Get ready for ghost stories, seasonal craft beer, and spooky tunes! The 7th Annual Brews and Boos will be in downtown Jonesborough on Saturday, October 29 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Brews & Boos is set in Jimmy Neil Smith Park (Storytelling Park) with a series of ghost stories featuring world-renowned storytellers Connie Regan-Blake and Michael Reno Harrell.
Gates will open at 7 p.m. with live music from regional artist K.T. Vandyke. Main Street Café & Catering will serve local favorites Depot Street Brews and Gypsy Circus Cider while concessions will also be available. Guests are encouraged to bring chairs and blankets, due to ground seating only.
Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 the day of the event and can be purchased online or by calling the Jonesborough Visitors Center at 423.753.1010. A limited number of tickets will be available at the gate.
Featured Tellers
Connie Regan-Blake’s rare storytelling talent can transform a convention hall into a wondrous landscape and turn a packed theater into an intimate circle of friends. Throughout her career, she has performed at the nation’s top folk music and storytelling festivals, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C., the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival in Orem, Utah, and the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. It is Connie’s unique honor to be the only performer invited onstage every single year as a featured teller or an emcee since the national festival’s conception in 1973!
She has received the trifecta of “Oracle Awards”, including the Distinguished National Service, the Circle of Excellence, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. She has a number of award-winning storytelling recordings including “Chilling Ghost Stories: Haunting Tales for Adults & Teens.” Connie has also been honored recently by the Library of Congress. In recognizing her as a leading central figure in America’s storytelling revival, that prestigious institution has asked to house the compilation of her life’s work as a storyteller. Today, Connie continues to entertain and educate as a performer, story coach and workshop leader.
Michael Reno Harrell is an award-winning songwriter, a published author, a nationally known storyteller and a visual artist. And he’s from the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina where all those things are as much a part of life as breathing. Michael’s talents in the aforementioned fields have taken him to forty-four states and several foreign countries over his fifty-three-year career. His work is based in life experiences that reflect the culture of his mountain roots, which go back eight generations. But, Michael’s stories, songs and artworks reflect not only the southern experience, but also American’s story. His work, in whichever form it may take, all comes down to one thing…story.