Story Made Podcast Matt Sawyer
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- Arts
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Exploring how stories make a difference in our lives.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)
Customer Reviews
Fantastic podcast for book nerds
Thoughtful literary interviews.