Contact: Jack Fischer | jack@narrativearts.org | 606-454-8864 | narrativearts.org

WINDSOR, N.C. — Narrative Arts will host a public storytelling event on May 28th, 2026, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Heritage House Restaurant,1303 South King St., Windsor, NC 27983 featuring stories from Bertie County residents about public health, care, and everyday life.

The event follows a Story Circle convened in Bertie County on May 7th with local organizers Misha Council and Debra Thompson. At the May 28th gathering, community members will be invited to experience a multimedia installation built from stories shared by residents across the county.

The evening will include food, fellowship, and a celebration of local voices. Attendees will be able to listen to recorded stories through wireless headphones as part of the installation.

Too often, rural communities are framed through deficit narratives that emphasize individual behavior while obscuring systemic barriers. Through recorded conversations and creative storytelling, this gathering highlights how public health is experienced not as abstract policy, but as infrastructure, relationships, and institutional accountability in everyday life.

Debra Thompson shared: “Bertie County carries a long history of people supporting one another through challenge and change. The Story Circle created room for people to speak openly about health, care, and community in ways that honored both the hardships people face and the strength that already exists here.”

Speaking about the event Misha Council pointed out “In Bertie County, people carry deep knowledge about what it means to care for one another through hardship, distance, and limited resources. The Story Circle created space for people to speak honestly about those realities while also recognizing the strength, relationships, and wisdom that already exist in the community.”
Narrative Arts Program Director Jack Fischer noted, “Too often, rural counties are framed only through statistics or deficits.
Narrative work focuses instead on lived experience, how institutions are felt locally, and how storytelling can help communities and systems better understand one another.”

Over the next two years, this initiative will advance a community-informed narrative strategy, public-facing media, and relationship-building efforts designed to support rural health equity and strengthen trust between residents and public institutions. These events are designed for community members, public health professionals, local leaders, policymakers, and advocates interested in civic dialogue, community arts, and narrative change.

Narrative Arts is holding Story Circles in seven counties across eastern North Carolina as part of a broader effort to better understand how public health systems are experienced in everyday life, and how trust is built, or strained, within communities. Narrative Arts is a nonprofit organization based in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Contact: Jack Fischer | jack@narrativearts.org | 606-454-8864 | narrativearts.org
Photo credits: Arthur Clark