PRESS & PUBLICITY
2018 festival review
“We’ve run it up the internet flagpole...and while there are plenty of storytelling festivals and cowboy poetry festivals and comedy festivals and solo performance festivals, it looks like no one else in the country is doing a spoken word festival, which encompasses all of that.”
“We intend to become the best and biggest spoken word festival in the country,” says Pokorny. “And I think we will.
DAVID TEMPLETON
THE ARGUS-COURIER | May 25, 2017
“Like cavemen gathered around the fire, the North Bay’s growing audience for storytelling enjoys the intimacy and the opportunity to connect with other humans who are willing to reveal their most vulnerable moments — stupid obsessions, gut-wrenching tragedies, embarrassing mishaps — all for a few giggles or tears.”
DIANE PETERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | May 20, 2016
“A lot of adults haven’t figured out that storytelling isn’t just for kids anymore – that it’s something all ages can enjoy, and maybe be a little scandalized by,” says Bil Lepp, an acclaimed storyteller and “champion liar” who will be appearing at The Mystic Theater this weekend in a benefit for the upcoming Wine Country Storytelling Festival."
DAVID TEMPLETON
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER | July 15, 2016
Northbay Business Journal | September, 2016
"The Inaugural Wine Country Spoken Word Festival is offering a special rate of five dollars for tickets to their Ghost Stories event at Brewsters Beer Garden in Petaluma (Oct. 13), and for their shows on Saturday (Oct. 14), with half the proceeds to be donated to fire victims and their families. Our thoughts are with you all you"
CY MUSIKER
FOR KQED | OCTOBER 11, 2017
"Dave and Juliet Pokorny of Petaluma have been planning their inaugural Wine Country Spoken Word Festival for months and announced just days after the Wine Country fires that they’ve decided to donate a portion of their event’s proceeds to fire victims and their families.
The three-day festival kicks off Friday, Oct. 13, and during its Ghost Stories event at Brewsters Beer Garden in Petaluma, half of the ticket sales will be donated. A portion of ticket sales for events on Saturday, Oct. 14, will also be donated.
“Storytelling, comedy and poetry can be healing and our goal is to use this weekend as a way to bring our community together,” the Pokornys said in a statement. “We know there’s no way to bring back the property our neighbors, friends and families have lost, but by bringing our community together we hope people can start to heal.”"
MARIECAR MENDOZA
FOR SF GATE | OCTOBER 13, 2017
"WINE COUNTRY SPOKEN WORD FEST OPENING NIGHT GALA
The big weekend kicks off with a Gala Celebration at Della Lounge (141 Petaluma Blvd.) at 6 p.m., where mingling with the weekend’s
storytellers, poets and professional word-users commences in style. Friday the 13th will then be observed appropriately with an evening of live ghost stories told around the campfire at Brewster’s Beer Garden (229 Water St.) at 11 p.m."
ARGUS COURIER | OCTOBER 11, 2017