Cousins Connie Regan-Blake External and Barbara Freeman External founded the Folktellers duo in 1973. Connie Regan-Blake began her storytelling career as a children's librarian in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Barbara Freeman began storytelling during her career as a schoolteacher and children's and young adult librarian in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Both storytellers have had successful careers as individual performers and as the Folktellers. The duo specialized in a humorous performance technique called "tandem telling" in which they took turns telling parts of a single story. They tell magic tales, animal tales, tall tales, and ghost stories; in her most recent performances, Freeman enjoys telling religious stories. As the Folktellers,they created and produced a play titled "Mountain Sweet Talk." As founding members of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS), Regan Blake and Freeman have been foundational to the storytelling revival in the US. 

Born in Selma, Alabama, Kathryn Windham External (1918-2011) specialized in telling ghost stories from the southern US. She advocated for widespread work on collecting, preserving, and telling southern ghost stories. In her performances, she shared stories she had heard from others, stories about the ghost living in her house who she fondly named Jeffrey, and methods for attracting good luck and keeping evil out of the home. 

Jackie Torrence (1944-2004) began her storytelling career while working as a reference librarian in High Point, North Carolina. Drawing on a repertoire of stories she learned from her grandparents, Torrence told Jack Tales, Uncle Remus Tales, and ghost stories designed to make her audiences jump. She was a firm advocate for the importance of telling the Uncle Remus tales, rejecting the idea that they were demeaning to African Americans.

Librarian, storyteller, and author Augusta Baker (1911-1998) was a strong advocate for African American representation in children's books and stories. As a children's librarian for the New York Public Library, Augusta Baker curated an extensive collection and bibliography of children's books with positive and accurate depictions of Black characters and African American life. As a storyteller, she performed folktales she had learned from her grandmother and through research; she is well known for her stories about Haitian characters Bookie and Ti-Malice. She was appointed the Storyteller-in-Residence at the University of South Carolina in 1980 and held the position until 1994. 

Folklorist, storyteller, and author Diane Wolkstein (1942-2013) was the official storyteller of New York City from 1968-1971. Her career as a storyteller began with a job telling bible stories in a synagogue, and she soon expanded to other venues. Each Saturday morning from 1971-2012, she told stories at the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park. She also produced and hosted the radio show Stories from Many Lands from 1968-1980. Famous for her research on storytelling traditions in Haiti, Wolkstein conducted research on folktales in China, Taiwan, Japan, India, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, England, Egypt, Greece, and elsewhere. She told these and other folktales, along with bible stories and epics like the Sumerian story of Inanna. Wolkstein's research materials, performance recordings, manuscripts, photographs, and correspondence are held in the Diane Wolkstein collection. 

Storyteller, playwright, producer, artistic director, and performer Brenda Wong Aoki External was one of the first Asian American performers to participate in the National Storytelling Festival. As a storyteller, she performs Kabuki legends, ghost stories, and personal narratives. She co-founded the non-profit First Voice with her partner, musician and composer Mark Izu, with whom she has produced several stage productions. She is also a founding faculty member of Stanford University's Institute for Diversity in the Arts.

Storyteller and author Laura Simms External has been a frequent performer at the National Storytelling Festival, performing a wide repertoire of international magic tales, animal tales, legends, and epics. She is currently the artistic director of the Hans Christian Andersen Storytelling Center in New York. She also founded the Center for Engaged Storytelling, which explores the potential of oral storytelling to enact social change.