Settle Stories began with a simple belief: that stories have the power to bring people together, transform communities and nourish the human spirit. What started in 2010 as a volunteer-led storytelling festival has grown into a nationally recognised storytelling charity with international reach.
2010–2012: The beginning
In 2010, the first Settle Storytelling Festival was born, created by Sita Brand and a passionate team of volunteers. By the following year, the festival was gaining national attention, with Sita profiled in The Guardian.
In 2012, we laid the foundations for long-term heritage preservation by establishing the W.R. Mitchell Archive, safeguarding the oral histories of the Yorkshire Dales. We moved into our first office at the Town Hall and hired our first staff member.
2013–2015: Growing programmes, deeper roots
We launched a new website offering free storytelling resources for schools and families, and expanded the festival programme. In 2014, we introduced our first year-round schools programme and began exploring the potential of digital storytelling.
By 2015, our work spanned science, art and community connection, from stargazing events to creative mindfulness retreats. Storytelling began to reach beyond Settle into wider Craven.
2016–2018: Creativity, community and innovation
2016 saw our sixth festival, hosting 50 events and launching projects supporting adults with learning disabilities. A year later, we moved into The Joinery, our permanent creative home for workshops, performances and film screenings. We also completed a major Heritage Lottery project celebrating Craven dialect poet Tom Twistleton and held a Festival of Happiness to bring the community together.
In 2018, we opened the world’s first Listening Gallery, transforming a former BT phone box into a 24/7 story space. That same year, our festival featured over 70 events and boosted the local economy by £152,000. We also launched FEAST, our artist networking programme, and delivered a large-scale youth heritage project celebrating photographer Tom Faulkner.
2019–2020: New voices and a global pivot
In 2019, Indian artist Shanthamani M collaborated with 30 elders to create Life in Our Hands, an installation honouring the hands and stories of local workers. The exhibition drew in audiences who rarely engage with the arts, demonstrating the deep resonance of community storytelling.
A year later, just before the pandemic, we celebrated World Storytelling Day with artists from all seven continents. And in 2020, our breakthrough moment, we transformed the festival into the world’s largest free online storytelling festival. Yorkshire Festival of Story hosted more than 80 events and tripled its audience, reaching people across the world, including those unable to attend in person due to health or disability.
2021–2022: Digital expansion and national recognition
Supported by Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we took our schools programme online, reaching over 45,000 children by July 2021. We launched a membership scheme and transformed The Joinery into a livestreaming studio. We also introduced Storyversity, our online learning platform for storytellers and educators.
In 2022, we launched Stories for Schools, a digital library of video stories aligned to the curriculum, and delivered our first hybrid Yorkshire Festival of Story, featuring writers including Ben Okri OBE, Joanne Harris OBE and Amanda Owen. That same year, we became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation.
2023–2025: Innovation, wellbeing and international reach
In 2023, Settle Stories won the Craven District Council Legacy Award and expanded its staff team. The following year, we developed The Storyful Way, a six-week programme weaving storytelling, mindfulness and creativity to support wellbeing in schools.
Our work then leapt across continents. In 2025, we collaborated with Msitu Wa Ndoto in Kenya, live-streaming stories from a cave complex and connecting audiences in the UK and Africa through shared culture, creativity and imagination.
A living story
From a small festival in the Yorkshire Dales to a charity with international reach, our history is shaped by one constant belief: storytelling changes lives. Every project, festival, digital innovation and community gathering has grown from that simple truth.
And the story continues.
