“What’s Your Story” Book Release

On Monday, July 15, at 7 pm, Volume 6 of the “What’s Your Story?” oral history book project will be unveiled at the Historic Masonic Theatre. “The Arts in the Alleghany Highlands” includes narratives shared by the founders of the Highlands arts  institutions and groups, as well as dozens of profiles and photographs of the area’s working artists.

“We started the What’s Your Story? project in 2016, our first book focusing on the long, fascinating history of The Historic Masonic Theatre. It was a joy to hear the stories of those who remembered what it had been over the decades, to capture their expressions as they talked about the movies and performances they’d seen,” says Project Director Joan Vannorsdall.

“We’ve done books on the C&O Railway, Green Pastures Recreation Area, Dabney S. Lancaster (now Mountain Gateway) Community College, and the COVID epidemic. The stories—and the incredible photographs and storyteller portraits done by Chuck Almarez—are priceless. We’re so grateful to those who have shared their stories over the past nine years,” Vannorsdall says.

“This book stands alone as a thing of beauty. As you’d expect of a book about the arts, color and visual images predominate, and Chuck Almarez worked hard to get it all artfully displayed. Painters and potters and photographers; dancers and muralists and musicians; quilters and basket makers and woodworkers…our place is rich with artists and the organizations that support them. This book celebrates our many creators, risk-takers, doers and makers.”

Copies of all the What’s Your Story? volumes will be for sale at the July 15 th event. The books are also available at the Alleghany Highlands Arts and Crafts Center and the Clifton Forge School of the Arts.