Written by Pauletta Hansel, Writer-in-Residence, Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library
Our 2022 Writer-in-Residence, Pauletta Hansel, is a poet, memoirist, teacher, and editor. Listen to her as host of CHPL's "Inside the Writer's Head" podcast.
Author, psychologist and education Jerome Bruner has said that telling stories “is the most natural and the easiest way in which we organize our experience and our knowledge [and] make sense of the world.” In this episode of “Inside the Writer’s Head,” I interview three Cincinnati residents who have founded projects with community storytelling at their core, and tells a little about her own project as well.
Guests on This Episode
David Levy is co-founder and board member of True Theatre, which has just kicked off its 13th season of bringing together a wide variety of people through live, story-telling theatre.
Keloni Parks coproduces CHPL’s West End Stories Project podcast, preserving the stories of individuals who lived or worked in Cincinnati's West End neighborhood as it transformed into what it is today.
Elissa Yancey is co-founder of A Picture’s Worth, an audio storytelling platform using a visual information-gathering tool for personal and community narratives, and author of “Grab Happy: The Serendipitous and Surprising Sides of Caregiving and Survival.”
Pauletta Hansel’s project is the Urban Appalachian Community Story Project, a web-based story archive showcasing the strength and diversity of urban Appalachians in Cincinnati—including former Writer-in-Residence Emma Carlson Berne, CHPL Reference Librarian Chris Smith, and Staci Dennison, Thomas W. Jones Executive Director of The Library Foundation!
What do these projects teach us about our community, and how can we get involved? Tune in and find out in this, Pauletta’s last episode as host of “Inside the Writer’s Head.”
Our Guests’ Websites
- True Theatre, opens a new window
- West End Stories Project Podcast and accompanying blog posts.
- A Picture’s Worth, opens a new window
- Urban Appalachian Community Story Project, opens a new window
Recommended Reading From This Episode's Guests
David Levy
Unbreakable Runner: Unleash the Power of Strength & Conditioning for a Lifetime of Running Strong by T.J. Murphy and Brian MacKenzie
Keloni Parks
Elissa Yancey
The danger of a single story: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, opens a new window | TED Talk
Pauletta Hansel
Add a comment to: Four Community Story Projects: True Theatre, West End Stories Project, A Picture’s Worth and the Urban Appalachian Community Story Project