Tell your story for posterity

[KBCraig]

Link to make reservations in the original article.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=NPR%27s+StoryCorps+is+coming+to+the+Granite+State+next+month&articleId=4d20dcc8-78b8-4e0b-aeab-32745f043450

NPR's StoryCorps is coming to the Granite State next month

By SHAWNE K. WICKHAM
New Hampshire Sunday News Staff

Concord – You may have heard the stories on New Hampshire Public Radio -- the ones that warm your heart, or break it, and sometimes even do both at the same time. Now StoryCorps is coming to the Granite State.

An effort to create the nation's largest oral history project, StoryCorps records and archives "extraordinary stories from everyday people," according to Betsy Gardella, president and CEO of New Hampshire Public Radio.

Housed in an iconic silver Airstream, the StoryCorps mobile recording booth will be parked in front of the State House July 5-28, collecting stories Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and on weekends from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Each 40-minute appointment is for an interview between two people -- it could be parent and child, siblings or best friends -- with a StoryCorps facilitator on hand to help them tell their story.

"Basically it's a conversation between two people who know one another," Gardella explained. "It's an oral history project, but it's an intimate one."

Since the project began in 2003, approximately 12,000 stories have been collected to date, according to David Isay, the award-winning radio documentarian who came up with the idea for StoryCorps. Isay's Brooklyn-based Sound Portraits Productions produces the program in partnership with National Public Radio, which airs selected stories, and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, which is archiving the entire collection.

The first-ever visit to New Hampshire is timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the state's public radio station.

Isay said there are certain universal themes that run through the stories, such as love and loss, life and death. And while there are some regional differences -- in accents or ethnicity, for instance -- "The heart and soul of these stories are very much the same," Isay said.

"When you listen to these stories, you realize there's so much more as a nation that we share in common than divides us, that we really are so much more similar than you would be led to believe by watching TV or listening to talk radio."

The experience has convinced him -- and he hopes it will others -- "if we spent more time listening to each other instead of screaming at each other, we'd be a better, more compassionate nation."

StoryCorps began as "a really simple idea" that has grown into a successful nonprofit venture with a staff of 70, Isay said.

The first booth opened in Manhattan's Grand Central Station; a second was added two years ago at the site of the World Trade Center. One mission of StoryCorps is to record at least one story from the loved ones of every person who died on Sept. 11, for a collection to be housed at the WTC Memorial Museum that will be built there, Isay said.

There are three mobile StoryCorps booths, one for eastern states, another for the West, and a third that is spending a year collecting the stories of African-Americans across the country, Isay said.

They've lately begun adding "outposts" to record stories in libraries, and hired "door-to-door" facilitators who can record stories at any location. "We're beginning to really make this available to many, many more people, and it's really exciting," Isay said.

At its core, Isay said, StoryCorps "tells people they matter and they won't be forgotten."

It's quite common for people to begin crying as soon as they sit down inside the intimate booth, which Isay said becomes a sort of "sacred space."

"In this vast, moving world we live in, just sitting with a loved one and looking into their eyes and spending 40 minutes saying, 'I want to hear your story, and someday your great-great-great-grandchild is going to hear your voice,' is really a profound experience for people," he said.

Another aspect of the project is that passers-by will be able to listen in on headphones to the conversations going on in the interior booth, if the participants agree. "It's really a wonderful community event," said Gardella.

The collection of stories offers a "window into the unconscious," she said. "They make us feel connected and they make us introspective, all at the same time."

But you do have to have a reservation to record your story. By late Friday afternoon, the station already had received 37 reservations; there are 101 interview slots available here. Participants can take home a copy of their recordings, and are asked for a voluntary donation to help defray the cost.

NPR producers select the stories to broadcast nationally during "Morning Edition" each Friday. Gardella said more of the New Hampshire stories recorded next month will also be broadcast locally on NHPR.

Some StoryCorps offerings are funny, others sad, some present tense, some from long ago. Taken together, Gardella said, "It's like a time capsule of the early 21st century."

"It really is radio that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. They're stories that communicate, I think, the very private but real struggles and challenges and joys that we all have."

It doesn't take a momentous event to make a good StoryCorps interview, Gardella stressed.

"We're all enriched by one another's stories," she said. "I know that there are a thousand good stories out there, and I'm just looking forward to hearing them."

[CNHT]

I hope this doesn't turn out to be another liberal whine-fest...