StoryCorps is encouraging everyone to set aside one hour to record a conversation with someone important to you for the National Day of Listening. On November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, choose an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood and listen to their story.

This is how it works:  you can preserve the interview using recording equipment readily available in most homes, such as cell phones, tape recorders, computers, or even pen and paper. StoryCorps has a free Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide on their website.  It’s easy to use and will prepare you and your interview partner to record a memorable conversation, no matter which recording method you choose.

StoryCorps wants to establish this as a yearly tradition of listening to and preserving a loved one’s story. The stories collected will become treasured keepsakes that grow more valuable with each passing generation.

If you don’t know about StoryCorps, check them out.  Founded in 2003, StoryCorps is a non-profit oral history project  which has recorded conversations between 50,000 everyday Americans and archived them at the Library of Congress. Their mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.  You can sign up for their free podcasts and an original personal story will be delivered to you inbox every week. Or you can hear the stories on National Public Radio.

StoryCorps is based in New York City with a branch in San Francisco but they occasionally travel around the country with a mobile recording studio housed in an airstream trailer.  I was lucky enough to tell a story when they were parked at the downtown library last year and it was an amazing experience.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 8:27 am and is filed under Arts. Tags for this post: listening, stories, StoryCorps, storytelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.