Story Made Podcast

Matt Sawyer
  • 4.7 (14)
  • ARTS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Exploring how stories make a difference in our lives.

  1. 03/10/2024

    Chloe Maxmin & Canyon Woodward

    Our conversation this week is with Chloe Maxmin & Canyon Woodward. Chloe is the youngest woman ever to serve in the Maine State Senate. She was elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate minority leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win a rural conservative district. Canyon is a political strategist, author, and trail runner who served as Chloe's campaign manager in Maine. Together they wrote "Dirt Road Revival: How to Rebuild Rural Politics and Why Our Future Depends On It" and  founded Dirtroad Organizing, where they continue their work empowering the next generation of rural organizers, staff, and candidates. They are both children of rural America, Chloe from Nobleboro, ME and Canyon from Franklin, NC and the North Cascades. In this episode we talk about the long history of Chloe & Canyon's special friendship, their deep love of their home, family, and the natural world keeping them grounded, finding their way into organizing and political action at Harvard, the brain-drain in rural places, the circle from going away to coming home, listening to stories as a campaign strategy, curiosity replacing fear, understanding moral communities, telling more unified stories to beget social change, and the great work Chloe & Canyon are doing with Dirtroad Organizing. Check out Chloe & Canyon's work: Dirtroad Organizing Read their book! Dirt Road Revival Chloe's appearance on Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Communities Canyon & Chloe in the film Rural Runners   Mentioned in this episode: Making Noise: The Story of a Skatepark by Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo The Wandering House — Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo How Students Pressured Harvard to Divest From Fossil Fuels Howard Zinn Marshall Ganz Tim McCarthy Hollowing Out the Middle by Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas King Coal Weather Reports — Terry Tempest Williams Cowee School Arts and Heritage Center

    1h 17m

  2. 02/25/2024

    Hilda Downer

    Our conversation this week is with Hilda Downer. She's an Appalachian poet, retired psychiatric nurse and English instructor at Appalachian State University, member of the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative, and most importantly, a child of Bandana, NC.  In this episode we talk about Hilda's love for Bandana, the mica and feldspar mines as a haven, seeing beauty in what others see as ugly, walking and tasting nature, seclusion as a reason to get together, an infinite connection through landscapes and music, poets projecting themselves into the future, finding her place at Wiley's Last Resort and SAWC, the life and legacy of Jim Webb, poets as legislators of the world, and attention as the rarest form of generosity.  Location: Hilda's home in Sugar Grove, North Carolina Read Hilda's work: Wiley's Last Resort When the Light Waits for Us Sky Under the Roof Bandana Creek   Mentioned this episode: Groundglass by Kathryn Savage Jim Webb Wiley's Last Resort Battle at Blair Mountain by Hilda Downer Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel Literary Magazine Mitchell County Historical Society: Bandana Roan Highlands Ecology The Year of My Life by Issa Kobayashi The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot Southern Appalachian Writers Collective Pauletta Hansel Legislators of the World by Adrienne Rich Mountaintop Removal 101 - Appalachian Voices Appalshop

    2h 11m

  3. 02/11/2024

    Vivian Gibson

    Our conversation this week is with Vivian Gibson. She's the author of 'The Last Children of Mill Creek' - a bestselling memoir about growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood, a life-long entrepreneur, the Missouri Library Association's 2022 Missouri Author of the Year, a 2020 Missouri Humanities Council Literary Achievement Award winner, and most importantly, a child of Mill Creek in St. Louis, Missouri. In this episode we talk all about Vivian's memoir, why the story of Mill Creek is so important, writing the story you want to read, the lasting influence of her mother and father, the suprising connections people across the world have to her memoir, sharing Mill Creek through a child's eyes, how Vivian developed her self-definition and confidence, The Last Children making it on syllabi, and the continued fight for recognition and understanding of her home.  Location: Vivian's kitchen table | St. Louis, Missouri   Buy Vivian's book!  The Last Children of Mill Creek Check out Vivian's website: vivian-gibson.com Go see The Ross Family Exhibition at the Missouri History Museum  Watch & listen to Vivian's TED Talk, 'Deferred Storytelling' Visit Pillars of the Valley   Mentioned in this episode: Nikwasi Mound in Franklin, NC Cowee Mound Watauga Town Kituwah Mound Where's the Reservation? by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle Rondo Neighborhood in St. Paul, MN How Interstate 40 changed the face of Jefferson St. in Nashville, TN Toni Morrison Belt Publishing Historian Gwen Moore brings to life a largely untold part of St. Louis' past Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Harland Bartholomew: Destroyer of the Urban Fabric of St. Louis Protest Targets SLU Plan to Tear Down Former Mill Creek Valley Buildings Urban Renewal and Mill Creek Valley: Decoding The City

    1h 58m

  4. 01/28/2024

    Annie B. Jones

    Our conversation this week is with Annie B. Jones. She's the owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia, host of the 'From the Front Porch' podcast, and child of Tallahassee, Florida.  In this episode we explore the power of ordinary stories, the beauty and challenges of small-town life and business, how faith built The Bookshelf, her evolution as a From-Away in Thomasville, work as humility, her wonderful team of booksellers and communal support, an honest (and refreshing) take on Amazon, and the strength given by "weak ties" inside a bookshop.  Visit The Bookshelf in Thomasville! Listen to the From the Front Porch Podcast Mentioned in this episode: An Old Fashioned Girl and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut The Chumscrubber Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Wendell Berry Nora Ephron Documetary - Everything Is Copy Dragonfly Books in Decorah, Iowa Ernest & Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina A Novel Escape in Franklin, North Carolina Independent bookstores turn a new page on brick-and-mortar retailing Hollowing Out the Middle by Patrick J. Carr and Maria Kefalas James 1:2 - 4 The Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin The From-Aways and The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser I'm nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson Sundog Books in Seaside, Florida Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

    1h 42m

  5. 01/14/2024

    John T. Edge

    Our first conversation of 2024 is with John T. Edge. He's an acclaimed author, the host of TrueSouth on ESPN/SEC Network, Director of the Mississippi Lab at the University of Mississippi, the founding director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, resident of Oxford, Mississippi and child of Jones County, Georgia.  In this episode John T. takes us back to his childhood in Clinton, Georgia, talks about the infuence his mother and father have had on his life, explores the vicissitudes of his career, shares his fascination with lost worlds and underworlds and Underground Atlanta, gives us a lesson on change, and recounts how Oxford, MS became his true homeplace.  All things John T. Edge: johntedge.com TrueSouth on ESPN The Mississippi Lab  Southern Foodways Alliance   Mentioned in this episode: A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living by Luc Ferry My Mother's Catfish Stew by John T. Edge | Oxford American The Angolite, Prison Acitivist Resource Center William Price Fox The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Alberto Cruz Art General Alfred Iverson's Birthplace Historical Marker - Clinton, Jones County, Georgia Senator Iverson's Speech - January11, 1860 Janisse Ray King Coal by Elaine McMillion Sheldon Blair Hobbs - University of Mississippi Remembering Emmett Till by Dave Tell Gorilla by Lee Stockdale Underground Atlanta  Dante's Down the Hatch Natasha Trethewey A Place Like Mississippi by W. Ralph Eubanks Clinnesha Sibley - Story Made Podcast

    1h 47m

  6. 09/11/2023

    Garrett Martin

    Our conversation this week is with Garrett Martin: award-winning filmmaker, owner of VentureLife Films production company, and child of Hamilton, Virginia.  Martin has worked on numerous documentaries with his last feature, UNBOUNDED, receiving multiple international awards and has been shown around the world. His current feature, THE RIVER RUNS ON, is making its rounds through the film festival circuit and will premiere in 2023. His clients include organizations such as BBC, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, National Parks Conservation Association, Eastern Band of Cherokee and more. Listen to us talk about Garrett's journey to becoming a filmmaker, the mystery and magic of nature, learning to break the rules, chasing after god, searching for meaning and identity with a camera, learning to film while hitchhiking from Newfoundland to Canada, sharing happiness, stories of unreal human generosity, the adventure of a lifetime on the Greater Patagonian Trail, and using film to open people up to the magic of the world.  Location: Garrett's home | Asheville, NC garrettrmartin.com theriverrunson.com Watch UNBOUNDED Mentioned in this episode: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Time Away From Time by Eliza Edens Werner Herzog Films Crumb - A film by Terry Zwigoff Jan Dudeck - The Quest to Complete the Greater Patagonian Trail  Mile...Mile & a Half (2013) Nantahala and Pisgah Forest Revised Plan Finalized (February 17, 2023)

    1h 39m

  7. 08/28/2023

    Elaine McMillion Sheldon

    Our conversation this week is with Elaine McMillion Sheldon: Academy Award-nominated, Peabody-winning, and two-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and daughter of West Virginia. She premiered her latest feature-length documentary, KING COAL, at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. She is the director of two Netflix Original Documentaries -  "Heroin(e)" and "Recovery Boys" - that explore America's opioid crisis. In 2013, she released "Hollow," an interactive documentary that examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of West Virginians. Listen to us talk all about KING COAL, the highlight of her life/career, film and processing grief, fiction as a way to be honest, self-definition and creativity, learning to watch your tone, overcoming limiting narratives, the struggle of memory and change, the power of having death in your mind, a strange and beautiful funeral, Louise McNeill and other unknown artists, stories as salvation, and the mythic character of Elaine's Paw Paw. Location: Elaine's office at the University of Tennessee | Knoxville, TN Upcoming screenings for KING COAL KING COAL | Official Trailer Hollow - An Interactive Documentary John Prine - Summer's End Offical Video (directed by Elaine) Find the rest of Elaine's films on her website!   Mentioned in this episode:  The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin The Other Others – First Law and Songlines Dr. Anne Poelina Dr. Mary Graham Alexis Wright West Virginia Culture Center Moments by Mary Oliver Super Duty Tough Work Podcast Alysia Santo of The Marshall Project Howard Berkes Death and Dying in Central Appalachia by James K. Crissman The photographs of Finley Taylor Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor Hill Daughter: New and Selected Poems by Lousie McNeill

    1h 47m

  8. 08/07/2023

    Nina Parikh

    Our conversation this week is with Nina Parikh - Director of the Mississippi Film Office, filmmaker, producer of Sundance award-winning film 'Ballast', and child of Mississippi.  Listen to us talk about a timeless love story, searching for and deepening roots, the making of 'Ballast' and loving words from Roger Ebert, launching a career in Eudora Welty's living room, 25 years of connecting the world & Mississippi through film, how to get stuff done in a polarized world, belonging and not being enough of anything, and seeing the story in everything.  Location: Mississippi Film Office; Woolfolk State Office Building | Jackson, MS Mississippi Film Office website Watch Ballast Watch The Inspection Watch Eudora Welty interview about 'A Worn Path' (Feb. 21, 1994) Rogert Ebert's review for Ballast : "The very life of life" (Oct. 29, 2008) Selected passages from The Sante Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses by Arrell Gibson

    1h 42m
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Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
14 Ratings

About

Exploring how stories make a difference in our lives.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Sawyer
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2024
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Story Made Podcast