More than a dozen female spoken-word artists, authors and performers from around the country will convene in Fairfax City this week for the 2025 Women’s Storytelling Festival.
Now in its sixth year, the festival organized by local nonprofit Better Said Than Done serves as a showcase for the art of storytelling, which is defined as any performance of a story — a personal narrative or folk tale, for example — in front of a live audience.
This year’s festival will feature 19 storytellers and kick off with a virtual-only showcase premiering this Thursday (March 20) at 8 p.m. In-person performances will be held at the Sherwood Community Center (3740 Blenheim Blvd) from 7 p.m. on Friday, March 21 through 5 p.m. on Sunday, March 23.
The performances will also be live-streamed, and all ticket holders will be able to watch recordings online for a month after the festival ends.
“It feels like an escape into an entirely different world for days, where somehow, you’re constantly comforted by [camaraderie] but also guaranteed to hear, learn, or experience something new,” said Carol Moore, a storyteller from Herndon who has participated in previous iterations of the festival and will return this year. “There is laughter and joy, discovery and wonder, empathy and healing.”
Started by Jessica Robinson in May 2011, Better Said Than Done began as a small community business dedicated to promoting storytelling in Northern Virginia. It initially organized shows at the now-closed Epicure Cafe in Fairfax and fundraisers for Reston’s Walker Nature Center before relocating to the Auld Shebeen in Fairfax City in 2012.
Shifting to operating as a nonprofit in 2023, the organization offers workshops and presentations on storytelling in addition to planning regular shows.
The inaugural Women’s Storytelling Festival launched in March 2020 at Old Town Hall in Fairfax City. After an all-virtual edition in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival resumed in-person performances in 2022 but retained an online component.
The hybrid approach allows the festival to extend its reach to both storytellers and prospective attendees can’t visit Fairfax City in person, Robinson noted in a press release.
“The WSF features many of the best storytellers in the country and gives them a space to let loose and tell stories they might not share on other stages,” Robinson said. “You might think, I’ll only go for one showcase, but once you have started to watch, you are not going to want to miss a second of the rest of the weekend.”
In addition to Moore, the storytellers participating in this year’s festival include:
- Laura Deal from Boulder, Colorado
- Swapna Deshpande from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
- Linda Gorham from Cary, North Carolina
- Jennifer Hillery from Reading, Massachusetts
- Tobey Ishii Anderson from Olympia, Washington
- Andrea Kamens from Boston, Massachusetts
- Amanda Lawrence from Blairsville, Georgia
- Miriam Nadel from Vienna
- Ingrid Nixon from Archer Point, Arkansas
- Laura Packer from Wayzata, Minnesota
- Jessica Robinson from Fairfax
- Aimee Snow from Manassas
- Sarah Snyder from Herndon
The virtual showcase on Thursday will feature performances by longtime Disney World actor Karin Amano, Sarah Brady from the U.K., University of Wisconsin assistant professor Sarah Beth Nelson, author and consultant Shani Womack, and Janel Woodland from Florida.
Full festival passes cost $45 for a virtual ticket and $70 for an in-person one. One-day passes will also be available at the door for $35 per day.
