Varta Storytelling Festival

Varta Storytelling Festival comes to the Austin Public Library, Central Branch on Saturday, December 5, from 1:30 to 4:30 PM. It's a South Asian storytelling and literary festival for children and families, and this is its fifth edition. The name comes from vartalaap, which means conversation in Hindustani.

The festival is run by Peerbagh, an Austin-based 501(c)(3) non-profit. It started in Dehradun, India, in 2023, and is the first South Asian storytelling festival for children in North America. Since then it's moved to Austin and Ann Arbor, and this year's edition is supported in part by the Austin Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment Elevate Grant. This fifth edition is themed Weave, and looks at how heritage cultures merge with lived experiences to create a third identity. The Ash Rose Michael 2026 readers' choice honors will be announced during the event.

The afternoon pulls together a few different traditions. Rituparna Ghosh does the storytelling performances, and the art workshops include South Asian blockprinting postcards led by Anushua Sinha and another by Anoosha Syed. There are author talks and book signings with Salma Hussain, Saadia Faruqi and Khushboo Patel, facilitated by Upasna Kakroo. For dance, Iniya Rajan performs Bharatnatyam and Kathak Rythyms does Kathak. DJ Solanki emcees the whole thing, and Majed Imran is on photography.

It's all happening in the demonstration area of the Central Branch, and admission is free, though RSVP is recommended. The festival brings together folk art, dance, music, literature and storytelling traditions like Dastangoi, and it supports an accompanying podcast, Zubaani. In its inaugural year it reached 3,000 residents, more than 100 artists and over 2,000 students from Uttarakhand and North India.