Oral History Program Annie Eastmond Interviewed by Kandice Harris 18 March 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Annie Eastmond Interviewed by Kandice Harris 18 March 2021 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The WSU Storytelling Festival was implemented by the Friends of the Stewart Library in 1992. The library sponsored and managed the annual festival until 1998, when the festival was moved to the Department of Teacher Education, with the Library continuing as a sponsor. The three-day festival entails storytellers from all over the nation, including youth storytellers. The events are made up of workshops and presentations, a fund-raising banquet, and a wrap-up of wonderful stories from gifted performers. This interesting collection includes oral history interviews with visiting storytellers, discussing how they became interested in storytelling and where they receive their inspiration. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Eastmond, Annie, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 18 March 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Annie Eastmond (left) & her husband, Dan Eastmond (right) 25 February 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Annie Eastmond, conducted on March 18, 2021, by Kandice Harris, via Zoom. Annie discusses her life, her experiences during her storytelling career, and her memories of the Weber State University Storytelling Festival. KH: Hello, my name is Kandice Harris. Today is March 18th and it's about 12:30. I am with Annie Eastmond, and we are going to be discussing the storytelling festival. To start with, how did you become interested and involved with storytelling? AE: You know, there’s a fine line between story reading—reading stories—and telling stories. My mom was a great storyteller. She read to us seven kids, but she also told stories about her family and her life growing up. I often babysat younger siblings and would make up stories and tell stories that I had heard my mother tell. So, I think that was the beginning of my interest in storytelling. But if you are asking about my first performance storytelling…is that what you are really asking about? KH: Um no, either one works. AE: Okay, well, I have been a children’s librarian for over two decades and from my early childhood of hearing my mom read and tell stories…I quickly learned to adapt, to be able to transition between reading aloud to putting down the book and just telling stories to crowds of children and parents. I just sort of evolved that way. Then in 2007, I think it was, my husband and I started doing public 2 music performances. We each play three instruments and sing. Then we added a bit of storytelling as a way of introducing our songs and to help our audiences connect and engage with us. So, my performance storytelling really began in the early 2000’s. And then of course the Weber Festival and others provided great opportunities to learn and grow as a storyteller. KH: What part of storytelling brings you the most joy and satisfaction? AE: I think it’s watching the audiences. Of course, you have to be prepared before you can think beyond yourself and your words and what you personally are doing. But watching the kids, especially at Weber where you bring in whole classes. I love to watch the kids as they see the youth tellers, their own peers, perform stories. Then they see local and regional storytellers who have had more experience, and then they see national storytellers. It’s just fun to watch the kids in the audience, and their faces as they light up. You can hear the gears spinning as they’re thinking, “Wow, if my friend can do that…” and then, “Look at that person who is an adult doing that.” And, “This is fun. Look at that famous national person who can even make money doing this.” I think it just opens up a whole new dream pattern for kids who can then say, “I think I’d like to try that.” KH: Okay, which type of audience do you prefer, children or adults? AE: I like both. But of course, you have to adapt the kinds of stories and the way you tell, to different kinds of audiences. I want to just back track a minute to your question about what brings me the most joy. Can I do that? KH: Yes. 3 AE: So, another thing that brings me great joy is to be able to add the element of music to storytelling. Adding another art form is like exposing people to something using more than one sense. Using more than one sense allows for a richer, more full experience. If you can do storytelling using more than one art form, I think it draws the audience in even more. I particularly love doing that with my husband, Dan. He’s more the musician and I’m more the storyteller. When we do tandems together—tandem storytelling—as Harvest Home, our music storytelling duo, I end up telling the stories more often and he usually does the music. But it’s just a joy to be able to do it together and add that extra art form of music. So that’s another fun part of storytelling for me. KH: Okay. AE: And so your question… the question that you were leading me into was… repeat that please. KH: Well so the next question is, what are the qualities of a good storyteller? AE: Of course. You have to be prepared because you can’t just get up there and tell a story. I think a lot of people don’t realize how much effort it takes to choose and craft the right story—to adapt it and begin to own it yourself. You have to know your material well enough to feel comfortable up there on stage. Then you can deal better with any other thing that flies at you. And there are often surprises, things that happen, noises or people interruptions. You have to be flexible enough to deal with whatever comes—like an airplane flying overhead and being able to pause or make that part of your story. You have to know when 4 to pause and give the audience a chance to think or laugh or whatever. Another quality a good storyteller needs is to bring closure, a nice ending, so that people leave with a good feeling. Whether it’s just being entertaining or that your audience walks away thinking about stories and experiences that have happened in their own lives. KH: Okay. What elements are required for a good story? AE: I think one of the important things is a good hook. A good opening can draw people in and get their attention right away. And I’m thinking of a Shel Silverstein poem that kind of expresses that. It’s real short. Can I share it with you? KH: Yes, please. AE: His poem goes, “If you are a dreamer; come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er; a pray-er; a magic bean buyer… If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire. For we have some flax golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!” Isn’t that great? KH: Yes, I love it. AE: That’s particularly good for folktales or fairytales. I love to use that one. So a good hook—a way to draw people in, then good description and buildup to the arc moment— the heart of the story, and a well-crafted closure, are all important elements for a good story. But don’t give every detail. It’s like painting a picture. I’m a watercolorist, so I love thinking about that visual image. You need to paint 5 the picture with words so people can begin to visualize your story, the setting, the characters…. But don’t paint it all! Don’t paint that whole canvas. Let the audience paint too because they have visual images in their heads of what your story looks like to them. If you leave part of that picture unpainted, they automatically fill it in and can feel like they’re part of the story too. So, a good beginning hook, good descriptions to set the stage, a nice buildup to the arc of the story and resolution of the problem, and then a well-crafted ending that leaves your audience connected and thinking about their own stories and experiences, and even entertained, are important story elements. KH: Great. Do you think our current pandemic environment has an impact on the importance of storytelling? AE: Oh absolutely. Think about all of the things that we’ve collectively faced this last year or so. Besides COVID, we’ve had earthquakes, and windstorms, and people have lost jobs and loved ones, we’ve had to do school and work from home, just so many different things that are out of the ordinary for all of us. And if that’s not good fodder for stories, nothing is. As humans we crave to hear other people’s stories, to hear what they’ve gone through so we know we’re not alone, that it’s not just us who are struggling and having to adapt. We also want to share our stories with others, to tell what we've gone through. Or we just want to escape and be entertained by being drawn away from our own struggles. It’s just a human nature thing and is important. KH: Where do you see storytelling in the future? 6 AE: Well, it's not going away anytime soon. There have been storytellers from the beginning of the world, and I think we are getting more comfortable in finding ways to share, especially because of this last year. We’ve learned to tell stories in new formats. You know, virtually, because we haven't had the opportunity to do so much ‘live’ storytelling. I think we are all feeling a bit more comfortable and we've expanded the limits of how stories can be shared. KH: Good. How long have you been involved with the Weber State University Storytelling Festival? AE: You know, I first heard about Weber in 2016. That year I took a couple days off work and I drove from Salt Lake daily to soak up the stories from Tellers of all ages and experience levels. I thought, "This is awesome." And one of the things I really like about the Weber Storytelling Festival is that it's free. Nobody is held back because of the cost. If they can take the time, make their schedule work, they can enjoy day and evening performances. And you can take the whole family. So I first heard stories in 2016, and by that fall I decided I was going to audition. I said, "That looks like so much fun and I’m going to challenge myself to do it." I had joined the Utah Storytelling Guild, and I auditioned that fall. So by 2017 I was telling stories with my husband at the Weber Festival. And I think we've told at the festival every year since. We absolutely love the venue. KH: So, you already shared one memory. What are some of your other favorite memories from the festival? 7 AE: There was a chance meeting a couple of years ago, when Ed Stivender, a national storyteller, sat in on one of our tandem sessions. I think he was assigned to the same room a couple people after us, so he sat watching us and we thought, "Oh my gosh, Ed Stivender is here watching our story and scrutinizing it." He came up to us afterward and was so generous and delightful. He said, "I love that story. You guys have done a great new twist on it." And he was making notes about what he might learn and use from how we did our story. It was great. There was a break from sessions at that moment and he pulled out his banjo. He sometimes plays just a little bit of banjo in his stories. My husband Dan plays the banjo and they were there jamming between sessions. It was so fun to see. And then he said, "Just a minute, I’ve got to get ready to tell my story, but I want to give you something." And out of his banjo case he pulls this peacock feather. It was a really tall peacock feather. He had two of them. He put one on his finger and was trying to balance it, and he gave the other one to my husband Dan. Then he said, "Try and balance that peacock feather." We both looked at each other and thought, "What’s this all about? A peacock feather?" Then he said, "Now, think about this. It’s kind of tricky at first to balance this feather on your finger. But, it's not that hard. I mean, you have to move around and you have to be aware of things going on around you to balance it. But it's like storytelling. It's easier than you think." That's what he said. That was his object lesson to us, and I loved that moment. We kept that peacock feather from Ed for a long time. KH: That’s fun. Are there any other memories that you'd like to share? 8 AE: There are lots of general ones, that's for sure. And I could think of more specific ones… but I just wanted to mention how we love telling on the stages at Weber, and we love going to the schools and the senior centers. It gives us an opportunity to do different kinds of stories for different kinds of audiences. And I love…just like I mentioned before, watching the kids as their eyes light up seeing how much fun they are having, and realizing that they could be up on that stage telling a story too. It's not easy. It takes work, but it's well worth it. Weber is a lot of fun. KH: Great. What advice would you give to future storytellers? AE: Advice? Try it out. We are all storytellers at heart and we tell stories every day to each other, at the dinner table, and amongst our friends and family. And if you want to go into it in a bigger way, performing on stage… learn more about storytelling. Watch the Weber Festival every year, and Timpanogos and Story Crossroads. Join any of the Utah Storytelling Guild chapters. Take one of the free residencies in the spring. There's a virtual Utah Storytelling Guild monthly right now. But when COVID is completely over, we'll go back to meeting monthly in person. KH: That’s great. That's all of the questions that I have, is there anything else you'd like to share? AE: I just want to say thanks for taking the time to do these interviews. We learn by hearing about each other’s experiences. KH: Great. Well thank you so much for sharing your time and your stories with us.