When James Kennicott, now 86, was young, he loved ice-skating on the river near his home in Waterloo, Iowa. One day, the ice cracked under his feet and he plunged into the water below. He didn’t have hot water at home. So he broke into his school to take a hot shower. “I think that […]
Caitlyn, a quiet seventh grader, was bullied by the other kids in her class at Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank, California. She wore the same cowboy boots every day. “The other kids were awful about it,” said English teacher Rebecca Mieliwocki, remembering this student who has stayed lodged in her memory for 10 years […]
Ever had the impulse to put everything in storage, sublet your place and travel across the country in an Airstream trailer? That’s what Emily Janssen did when she joined the StoryCorps Mobile Tour as a facilitator, someone who helps people record their own StoryCorps interview. She’d worked for StoryCorps before, at their headquarters in Brooklyn, […]
TED speaker Virginia Postrel swears by the app Anti-Social when she needs to focus on her writing. Jon Gosier considers his iPhone 5 “the Swiss Army knife of electronic gadgetry,” and relies on Waze for “directions and avoiding speeding tickets.” Meanwhile, Heather Barnett never reads a single book at a time — she usually has […]
“Tonight, I’m going to make the case that inviting a loved one, a friend or a stranger to record a meaningful interview might just turn out to be one of the most important moments in that person’s life — and in yours,” says Dave Isay of StoryCorps, stepping to the TED stage to accept the 2015 TED Prize in Session […]
The core of StoryCorps is listening. It’s about honoring another human being by simply listening to them. The joke, of course, is that I’m a terrible listener. I really am — ask anybody. I’m just so easily distracted by my phone or email. I’m terrible. But that’s why StoryCorps is so important. It’s about learning […]
Some people might not take kindly to being called a knucklehead by their boss. Not Noah McQueen. But if your boss were President Barack Obama, you’d probably give him a pass, too. In a Storycorps interview that aired this morning, President Obama interviewed McQueen, an 18-year-old White House mentee in the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which celebrates its first […]