ELKO, NV  -The 33rd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering will celebrate the art and tradition of storytelling in the rural West, presenting first-hand narratives wrought from personal experience and told in verse, song, film, visual art, new media, and prose. From January 30 through February 4, 2017, Elko, Nevada, will be bursting with tales of lessons learned, risk-taking, humor, heroes, neighbors and family told by master storytellers and everyday folks from the rural West.

Texas poet, scholar and songwriter Andy Wilkinson will deliver the keynote address, exploring the valued role of story in the ever-evolving narrative of the American West, and The Moth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling that broadcasts on public radio stations across the country, will bring its Mainstage performance to Nevada for the first time.

Everyone will be able to get in on the storytelling fun. Ticketbuyers can participate in digital storytelling or oral history workshops, record a story in the StoryCorps booth, hold forth at an open-mic session, and attend a roundtable conversation on storytelling with bloggers, radio and video producers, journalists, cowboy sages and visual artists.