TRANSFORMATIVE STORYTELLING: COMMUNITY, CREATIVITY, AND THE COMMON GOOD
We often say that the world isn't falling apart, but the story we're telling about it could use some help. Another way of saying that is that the primary crisis we face is a crisis of storytelling - about who we are, why we're here, what we're here for, and ultimately what life itself can be.
The Porch Gathering builds a better world through telling better stories. We gather as a diverse community to laugh, learn, sometimes cry, celebrate and learn around the “campfire experience” of transformative storytelling, and gain tools for constructive, respectful, and thoughtful conversation. We believe mutual recognition matters more than elevating one person over others, and that each human being has a unique creative contribution to make to a better world. Everyone is invited to bring what they have, and ask for what they need.
Our stories often hold us back. The Porch Gathering is a space where better stories come to life.
Schedule, Speakers & Guides, Accommodation details, and Registration are linked at the top of this page.
We often say that the world isn't falling apart, but the story we're telling about it could use some help. Another way of saying that is that the primary crisis we face is a crisis of storytelling - about who we are, why we're here, what we're here for, and ultimately what life itself can be.
The Porch Gathering builds a better world through telling better stories. We gather as a diverse community to laugh, learn, sometimes cry, celebrate and learn around the “campfire experience” of transformative storytelling, and gain tools for constructive, respectful, and thoughtful conversation. We believe mutual recognition matters more than elevating one person over others, and that each human being has a unique creative contribution to make to a better world. Everyone is invited to bring what they have, and ask for what they need.
Our stories often hold us back. The Porch Gathering is a space where better stories come to life.
Schedule, Speakers & Guides, Accommodation details, and Registration are linked at the top of this page.
Location
Montreat, near Asheville, NC
Date & Time
April 17-19, 2026
We're announcing the 2026 Porch Gathering schedule and lineup gradually in the coming weeks.
Of course the schedule is subject to change, but whatever unfolds for us on the weekend itself, the purpose is to convene a transformative storytelling (and story-learning) gathering who can find some fuel for the journey of living into a vision of creativity, courage, and community. We hope you'll join us.
*Please note - to find your way around the site at Montreat, go to www.montreat.org, click on RESOURCES and then Montreat Map. You can also pick up a printed copy of the map at Montreat Assembly Inn reception desk.
Of course the schedule is subject to change, but whatever unfolds for us on the weekend itself, the purpose is to convene a transformative storytelling (and story-learning) gathering who can find some fuel for the journey of living into a vision of creativity, courage, and community. We hope you'll join us.
*Please note - to find your way around the site at Montreat, go to www.montreat.org, click on RESOURCES and then Montreat Map. You can also pick up a printed copy of the map at Montreat Assembly Inn reception desk.
PRE-GATHERING RETREAT
THURSDAY APRIL 16TH (EVENING) & FRIDAY APRIL 17TH (DAYTIME)
THURSDAY APRIL 16TH (EVENING) & FRIDAY APRIL 17TH (DAYTIME)
STORYTELLING AS HOSPITALITY
Venue: William Black Lodge, Montreat
Before the Porch Gathering begins you're invited to a retreat focused on welcome itself.
On Thursday evening a wonderful meal and informal interaction, leading into taking a day apart on Friday morning and afternoon.
There will be spacious silence, creative contemplation, gifts for mind and body, and an opportunity to learn more about the vision and practice of transformative storytelling.
Please join us for a meaningful experience of community entering into the weekend.
On Thursday evening a wonderful meal and informal interaction, leading into taking a day apart on Friday morning and afternoon.
There will be spacious silence, creative contemplation, gifts for mind and body, and an opportunity to learn more about the vision and practice of transformative storytelling.
Please join us for a meaningful experience of community entering into the weekend.
THE PORCH GATHERING BEGINS
FRIDAY
5.30pm-6.30pm
5.30pm-6.30pm
DINNER*
*While you do not have to eat on site at the Porch Gathering, meals are available at William Black Lodge, but must be booked in advance. Details will be sent on registration.
FRIDAY
7-9.30pm
7-9.30pm
OPENING NIGHT: TRANSFORMATIVE STORYTELLING, MUSIC, COMMUNITY - PART 1
The Porch has hosted a regular storytelling night delving into community, creativity, and the common good. Tonight we'll have some of our favorite storytellers and music, and a deep dive into the way stories shape our lives.
A meaningful beginning to a weekend embodying a vision for Transformative Storytelling and how it can relate to current events in the world, our communities, and ourselves.
Featuring opening keynote from Porch co-founder Gareth Higgins on Transformative Storytelling in the Current Moment, music and stories from special guests to be announced soon.
A meaningful beginning to a weekend embodying a vision for Transformative Storytelling and how it can relate to current events in the world, our communities, and ourselves.
Featuring opening keynote from Porch co-founder Gareth Higgins on Transformative Storytelling in the Current Moment, music and stories from special guests to be announced soon.
SATURDAY
7.30-8.30Am
7.30-8.30Am
BREAKFAST*
SATURDAY
9-10.15Am
9-10.15Am
MORNING SESSION - UPPER ANDERSON
Special Guest Conversation - to be announced soon
SATURDAY
10.30 - 11.45am
10.30 - 11.45am
Morning Breakouts/Workshops
Take a walk, hang out, or participate in a profound exploration with wise friends, choosing between breakout, small group, and individual options. Breakout/workshop leaders include Jasmin Pittman, Micky ScottBey Jones, Billy Jonas, and Brian Volck. Full schedule will be announced shortly.
12pM-1PM
LUNCH*
SATURDAY
1pm-2pm
1pm-2pm
Porch Circles
Experience a radical and accessible method of community connection in the spirit of Transformative Storytelling - and then take it home with you.
Porch Circles are small gatherings that help us learn more of the story we're telling, connect with others committed to the common good, and get clearer about who we are and what we're here for. We're offering this opportunity during the Porch Gathering to experience a Porch Circle, which you can take home with you too. Circles will take place in Upper Anderson, Walkup Building, and Thompson-Brown Meeting room - just choose which one you wish to attend.
Porch Circles are small gatherings that help us learn more of the story we're telling, connect with others committed to the common good, and get clearer about who we are and what we're here for. We're offering this opportunity during the Porch Gathering to experience a Porch Circle, which you can take home with you too. Circles will take place in Upper Anderson, Walkup Building, and Thompson-Brown Meeting room - just choose which one you wish to attend.
SATURDAY
2:15pm-4pm (OR LATER)
2:15pm-4pm (OR LATER)
Breakouts/Workshops
Take a walk, hang out, or participate in a profound exploration with wise friends, choosing between breakout, small group, and individual options. Breakout/workshop leaders include Jasmin Pittman, Micky ScottBey Jones, Billy Jonas, and Brian Volck. Full schedule will be announced shortly.
saturday
5.30-6.30pm
5.30-6.30pm
DINNER*
saturday
7pm
7pm
TRANSFORMATIVE STORYTELLING, MUSIC, COMMUNITY PART 2
At our partner venue the White Horse we'll host another evening of storytelling, music, and community with special guests to be announced shortly.
Please note the venue is White Horse Black Mountain, 105 Montreat Road; two miles from Montreat - please leave adequate time to arrive, park, and get settled for what we intend to be an evening of entertainment, substance, creativity, courage, and community.
Please note the venue is White Horse Black Mountain, 105 Montreat Road; two miles from Montreat - please leave adequate time to arrive, park, and get settled for what we intend to be an evening of entertainment, substance, creativity, courage, and community.
sunday
7.30-8.30am
7.30-8.30am
BREAKFAST*
sunday
10AM-11am
10AM-11am
Porch Circle
Experience a radical and accessible method of community connection in the spirit of Transformative Storytelling - and then take it home with you.
Porch Circles are small gatherings that help us learn more of the story we're telling, connect with others committed to the common good, and get clearer about who we are and what we're here for. We're offering this opportunity during the Porch Gathering to experience a Porch Circle, which you can take home with you too. Circles will take place in Upper Anderson, Walkup Building, and Thompson-Brown Meeting room - just choose which one you wish to attend.
Porch Circles are small gatherings that help us learn more of the story we're telling, connect with others committed to the common good, and get clearer about who we are and what we're here for. We're offering this opportunity during the Porch Gathering to experience a Porch Circle, which you can take home with you too. Circles will take place in Upper Anderson, Walkup Building, and Thompson-Brown Meeting room - just choose which one you wish to attend.
sunday 11:15am-12:15pm
Closing Gathering
A gathering to complete the uncompleteable, acknowledge the weekend experience, and move back into the world that invites, needs, nurtures, and challenges us.
Location, Accommodation, Meals & Registration
The Porch Gathering takes place at Montreat Conference Center and the White Horse in Black Mountain, near Asheville, NC.
Here's a map of Montreat and information about the White Horse in Black Mountain (2.6 miles from Montreat).
The closest airport is Asheville (AVL), about a 40 minute drive to Montreat. Flights are often cheaper to Charlotte (CLT), a 2 hour drive, or Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP), just over a 90 minute drive. We encourage carpooling/ridesharing where possible.
Please note that advance registration is necessary to attend the gathering, and participant numbers are intentionally limited to create a possibility of more meaningful community - register now to guarantee your place. And because life is unpredictable, if you register in advance and are unable to attend, you can transfer your registration to a friend at no additional cost, although we cannot offer refunds. Accommodation and meals are not included in registration and must be booked separately (and of course you are welcome to commute to the gathering or eat elsewhere).
Onsite accommodation and meals are available at William Black Lodge (right next to the Conference Center) and South Carolina Inn (a very short walk away).
Other local accommodation is also available - click here for information on local hotels and other accommodation.
The town of Black Mountain has several good food options as well - click here for more information.
We want to make the Gathering widely accessible, so we set the registration fee lower than many comparable events; if you can afford to pay more, please do so: we will use any such contributions to offer partial scholarships to folks who aren't currently able to afford the registration fee. And if the registration fee is beyond your reach for now, please read on below for information on scholarships available to anyone that needs one, that can significantly reduce the registration fee - we'll be glad to help.
IF YOU CAN’T ATTEND IN-PERSON BUT WANT TO JOIN ONLINE
We expect to offer an online option which includes some livestreams and recordings of the event.
We hope you'll join us in the spirit of mutual generosity, creativity, and the common good.
Here's a map of Montreat and information about the White Horse in Black Mountain (2.6 miles from Montreat).
The closest airport is Asheville (AVL), about a 40 minute drive to Montreat. Flights are often cheaper to Charlotte (CLT), a 2 hour drive, or Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP), just over a 90 minute drive. We encourage carpooling/ridesharing where possible.
Please note that advance registration is necessary to attend the gathering, and participant numbers are intentionally limited to create a possibility of more meaningful community - register now to guarantee your place. And because life is unpredictable, if you register in advance and are unable to attend, you can transfer your registration to a friend at no additional cost, although we cannot offer refunds. Accommodation and meals are not included in registration and must be booked separately (and of course you are welcome to commute to the gathering or eat elsewhere).
Onsite accommodation and meals are available at William Black Lodge (right next to the Conference Center) and South Carolina Inn (a very short walk away).
Other local accommodation is also available - click here for information on local hotels and other accommodation.
The town of Black Mountain has several good food options as well - click here for more information.
We want to make the Gathering widely accessible, so we set the registration fee lower than many comparable events; if you can afford to pay more, please do so: we will use any such contributions to offer partial scholarships to folks who aren't currently able to afford the registration fee. And if the registration fee is beyond your reach for now, please read on below for information on scholarships available to anyone that needs one, that can significantly reduce the registration fee - we'll be glad to help.
IF YOU CAN’T ATTEND IN-PERSON BUT WANT TO JOIN ONLINE
We expect to offer an online option which includes some livestreams and recordings of the event.
We hope you'll join us in the spirit of mutual generosity, creativity, and the common good.
Speakers & Facilitators
The Porch Gathering convenes a vibrant assortment of people committed to creativity, community, and the common good. We'll announce more details on contributors and conversations closer to the event itself, but to give a flavor we're delighted to introduce you to some of the friends who will provoke and inspire our conversations at the 2026 Porch Gathering - storytellers, activists, writers, teachers, musicians, leaders and people like you.
Jasmin Pittman is a writer, editor, and spiritual companion based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Her work is included in The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible, Bigger Than Bravery, Meeting at the Table and elsewhere. She is particularly interested in the language of dreams and stories intersecting identity, belonging, and the U.S. American South.
www.instagram.com/jasminiscreating/
Her work is included in The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible, Bigger Than Bravery, Meeting at the Table and elsewhere. She is particularly interested in the language of dreams and stories intersecting identity, belonging, and the U.S. American South.
www.instagram.com/jasminiscreating/
For over thirty years, Billy Jonas -- performer, singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and educator -- has perfected the art of the neo-tribal hootenanny* with audiences around the globe. Using voice, guitar, and industrial re-percussion,* each concert is a soul-spelunking, heart healing, joy-filled journey.
www.billyjonas.com
www.billyjonas.com
Gareth Higgins is an Irish writer, storyteller, and violence reduction activist, and the co-founder of The Porch
www.garethhiggins.net
www.garethhiggins.net
Micky ScottBey Jones
(she/her) is a Black, queer woman with an international and intersectional understanding of social change and fierce dedication to cultivating emotional intelligence and resilience in leaders. Her work includes accompanying people as a facilitator, leadership coach, certified and accredited Enneagram trainer and writer that addresses sustainable leadership, self-awareness, compassion, team culture, values alignment and social-emotional skill building. You can find Micky on the web at mickyscottbeyjones.com.
www.mickyscottbeyjones.com
(she/her) is a Black, queer woman with an international and intersectional understanding of social change and fierce dedication to cultivating emotional intelligence and resilience in leaders. Her work includes accompanying people as a facilitator, leadership coach, certified and accredited Enneagram trainer and writer that addresses sustainable leadership, self-awareness, compassion, team culture, values alignment and social-emotional skill building. You can find Micky on the web at mickyscottbeyjones.com.
www.mickyscottbeyjones.com
Brian Ammons is a spiritual director and co-founder of The Porch
www.theporchmagazine.com/coaching-spiritual-direction
www.theporchmagazine.com/coaching-spiritual-direction
David LaMotte is a singer/songwriter, author, speaker, and non-profit founder. He has performed or spoken in fifty states and on five continents, put out four books and thirteen original albums, and two more as part of an interfaith trio, Abraham Jam. He lives in Black Mountain, NC with his wife and son, an old dog, and four chickens.
www.davidlamotte.com
www.davidlamotte.com
A DEEPER LOOK AT THE PORCH GATHERING VISION
Clearly we're experiencing a time of upheaval and uncertainty, and some of us are feeling exhausted or hopeless. Dreams are deferred, fear rises, and a sense of "spiritual homelessness" is present.
This has happened before, and is often woven with a sense of profound compassion and yearning for a better world.
The wisest people know that the deepest truths are often the simplest.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
What we need to survive are food, water, air, and shelter.
These days, it seems that we need to co-create our own shelter. When the dominant cultural, political, and even religious narratives are variations on "us versus them", individualism, and ideological purity (of any kind), we may well feel that the dream of a safer and more compassionate world, in which everyone lives at peace with their own garden to tend and share is far off indeed.
But on a Porch, and at a Porch Gathering, the dominant narratives are suspended for a few days, and we get to experiment with the expansive, daring, imaginative, and open possibility that there really is a better world, waiting for us to live into it. There is no less wisdom or courage available today than there has ever been.
***
We wouldn't say that the storytelling crisis will be resolved simply by changing the story, but we've spent nearly a decade now with The Porch, and all the connected endeavors interlaced with the good folks in The Porch community, and we keep discovering that much unnecessary suffering results from bad stories. Better stories aren't merely the antidote to unnecessary suffering, but can release us into new ways of thinking, living, being.
It has been said the most important human need is the need for mutual recognition - not elevating one of us over another, but simply truly being seen, and seeing each other. We're here for a short time, although sometimes it seems awfully long. We can spend that time in panic or ignorance, by seeking to dominate others or serve the common good, by indulging in fantasies of retribution or transformation, withdrawing into isolation or nurturing a contemplative life, scapegoating others or taking our place in the ecosystem of interdependent responsibility, weaponizing victimhood or binding the wounds of the brokenhearted, accumulating more and more for ourselves alone, or learning to steward (and craft) beautiful things, and share them.
Porches are "in-between" spaces, the mid-point between home and the world. They're often sheltered, though not sealed. They're places for rich conversation, exploration, play, a shoulder to cry on, or even a nap can be found.
This is the shelter we need. The best way to respond to a bad thing is to do something better in its place.
The best way to respond to panic and ignorance, to the devalued bonds and faded hopes is to - radically, truly, beautifully, experimentally - live.
***
So at the Porch Gathering in April, we're opening a space for significant ideas of grounded hope, individual and communal purpose, provocative and meaningful storytelling, and - frankly - enjoying life together. We truly believe that we are here not just to save the world, but to be changed.
Our work is forged partly in real suffering, conflict, and trauma - as individuals and in the societies in which we were born and raised. But we also learned creativity, resilience, and the kind of deep love that goes beyond platitudes or feelings. What we seek to offer is not a panacea or quick fix, but deeply rooted in the history of transformative storytelling, authentic spirituality, and courageous creativity for the common good.
Our vision is that the Porch Gathering would be a place where a couple hundred people could come together to take life seriously without taking ourselves too seriously; meet brilliant people from all kinds of places; and better understand ourselves, our place in the world, what we can do for the good, and the ways in which we can authentically give ourselves a break.
The third Porch Gathering runs from Friday evening April 17th through Sunday lunchtime April 19th, 2026 (we'll have an optional pre-gathering event Thursday night April 16th and deep dive workshop Friday during the day too) with a range of storytelling, music, breakout sessions, talks, movies, and opportunities for quiet or just connecting with friends old and new. We'll have a dozen or more speakers/musicians/facilitators distinguished in their fields, and lots of options for engaging a better story and way of being, including deepening a sense of community together, and practical tools for the journey of living with courage and creativity.
It's not a typical conference - more like an informal festival-meets-retreat, where conversations on the sidelines matter as much as anything that happens on a stage. The times are showing us that we need each other - and we need truer and more helpful stories to guide us beyond cultures of domination and polarization, hopelessness, and constant activity. The Porch Gathering is a place to find those stories, and to meet people who will share the journey.
ABOUT ASHEVILLE & WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
Hurricane Helene has had an enormous impact on our city, region, and community. Many people in The Porch community have been directly affected, and been directly involved in supporting the thousands who have suffered as a result of the storm. We aim to make the Porch Gathering accessible to anyone who would benefit from it, regardless of ability to pay.
We continue to return the Porch Gathering to the Asheville area, and responsibly engage inviting folks back to a community in recovery.
In this moment of heightened cultural anxiety/tension/confusion, we believe a gathering of like spirited folk committed to transformative storytelling (a slow conversation about beautiful and difficult things) is important and necessary
So we want to support the place The Porch was born and is most closely associated with, in two ways:
1: Please support the Gathering by registering to attend; and if you can, please contribute to the scholarship fund so we can offer discounted or free registration to anyone from the local area who is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helene.
2: If you are one of those directly affected, and it would affect your ability to pay for registration for the Porch Gathering (or if you are in any degree of unjust financial hardship), read further below.
Join us in April 2026 for a beautiful weekend of connection with what matters most
We look forward to hosting you!