STORYTELLING : Voice of the Past : A good yarn--told well--is still spellbinding to young or old. An Ojai festival will celebrate the spoken word.

In what may be a backlash to the electronic age, the practice of storytelling seems to be spreading across the nation.

And in Ojai, they’re onto the wave. The city not only has a storytelling guild, but on Saturday it will hold the first Talespinners’ Festival.

Festivals in Ojai are about as rare as zucchini. But storytelling festivals were, until now, unknown. The Ojai Valley Friends of the Library put out feelers a month ago, and six storytellers responded. One is a professional.

“Storytelling is an art that used to be an adult art; it’s been somehow taken over by children,” said Jim Cogan, who was once a middle school principal in Ketchum, Idaho.

“Adults don’t know what they’re missing,” he said.

In middle age, Cogan decided to change roles. In his case it was a reversal--from a storytelling educator to a teaching performer.

“It was real clear that this is what I’ve been all my life,” he said. “I found that if I told stories, I could hold people’s interest. I thought it was me, but it was really the stories, because stories have that power.”

Four years ago he gave notice at his school and started out on his own, beginning with what was familiar--offering presentations to schools around the country. Some eagerly welcomed him, others held back.

“They said, ‘Just what exactly is storytelling?’ There was a huge gap in some people’s backgrounds with regard to this art that is 10,000 years old,” he said.

He gets that question less often now. The spread of tale spinning at arts and crafts gatherings, in communications seminars and in school courses has paved the way for full-time tellers. There are now about 400 of them in the country, according to the National Assn. for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling (NAPPS) in Jonesboro, Tenn.

Thousands more people are actively involved in the art, a number of them, fortunately, in the Ojai Valley. Joining Cogan on Saturday will be local residents James Lashly, film actor, writer and musician; True Heitz, teacher and author; Ed Scanlan, president of the Friends of the Library; JoAnn Yabrof, elementary school teacher and puppeteer; and Karen Moncharsh, choreographer and actress.

They have chosen a cross-cultural program that seems to have almost everything.

Moncharsh, who does choreography for Illusions Theatre in Ojai and performs in many of the productions, will tell “Arabian Nights” tales. She will appear as Scheherazade for her performance, a role she has assumed while teaching local drama workshops.

“I probably have a different approach from the other presenters. I do dramatic play involving the audience; that tends to be my trademark,” she said.

Ed Scanlan will make his storytelling debut by recounting an Irish tale, “The Key, the Mouse, the Harp and the Bumclock.”

“I will use an Irish accent, because I was brought up with one,” said the retired priest.

He reported feeling up to his part after a month’s practice, and open to possible future bookings. The venue, he said, would be “anybody who would want me--wakes, weddings or whatever.”

Yabrof will present Japanese tales; Heitz folk tales from Russia, and Lashly, early American stories.

Cogan will complete the program with an African trickster tale from his repertoire of classics, myth, legend, folk tales and personal history.

“What makes a good story is usually a single moment that every person can recognize as theirs,” he said. “If the story is focused around that moment, if it’s well-crafted, it will work. It can be a minute long, (but) it gets right to the heart of the human experience.”

Video events, he said, are no match for the power of the live connection between teller and listener. He told of an experience with a boy in South Lake Tahoe: Sitting on a stage, watching a ninth-grade class file into the auditorium to hear him tell a story, Cogan saw one youngster who stood out from the crowd, not positively. “His head was bobbing, his tongue was hanging out. He was mouthing off, pushing and shoving his way to a seat. He had angry eyes, obviously didn’t want to be there.”

The story began--a tale of Gold Rush days and One-Eyed Charlie Parkhurst--a tough old stagecoach driver who, to the amazement of his friends, is eventually revealed to be a woman.

“I directed a lot of the story to him,” Cogan said. “For quite a while, he didn’t do anything. Finally, he got up, slowly shook his head and said to no one in particular, ‘So , I’m gonna turn off the TV!’ ”

* WHERE AND WHEN

Talespinners’ Festival, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday on the patio of the Ojai Library, 111 W. Ojai Ave. No charge. Call 646-1639 or 640-1364.