Soundings

What can you expect from Sound Stories? The 2024 class weighs in. Taught by Laura Joyce Davis through the Stanford Storytelling Project, this hands-on, workshop-oriented course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of podcast storytelling. Class work will include pitching, interviewing, scriptwriting, narration, audio editing, and sound design. You’ll learn time-honored principles for strong storytelling in any medium, as well as strategies specific to storytelling in sound. Though we focus on audio stories, the craft skills you learn here are transferable to making stories for any medium, from print and performance to film and games. By the end of the course, you will have crafted both a narrative essay and a 10-minute podcast episode that entertains, challenges, and moves your audience. All fully produced student pieces will be published in the Stanford Storytelling Project Soundings podcast. Course info: https://shorturl.at/eLOR0

Each year, the Stanford Storytelling Project awards Braden Grants to support the research, writing, and production of audio documentaries. The aim of the program is to help students learn how to tell powerful, research-driven stories based on testimony they gather through interviews, research, or oral history archives. Grantees receive up to $2,500, along with teaching, training, and mentorship for the duration of the project. Here's what the 2023 Grantees had to say about their experience.

Each year, the Stanford Storytelling Project awards Braden Grants to support the research, writing, and production of audio documentaries. The aim of the program is to help students learn how to tell powerful, research-driven stories based on testimony they gather through interviews, research, or oral history archives. Grantees receive up to $2,500, along with teaching, training, and mentorship for the duration of the project. Here's what the 2023 Grantees had to say about their experience.

This episode explores the different futures made possible when you balance narratives of dispossession with narratives of joy--and how we see that manifest in Oaxaca's celebrations and the different ways that community members seek to make themselves visible.

Despite 13+ years of a fractured relationship between mother and daughter, this episode journeys through the past, present, and future, highlighting one unlikely solution that changed the trajectory of a family and its generations.

Kevi grew up surrounded by Filipino caregivers--many of whom had to leave their families in the Philippines to work in the US. As she starts to unpack the histories of the people who raised her, Kevi embarks on a journey of discovery that reveals the dark history of how the US caregiving industry became dependent on the separation of Filipina workers from their families.

In an effort to reconnect with her Cambodian identity, Marissa Mengheang explores the experiences of Cambodian genocide survivors, including her own grandparents. But her search for knowledge takes to her to an unexpected place. TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains references to genocide, murder, and human rights violations.

This intro episode of the Regeneration Pilgrimage series is about a journey of self discovery that took place in nature-based off grid communities in Portugal and Spain. This episode is an intimate, deeply personal story of the month long solo-pilgrimage that your host, Alice Grace, set out on in the Summer of 2023. This is her story of finding healing and the secrets to living in alignment with purpose to transcend the illusions of the modern capitalistic matrix.

“Back to the Garden” tells the story of an organic farming couple, Jose and Rich, who are committed to sustaining the environment and who also don't believe in climate change. This episode explores how that dissonance might be possible, the power of language, and whether or not the term "climate change" will help save the planet.

In this story about connection outside the bounds of physical space, time, and life experience, an unlikely friendship buds during uncertain times.

n the midst of the pandemic, Neelay embarks on a cross country road trip to take a break from the stresses of life and to explore more of the country around him. However, as his excursion takes him deep in the Midwest, he encounters protestors at Nebraska’s state capital that radically change his worldview. With a tight knit community right in front of him, fighting for their people back in their home country, he ponders the status of the Asian American community today and its presence across all parts of the nation.

DCI Discovered is the story of a corporate lawyer who found traditional success in her career, realized she wasn’t where she wanted to be, quit her job, and found an innovative program at Stanford to help get her back on track.

E'Jazz Mason was a straight-A student from New Orleans when life threw him a curve ball he couldn't catch. This is a story is about adversity, breaking the rules, and finding your way.

In the spring of 2020, Stanford University made the decision to cut 11 of their varsity teams due to financial issues and lack of success. This episode follows the men’s wrestling team and their coaches in the months following the decision to cut their team as they navigate the challenges of fighting for their spot back.

Food insecurity and other environmental issues disproportionately impact low-income, disinvested neighborhoods, but urban agriculture has the potential to promote equity, green space, and food access in these areas. The story of the NYC-based urban agriculture initiative "the Green Bronx Machine," will show us how. This episode was written and produced by Sophia Manolis and Lisiane Nemlin with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.

Whether we want to believe it or not, we are inextricably bound to our food systems. Thousands of miles away from the continental US, the story in Guam ultimately teaches us how embracing traditional Indigenous values may heal our relationships with people, place, and power. Join us in unraveling the history of Guam's food Systems and learn how the island community came together to organize for food sovereignty. This episode was produced by Natasha Zia Charfauros and Lizbeth Luevano with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.

Have you ever considered the impacts that walking can have on our cities? In this episode, we explore the history of the car in America, its effects on urban design and community health, and learn from Brooklyn Open Streets activist Clara Smith and Professor Dehan Glanz how walkability can improve the health, street safety, and sustainability of American Cities. This episode was produced by Catherine Dickerman and Connie Hong with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.

With wildfires and rising sea-levels, climate change is terrifying to think about on a global scale. That’s why this episode takes it local, as we learn why we’re so disconnected from our local ecologies, what it means to reconnect with the seemingly invisible ecological web that ties our cities, cookies, and urban wildlife together. This episode was produced by Arusha Patil and Chloe Cheng with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.

We've been told to go vegetarian to help the climate, but what if we can reduce meat-related emissions without sacrificing our palates? In this episode, we learn about two cow feed supplements that inhibit methane, how they came to be, and how they are changing the role of agriculture in fighting climate change. Walk with us through the entire lifecycle of two impactful climate innovations, from problem discovery, to solution, to real-world product in farmers’ hands. This episode was produced by Allison John and Rachel Wu with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.

Agriculture, and especially cattle ranching, is a chief user of land and resources around the world, and frequently a choice is made to clear land and reduce biodiversity. What if it wasn't this way - what if agriculture had the potential to produce food and heal the planet? This episode was produced by Alex Strong and Jett Carruth with support from Laura Joyce Davis and the Stanford Storytelling Project's course "Stories to Save Our Planet." Complete show notes can be found at www.storytelling.stanford.edu.