Come join us, Storyteller!

Campfire Stories is a friendly Friday evening event for East Bay kids, ages 4-10 and their grownups. It features live music, a story by the fire, and then socializing and s’mores.

Campfire Stories is currently held at Mariposa Garden, which is an intimate private space in North Oakland. Possible future location is Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland. 

2026 Campfire Stories will be held:

  • Friday March 6, performer call time 4:00 PM, event ends 6:45 PM

  • Friday May 22, performer call time 5:30 PM, event ends 8:30 PM

  • Friday July 31, performer call time 5:30 PM, event ends 8:30 PM

  • Friday September 25, performer call time 4:30 PM, event ends 7:30 PM

Sound fun?

We’re looking for stories that are approximately 20 minutes long, and we value stories which:

  • Encourage full-body audience participation

  • Are memorized / “in the jawbone” as opposed to read from a book 

  • Draw from the realms of fairytales, folktales, and ancestral stories

  • Have resonance with part of a natural cycle (more on that below)

Our events feature live music, and you will have the opportunity to request some collaboration from the evening’s musician. We hold one pre-show artistic talk-through which gives the musician and storyteller a chance to say hello and make a plan for collaboration if the spirit moves them.

We offer a Storyteller stipend of $100 per event.

Say hello!

Fill out the short form below and if we’re a fit we’ll be in touch!

What do we mean by “resonance with part of a natural cycle”?

Here are some examples! Do you have stories which might resonate with any of these themes? (Or do you have stories which resonate with other natural cycles?)

January

hibernation, togetherness for warmth, returning of light

February

love, returning of light, returning of birdsong, lunar new year

March

equinox, balance, emergence, renewal, regrowth, beginnings, total lunar eclipse in 2025

April

rebirth, renewal, return to abundance

May

mothering, wolf pups

June

solstice, sun, expansiveness, pit fruits (like peaches or plums), strawberries

July

fire safety, care for thirsty beings, pit fruits (like peaches or plums), blackberries, tomatoes, strawberries

August

meteor showers, blackberries, tomatoes, corn, the preciousness of water, bear encounters

September

equinox, balance, harvest, entering into new social dynamics

October

gathering, homecoming, harvest, descent, spookiness, underworld, supermoon, acorn harvest

November

gathering, homecoming, harvest, descent, spookiness, underworld, supermoon, pomegranates, salmon spawning

December

solstice, hibernation, light in darkness, winter, supermoon, salmon spawning, crows roosting