~ A Story Parlor Signature Event ~
Come, sit, let us entertain you on a cozy evening with a good time, humor, and maybe some hope.
Join local narrative artists Tom Jeffords and Andy Collins as they present original stories and poetic musings never before seen or heard by the public.
featuring:
-
Becca Sloan lives and works and writes here in Asheville, NC.
In her own words:
Songwriting has revealed itself to me as a kind of alchemy. It’s art as a way of life, and to be able to write songs and sing them for people, and have some of those people connect in a meaningful way, is a real pleasure like nothing else.
I’m just getting started, really, and although that’s somewhat true, I hope I’ll be saying it all the way to the end. There’s always more to learn and understand, more room to grow, you just have to keep moving. It’s the antidote and the joy.
-
Tori’s relationship with writing began in the pages of a journal, often one splattered with sea salt upon fleeing her childhood suburb for Southern California’s coastline 20 minutes west. Within those pages, she found another world: one she could create herself.
She believes in writing as a way of life, regardless of how the bills are paid-- a way of excavating, clarifying, beauty-finding, and loving the world even when hard to love. She believes writing to be a force that transforms us from the inside out.
She recently published her first book, Soft and Roaring, which is a collection of poetry and prose, and is a certified Inward & Artward Facilitator through Story Parlor’s school of creativity. She’s been teaching yoga for 9 years, which influences her bodily and intuitive approach to writing and facilitation.
-
Chris is an accomplished actor, author, storyteller, visual artist, and teacher. He is thrilled to be part of Let it Be Easy. Since moving to Asheville in the fall of 2025, Chris has been busy telling his tales at The Story Parlor, The Flood Gallery, Tell Me A Story, and The Asheville Storytelling Circle.
Chris’s one-person storytelling show, Think You Might Be Wrong, debuted at Footlights Theater in Falmouth, Maine, in 2022. This was followed in 2024 by Other, and How’s Thursday? in 2025. These 75-90 minute shows are available to view on Chris’s YouTube channel, Thanks for Thinking with Chris Newcomb.
Chris taught gifted & talented students in Maine public schools for 30 years.
His memoir, Standing on Tables: 30 Years Teaching Gifted and Talented Students, is available on Kindle and in hard copy on Amazon.
Chris’s artwork is on display at both Trackside Studios in Asheville’s River Arts District
and at The Marquee. His work can also be seen on his website: www.chrisnewcombart.com
-
Tom Jeffords started his journey toward this moment in 1990 when he was cast in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” performed in a cafetorium at Patch American High School in Stuttgart, Germany. He has definitely looked back since.
Primarily a writer of memoir and personal narrative, Tom mines his past as an Army brat and sometimes inadvertent world traveler working in live theater to weave together tales confirming that small beauties, precious routines, and longing for connection all happen backstage at Wicked and in young families moving from Texas to Germany, too, not just in Grover’s Corners.
Tom currently lives in Asheville, doing business as a psychotherapist under the name Liminal Space, and has recently, proudly, completed Story Parlor’s Inward & Artward Creativity Facilitation training.
-
Andy Collins has been a writer since he wrote a hard-boiled detective story for a class project in the fourth grade. Since then he’s tried his hand at poetry, short fiction, essays, educational curricula and, as an office worker for the last 26 years, approximately seven million emails.
A little over a decade ago he discovered the pleasure of publicly reading his work, and, when he found Story Parlor’s Open Mic in 2024, his current medium of poetic monologue was born.