International Story Time: Stories from Spanish and Mayan Traditions

Appalachian State University’s Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and High Country Humanities – in collaboration with the Watauga County Public Library – is pleased to present “International Story Time,” a series of storytelling sessions by App State faculty members and students during the Spring 2026 semester.

Pre-K children, elementary school students, and parents are all invited to these free public events, where faculty and students from the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures will read children’s stories from different cultures. Event leaders will also teach participants a few fun vocabulary words in another language.

Stories from the Spanish and Mayan Traditions with Dr. Paul Worley

Dr. Paul Worley, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and professor of Spanish, will read stories from the Spanish and Mayan traditions. Dr. Worley specializes in Spanish, Latin American literatures and cultures, and global Indigenous literatures. He authored Telling and Being Told: Storytelling and Cultural Control in Contemporary Yucatec Maya Literatures and translated selected works by Indigenous authors such as Hubert Matiúwàa (Mè’phàà), Celerina Sánchez, Manuel Tzoc (K’iche’), and Ruperta Bautista (Tsotsil). Worley co-wrote with Rita M. Palacios, Unwriting Maya Literature: Ts’íib as Recorded Knowledge, and co-translated Miguel Rocha Vivas’s Word Mingas. Worley is also a Fulbright Scholar.