Through a monthly dinner and storytelling event at Topisaw General Store, residents now have a chance to dine together and share stories.
McComb filmmaker Kendall Miller and Topisaw General Store owner Edie Varnado started the dinner and storytelling event to create a platform for the community to engage in meaningful discussion.
Each event has a different theme and takes place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month.
February’s theme is race. The event is free and open to the public.
“Here in the South, we have this deep rich history of folk storytelling and sitting around and swapping stories,” Miller said.
“It created rich history and a sense of legacy and place, and I don’t think we do that anymore. … So for me, it was an opportunity to create a platform to begin to listen to each other again and begin to celebrate the stories in this area that are good, that are positive and that are difficult.”
The idea for the storytelling event is inspired by The Moth, a New York-based organization that hosts theme-based storytelling events across the U.S.
“I think the art and craft of storytelling is also rapidly being lost along the way, so we want to promote the art and craft of storytelling and what it means to tell a good story,” Miller said.
January’s theme was hope, and the event featured five storytellers, all diverse in ethnicity, age and gender.
“We covered a good range, tried to hit all those boxes,” Miller said. “The idea, too, is a theme is like a gem, and each person’s story reflects a little bit of a facet of the truth of that theme.
“What surprised me also was how many people were willing to step up and volunteer to tell stories.”
February’s line-up includes six storytellers, and Varnado said all storytellers have to pitch their ideas beforehand.
For the most part, Miller said stories are nonfiction and personal pieces under 10 minutes and that though storytellers are vetted, not a lot of censorship is applied.
“We want to create a space for storytellers who have never had this chance to feel safe that they can, and even if they bomb, we will choose to celebrate that as a success because of the vulnerability it takes to get up and share your life and history with someone you’ve never met,” he said.
For Varnado, providing dinner in conjunction with the storytelling event is another way of bringing the community together.
“We’re not a large community, but there are just so many people we don’t know, and the people we do know, there’s a lot we don’t know about them,” she said. “So my vision was to try to get people to talk, and from my background, food is how that happens.”
Above all, Varnado said the goal of the event is to provide a space for people to be seen and heard.
“All these different groups exist and they want betterment for our community, but we need to somehow come together and be willing to dialogue and not be afraid that someone might not agree with that,” she said.
For Miller, the ultimate sign of success would be if “two or three people from different walks of life met at the event and decided to catch a drink or grab a coffee later on in the month who may not have had the opportunity or thought to do that before.”
