James Froemel Learns The Art Of Lying

This conversation originally aired in the Jan. 26, 2025 episode of Inside Appalachia.

From reciting Emily Dickinson in sixth grade to becoming “the biggest liar in West Virginia,” James Froemel’s journey as a storyteller has been shaped by pivotal moments and mentors. After studying theater and taking a break to focus on family, Froemel discovered professional storytelling through the award-winning performances of Bil Lepp. This sparked a new creative path, leading Froemel to win the Vandalia Gathering’s Liars Competition with his first tale.

Now a seasoned storyteller himself, Froemel recently worked closely with Lepp to hone his craft. It’s not the only thing the two have in common. Last year, Froemel received an invitation to perform at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. It’s a milestone Lepp knows well — his own career took off after his first invitation to perform there in 2000. Now, 24 years later, Froemel is following in his mentor’s footsteps.

Froemel recently spoke with Folkways Reporter Margaret Leef about his evolution as a performer and his mentorship under Lepp.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Leef: How did your love of performing start? 

Froemel: In the sixth grade, we had to recite a poem for the class. I asked to recite Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody. Who are you?” It was only eight lines. The teacher said I could do it, but she could clearly tell I was just trying not to memorize much. She said if I was only going to do an eight-line poem, I had to make it a really special eight lines. I got up and did a whole scene based on those eight lines, and I got a wonderful response from the teacher and the class, which kind of gave me the theater bug.

Leef: What caught your attention when you first saw Bil Lepp perform as a storyteller?

Froemel: It was probably the first time I heard of someone being a professional storyteller. I thought, what is this? So, I looked into what Bil was doing and watched some videos. It looked like a lot of fun.

Leef: How did that experience inspire you? What did you do after seeing Bil perform?

Froemel: In 2014, I wrote my first liar’s tale and went down to the Vandalia Gathering. I jumped up and told my five-minute tale, and at the end, I was announced as the biggest liar in West Virginia.

Leef: What is a liar’s tale? And what is the Liar’s Contest?

Froemel: The Liar’s Contest is a contest that happens every year at the Vandalia Gathering in Charleston, West Virginia. Anybody can come out and tell a tale. It’s really great in that folklife tradition of making art forms accessible. You just show up and sign your name on a piece of paper, and then they call you up, and you tell your tale.

Liar’s tales present something fantastic as though it were true. Most liar’s tales are told in the first person. Often, they’ll start with something really believable. A fun thing about it is that I always try to figure out where the lie begins when I listen to Bil’s tales. Some of my tales are close to true life, but everything is made up. People tell me they believe me until a particular point in the story. I tell them no, as soon as I opened my mouth, I was lying to you. None of that happened.

Leef: Can you tell me more about the first time you saw Bil perform?

Froemel: I first saw him live at the Liar’s Contest. Bil just had such a great way of engaging the audience. He told funny stories about West Virginia that dealt with culturally authentic quirks but in really positive ways. He was very comedic, and he was also such a great ambassador of the state. I really liked seeing that combination.

Leef: How did you end up meeting Bil?

Froemel: Our mentorship was through the West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program. Bil and I would most often meet through Zoom. Bil lives in South Charleston, and I’m in Morgantown. Much of our conversations were about why we tell these stories. I figured out what my voice was within storytelling—why was I telling stories, and what did I want to achieve out of those stories?

Bil was a really great sounding board when it came to working with me on my stories. He would point out technical issues and areas that were confusing or needed further exploration. I would go back and rewrite and then tell the tale again, and he would give more feedback.

He was a great guy to bounce ideas off of. He’s also a great laugher. Bil doesn’t laugh for free. You have to earn your laughs with him. You know you’ve got something good when you can get him going.

Leef: You mentioned that Bil sometimes acknowledges West Virginians’ or Appalachians’ quirks but in a positive way. I wonder if you also challenge Appalachian stereotypes in your stories and, if so, how you do that?

Froemel: I talk a lot about small town life and accepting differences. In the story I worked on with Bil, we wrote about a sign maker who made beautiful signs but was terrible at spelling. Every sign is beautiful but misspelled. It was about this idea that everybody in a small town finds their place, and you don’t have to be perfect. You can still get a positive reaction or experience if your community supports you. 

The character is a wonderful sign maker. It’s just that he doesn’t spell very well. That’s the running gag, and it presented a lot of jokes within that one story. But it also conveyed that everybody in the town is accepted, no matter how different they are, and everybody is excited about anything happening there.

Something I loved about small town life was the participation. If we want a community, we all have to pitch in and make it. We must get excited about the Fourth of July festival and the Main Street parade, where we’ll get the same bubble gum thrown at us for the millionth time. We have to engage in these things.

Leef: What does it mean to you to be a storyteller? And speaking of Appalachia, a second question would be, what does it mean to you to be a storyteller in Appalachia?

Froemel: It is a very minimalistic art form. Being a storyteller in Appalachia is exciting because it is an area where folk arts are genuinely appreciated. It’s an amazing experience to be in the room with people who are so talented. Within West Virginia is a small community of storytellers. I’ve never been more than two degrees away from them. We know each other, and that’s common in folk art. You can go up to the greatest artist in a folk genre, and they’ll take the time if you ask them.

They will show you the banjo or the fiddle, for example. They want to work with you and share their art. They take that folk aspect of it, knowing that their art can only be passed down if we give it to someone else. There aren’t formal training programs for things like claw hammer banjo. It’s just people teaching one another this thing, and that’s true of storytelling. It’s just us going out and showing one another how to do this and engaging with one another in that way.

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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.