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When people cross the footbridge to Lewis Island in the Delaware River at Lambertville, NJ, they’re in a “whole ‘nother world”: wild and civilized, stable atop changing water and earth. Here lies the last commercial haul seine fishery on the non-tidal Delaware, where Lewis family members have netted since 1888 and have long monitored the fluctuating shad population. The island also serves as a spiritual, recreational, and community site for local and regional visitors, whom the Lewis family welcomes because of their forebear’s “mandate to share the island.” Visitors feel almost immediately that this place is special, but the why is elusive. Folklorist Charlie Groth explains Lewis Island’s unassuming cultural magic by developing the concept of “narrative stewardship,” a practice by which people take care of communal resources (in this case, river, shad, tradition, and community itself) through sharing stories. Anchored in over two decades of field research, this accessible ethnography interweaves the author’s observations as a crew member, stories from various tellers, interviews, history, and cultural theory. Beginning with thick description, the work explores four broad story types—Big Stories, character anecdotes, microlegends, and everyday storying. Groth traces how narratives intertwine with each other and with the physical environment to create sense of place, while participants in various roles navigate belonging. Ultimately, she posits the idea that in an era when telectronics have changed material conditions profoundly and quickly, echoing the way the industrial revolution led to anomie, narrative stewardship embedded in everyday life helps sustain culture and community.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding region in 2005, the city debated whether to press on with Mardi Gras or cancel the parades. Ultimately, they decided to proceed. New Orleans’s recovery certainly has resulted from a complex of factors, but the city’s unique cultural life—perhaps its greatest capital—has been instrumental in bringing the city back from the brink of extinction. Voicing a civic fervor, local writer Chris Rose spoke for the importance of Carnival when he argued to carry on with the celebration of Mardi Gras following Katrina: “We are still New Orleans. We are the soul of America. We embody the triumph of the human spirit. Hell. We ARE Mardi Gras”. Since 2006, a number of new Mardi Gras practices have gained prominence. The new parade organizations or krewes, as they are called, interpret and revise the city’s Carnival traditions but bring innovative practices to Mardi Gras. The history of each parade reveals the convergence of race, class, age, and gender dynamics in these new Carnival organizations. Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans examines six unique, offbeat, Downtown celebrations. Using ethnography, folklore, cultural, and performance studies, the authors analyze new Mardi Gras’s connection to traditional Mardi Gras. The narrative of each krewe’s development is fascinating and unique, illustrating participants’ shared desire to contribute to New Orleans’s rich and vibrant culture.

Race and Radio: Pioneering Black Broadcasters in New Orleans explicates the emergence of blacks in broadcasting in New Orleans. The racial integration of changed the medium making it a channel for African American discourse, the music and interviews of local black musicians, and innovative black rhetoric. O.C.W. Taylor was the city's first black radio announcer. He hosted an unprecedented talk show, the “Negro Forum,” on WNOE beginning in 1946 and continuing for 22 years. Doctors, journalists, owners of funeral homes, directors of non-profits, and other professionals spoke. Clergy from various denominations discussed topics such as practical applications of Biblical stories. The guests inspired linked fate among listeners who had never heard African American voices on radio and believed they could also achieve. In 1949, listeners heard the arrival of Vernon "Dr. Daddy-O" Winslow's smooth, articulate, and disk jockey creative voice. The Fitzgerald Advertising Agency hired him to sell Jax beer to the black market using his show “Jivin’ with Jax” broadcast on WWEZ. He interviewed African American artists and played their music. After arriving from Chicago in 1953, Larry McKinley began informing blacks over WMRY of local activities of the Civil Rights Movement in the city. In 1957, he moved to WYLD which morphed into WMRY. This thick historiography situates Race and Radio within theories of racism, ideological hegemony, and marginalization, concepts explaining of why whites locked blacks out of the production and dissemination of media content.

A professional storyteller journeys to discover what it means to be a teacher and a teller of tales. Just like Jack, he traces his path from being raised on the stories of Appalachia and explores if they have a place in the classroom. However, he does not climb a beanstalk to understand this journey, but instead challenges what it means to be a teller and educator and even the definition of storytelling. As he reflects on not only his stories but his students, he changes as a storyteller, as an educator, and better understands his students in the process. Drawing from storymaking, storytelling, and dramatic methods, he revisits and finds new stories to tell.