writing and storytelling intensive designed to take participants from memory to manuscript to performance, aiming to get your thoughts on the page and from the page up onto the stage. Branch, whose own debut memoir The Double Dutch Fuss (HarperCollins/Amistad) launches in June, brings his expertise as The Moth GrandSLAM Champion to help participants through the full arc of personal narrative craft—from mining lived experience to shaping compelling essays to performing with power on stage.
“People kept asking how the stories are conceived and then executed,” says Story Fest’s founder Branch, who will also curate and direct the festival. “This felt like a natural next step. A way to open that process up and invite people into it.”
With options to join for anything from a single day up to the full weekend, the workshop structure looks like this:
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Friday, May 1 @ 7:30pm: Writing the Personal Narrative — mining memory, finding emotional entry points, developing authentic voice
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Saturday, May 2 @ 7:30pm: Craft & Structure — scene-building, pacing, revision as creative practice
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Sunday, May 3 @ 3:00pm: From Page to Stage — translating written work into live storytelling and finished written work
Participants will leave with the foundation of a completed personal essay and tools to perform it.
As if that weren’t enough, Sunday, May 3 will also feature a live taping of “…But Make It Books,” a Baltimore-based literary podcast hosted by Niccara, in conversation with Branch about The Double Dutch Fuss.
There’s more information at https://theatreproject.org/baltimore-story-fest-2026/
and my entire conversation with Branch about the event here:
