Rhode Island news | projo.com | The Providence Journal

« Cumberland bookkeeper gets 4 years in prison | Today | Schilling loses no-hitter with two outs in ninth; Sox win, 1-0 »

June 7, 2007

Update: A chance to share their stories / Audio

Journal photo / Bill Murphy
Susan Pettine, center, and her daughter, Amy Pettine, get some coaching from StoryCorps facilitator Naomi Greene of New York before Sue tells her story.

Audio: Hear the Pettines talk about why they told their stories, and listen to facilitator Nick Pumilia talk about his role, as interviewed by projo.com reporter Kate Bramson.

PROVIDENCE – City resident Amy Pettine is known to stay in her car after reaching her destination listening to StoryCorps segments on National Public Radio, an oral documentary project recording the voices and stories of Americans.

So when her Providence College roommate, who’s now in a graduate program at Brown University, told her how she was working to bring StoryCorps to Rhode Island, Pettine wanted to participate.

Today in the park by Kennedy Plaza, in a big silver bus equipped with all kinds of recording equipment, she’s interviewing her mom, Susan Pettine, who is retiring after teaching for many years in a Fall River elementary school.

“I thought it was a good time to reflect,” Amy said. “Having the audio is just so amazing – to capture her voice.”

StoryCorps, a Peabody award-winning project, is here in Providence from today through June 30, recording the voices of Rhode Islanders. Locally, StoryCorpsRI is based at the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization at Brown University.

-- projo.com staff writer Kate Bramson

Rhode Islanders can still head to the main StoryCorps site and register to record their own histories. The schedule for the last two weeks that StoryCorps is here hasn't been set yet. Reservations for those sessions can be made beginning at 10 a.m. tomorrow on the StoryCorps site.

If you go to register and the schedule appears full, facilitator Nick Pumilia said spots will certainly open up, as some people cancel their appointments.

Pumilia has been working with the project, facilitating hundreds of the conversations the program has recorded. He doesn’t act as an interviewer, he said. The oral histories are “really just more of a conversation between the two of them,” he said. “We take a backseat.”

At the end of the Pettines' 40-minute recording session, they'll get a CD of their interview to take home with them. With participants' permission, copies are also sent to the American Folklife Center's archives at the Library of Congress and select stories air on NPR's Morning Edition.

Posted by Kate Bramson at 4:57 PM | Permalink

June 7, 2007

Update: A chance to share their stories / Audio

Comments

Post a comment