Amy Hill Amy Hill

StoryCenter Enters the World of Podcasting

For thirty years, StoryCenter has supported people in sharing their own stories, in their own words. As our efforts have grown and evolved, storytelling technologies have gotten cheaper and increasingly accessible, and podcasts are everywhere. Now, we’re excited to announce what feels like a natural next step for our work: a full-fledged podcasting initiative. In this post, our Director of Podcasting Ryan Trauman describes what we’re doing.

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Project News Amy Hill Project News Amy Hill

Where the Stories of the Pandemic Will Live

Somehow, we forgot the last pandemic. The 1918 flu was conspicuously downplayed in medical records, did not fill the pages of the newspapers, and was omitted from personal journals. We cannot locate the cacophony of beleaguered voices; we will never know what they felt, what the flu did to them. There are theories as to why: it was upstaged by the horrors of WWI; it pulled the rug from under the belief in the advancement of medicine; it was too overwhelming to reiterate. Citizens, soldiers, doctors, they did not want to face it, or couldn’t. Why extend the dastardly thing’s lifespan by writing it down?

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Amy Hill Amy Hill

Storytelling to Address Housing Disparities in Chaffee County, CO

It turns out that humans live in houses—if they’re lucky. And our conversation about housing has turned to those humans. How much we value them. How much we need them in our community, and how much their voices matter. And that absolutely changes the conversation about housing.

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Amy Hill Amy Hill

Making the Tech Disappear, in Online Education

No one has ever tried this all-online schooling thing with little kids before. There aren’t any experts. And now, the schools are trying to figure out the human interaction on an impossible timeline, with no room for training teachers on how to hold a class of nine year olds safe and engaged in an online space. The thing that amazes me about StoryCenter, over and over, is that you all have figured out how to make the tech essentially disappear, in service of deeply human work.

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Storyteller Reflections Amy Hill Storyteller Reflections Amy Hill

Motivation

Sometimes, when I think about the control that was stolen from my mother at such a young age, I want to hold her and mourn with her. But, that's not a place we can go. Sometimes, when I uncover a new scar or tenderness in my life based on what happened to me, I want to reach out to her. But, that's not a place we can go.

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Amy Hill Amy Hill

St. James Parish Rising: Documenting a Legacy of Environmental Racism in Louisiana

I was born in St. James Parish when Jim Crow still ruled. Racist laws made sure that many black Louisianans were unable to participate in democracy. It has been more than 50 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, but those of us in the 5th district were not informed when in 2014, the northern part of the district was re-zoned for industrial use. While white residents sold their properties and moved away, black residents did not receive buy-out offers. We were left inhaling the toxic air produced by the invading petrochemical plants.

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Guest User Guest User

Remember, Re-Story, Re-Build: Listening to the California Wildfire Story Collection

Three years ago I know I appreciated the role libraries played in our local communities, but after this extended campaign with California Listens, and in particular listening to the some 50 stories coming out of the Wildfire project, I see that along with religious, educational, and psychological support environments, libraries are a critical sanctuary in times like these.

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Storyteller Reflections Amy Hill Storyteller Reflections Amy Hill

Echoes

“Trauma. This is trauma, Katie,” I tell myself. And, just like that, I can breathe again. I feel the depth of my humanity, and of the driver’s, and it feels Incredible, to breathe it all in, and let the fear, the shame, go.

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Project News Amy Hill Project News Amy Hill

GIANT Expectations

Our project wanted to create an awareness of social isolation in seniors and help move the discussion and action from isolation to social inclusion. Who better to tell people how to do this than seniors themselves?

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