06/02/2026
WVSG Teller Tuesday: Bil Lepp
1. What is your favorite type of story to tell?
Bil Lepp loves telling funny stories. But his stories are not those simple, funny-for-funny’s-sake variety. Bil crafts tales that are complex in their humor, often throwing in a switch that gives his stories an unexpected ending.
2. What was your “spark” moment when you realized that you wanted to start telling stories to others?
Though Bil Lepp had been sharing stories for years, he recalls hearing Ed Stivender for the first time in 1996 as his storytelling “spark” moment. It was at the West Virginia storytelling festival, Voices of the Mountains at Jackson’s Mill Conference Center in Weston. Seeing how Stivender crafted stories, was flexible in his tellings with each audience, and how he illustrated a variety of storytelling techniques that truly opened Bil’s eyes to the endless creative possibilities of work as a storyteller. Stivender recommended Bil as a teller for the National Storytelling Festival’s Exchange Place. Lepp’s first experience on stage telling for 1500 people in Jonesborough, TN left him floating off the ground, thinking “If I had more than two stories I could probably make a career of this.” And the rest is history…
3. What type of telling do you find most challenging?
Serious stories, though Lepp does sometimes weave more serious content into his tales. One example is his story “Whimsy and Izzy’s Used Boots and Coffins and Sometimes Coffee”, which includes a more serious part mid-tale. The quiet response from his audiences when first telling this tale was initially off putting to Lepp. Storyteller Paul Strickland helped Bil reexamine how to gauge his audience’s reactions in a new way, and how to make adjustments to such tales when needed.
Bil also finds very specific wording within a story challenging at times, but one he rises to. His love of crafting language helps him manage such critical word elements in each story he writes and tells.
4. What is your favorite place to tell?
The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, as well as telling in any 4th grade classroom.
5. Who is one of your teller inspirations?
So many tellers inspire Bil, actually all of them. Lepp learns something new from each teller he hears. Some especially influential tellers to him include Ed Stivender, Donald Davis, W***y Claflin, Judith Black, and Paul Strickland. Bil finds their tales and telling techniques, inspiring, liberating, innovative, and more, their works showing great diversity in storytelling content and style.
6. Do you have a favorite theme of stories you like to tell?
Humor tales, but stories that aren’t just funny. Bil crafts stories that lean into a mystery style, ones where the audience must follow and collecting clue-like story elements along the way that lead to a tale’s conclusion. His stories often have an unexpected twist in the end. Just when listeners think they know what’s going to happen in the end, Lepp twists the tale leading to a bigger story payoff in the end.
7. What is your favorite dessert?
German chocolate cake or any fruit pie, ones that are homemade with fruit that didn’t come out of a can.
How to contact storyteller Bil Lepp:
www.leppstorytelling.com or email [email protected]
