Park Rapids Arts Council Looking For Storytellers

Minnesota storytellers are now being invited to show off their creative side with a contest. The Park Rapids Lakes Area Arts Council is sponsoring the 3^rd annual Great American Story contest for oral storytellers.

Judges will narrow the selections to four finalists who will perform the best-told stories at an event on Saturday, Sept. 22^nd at Calvary Lutheran Church in Park Rapids.

At the public performance, the audience will vote to select the top two storytellers among the four finalists. Those two will be given a prompt and tell a 10-minute extemporaneous story. The audience will then select the winner. The 1^st place storyteller will receive $1,000, 2^nd place will get $500 and each of the other two finalists will receive $250. Lodging will be arranged for finalists.

For entry information and rules for the Great American Story, please go to www.thegreatamericanstory.org. Entries no more than 10 minutes in length may be posted online or recorded on a CD or flash drive and mailed. Entry fee is $10. Entries must be posted on the website or, if mailed, postmarked no later than June 30.

The Park Rapids Lakes Area Arts Council serves as an umbrella organization for 16 arts and cultural organizations in the greater Park Rapids area. Representatives from these arts groups, along with individual arts project champions, meet monthly to coordinate arts calendars, share information and incubate interest in new arts projects. PRLAAC also maintains a website – www.prlaac.org – and sponsors successful projects including Art Leap and Noon Hour Concerts.

This activity is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Region 2 Arts Council funded by an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund.