Blue Ridge Programs with Wayne Jordan
History, landscapes, and the stories that connect them
Wayne Jordan presents conversational programs that allow audiences see the Blue Ridge differently. Beginning with familiar features of the landscape, roads, farms, stone walls, towns, and traces of old industries, he uses regional history and storytelling to explain what those places reveal about the people who lived and worked there.
Stories in the Landscape
A Blue Ridge interpretive program with Wayne Jordan
The Blue Ridge is full of things we pass without noticing: an old road cut, a stone wall, a rail grade, a mountain farm, the remains of an industry that once shaped a town.
Stories in the Landscape begins with those visible clues and follows them into the history behind them. Using photographs, maps, regional research, and story, Wayne Jordan helps audiences understand why the landscape looks the way it does and what human stories remain within it.
The program is designed to be conversational and accessible, not academic. Each presentation focuses on a specific Blue Ridge subject and leaves the audience with a different way of seeing a place they may have passed many times before.
Format
Interpretive storytelling with historical photos, maps, and regional context.
Length
About 45–60 minutes, including time for questions and conversation.
Best For
Libraries, museums, historical and civic groups, and adult audiences.
The Stories Behind Ordinary Reckonings
A reading and conversation built around selected stories from Ordinary Reckonings, with background on the Appalachian places, work, communities, and changes that helped shape the collection.
This program combines brief readings with historical and cultural context and informal audience conversation.
A Program That Fits the Audience
Each program can be adapted to the interests of the host organization and its audience. A library may want a broad regional subject, while a museum, historical society, or community group may prefer a program tied more closely to local transportation, industry, settlement, foodways, or change.
The approach remains the same: begin with something familiar, uncover the history behind it, and leave the audience seeing the Blue Ridge a little differently.
About Wayne
Wayne Jordan is a writer, storyteller, and creator of Blue Ridge Tales, where he explores the history, culture, folklore, foodways, and changing communities of the Blue Ridge. His programs draw on that research to interpret the region through the places, objects, roads, industries, and everyday details that remain visible in the landscape.
His first collection of short fiction, Ordinary Reckonings, grows from that same interest in place and change. The stories follow ordinary people across Appalachia as they face choices, losses, obligations, and turning points that reveal how communities and lives are shaped over time.
Interested in Hosting a Blue Ridge Tales Program?
Wayne is available for selected library, museum, historical society, civic, tourism, and community programs throughout the region. If you’d like to discuss a program for your audience, get in touch.