A few weeks ago, I was driving to the grocery store listening to an interview between a mother and daughter, Elizabeth and Sara Bell. I was astonished to hear the intimacy of their conversation. Elizabeth wants to interview her mother, who is 65 and suffering from dementia, because she is afraid that the disease will […]
When someone makes a StoryCorps interview, they’ll usually talk about the most important people in their lives, remember the best and worst moments they’ve lived through, and pass on wisdom they’ve gleaned over the years. So it comes as no surprise that memories of parents are often the star of the show. Our facilitators tell us […]
Mother’s Day is coming up. And since my TED Talk was about how meaningful it was to record a StoryCorps interview with my father, I was inspired to take this chance to interview my beloved mom, Jane Isay. My mom has been an editor and writer for more than 40 years — she edited H.G. Bissinger’s Friday […]
When we started StoryCorps in 2003, at first, no one came to the booth we’d set up in Grand Central Terminal. I knew that doing an interview would be an incredible experience for people, but it was a hard sell. So when we launched the StoryCorps app at the TED2015 conference, I expected silence. I […]
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 […]