Next week, at various locations around town, I’ll be recording oral histories from anyone who wants to participate as part of the FestivALL Oral History Project. I’m hoping to fill up every day and get as many recordings as possible.

Oral histories are simply recordings of whatever you want to talk about and record for posterity. No more and no less. They don’t have to be dramatic or traumatic. The everyday stories are just as important as the bigger stories. In other words, everyone has a story to tell and to record. If for no other reason, oral histories are important to preserve memories for families. They record our voices and the life that made us who we are.

I’ll be there to guide the interview and keep it moving. Of course, you’re free to talk about anything you want to talk about. Participants will receive a copy of their recording. My hope is to produce some sort of documentary project afterward, using excerpts from the recordings, but until I listen to the recordings and see what we get, I’m not sure exactly what that will look like. If you’d rather not have your story included in the follow up project, that’s fine, too. You are still welcome to take advantage of this opportunity.

This project is being sponsored by FestivALL and the locations that are providing the space. Below you’ll find the location list and the way to sign up. The Clay Center has a signup form on their website and the other locations have provided phone numbers where you can call and set up an appointment. You can find the complete list and more information on the project on the FestivALL website.

To make an appointment:

Monday, June 22: The Clay Center. Visit the Clay Center website to make an appointment.

Tuesday, June 23: Emmanuel Baptist Church, 1401 Washington St. West, Charleston, WV 25387. Call the Church office at (304) 342 4988.

Wednesday, June 24: West Virginia Bureau of Senior Services. Call 304-558-3317. Ask for Tammy Webb or Lee Rogers.

Thursday, June 25: B’nai Jacob Synagogue. Call 304-346-4722 to make an appointment. (I understand this location has already filled up.)

Friday, June 26: West Virginia Culture Center Archives. Contact Susan Scouras, the Library Manager at 304-558-0230 X742..

A few days ago, I was in a local office supply store when an older gentleman made eye contact and decided to show me what he was working on. He had some old pictures of a train that ran Blue Creek in the Elkview area. He was having them laminated and explained that when he was a kid, he didn’t ride a bus to school… he rode a train. It was a cool story and a fascinating little piece of history. Why he chose me to share it with, I have no idea. I guess I just look curious.

I have a degree in Journalism from Marshall. After school, I worked in local newspapers for a few years, first in Matewan and then writing for the Metro/Neighbors sections of Charleston newspapers. I quickly discovered my favorite part of the job was human interest stories and features. I really enjoyed talking to people and listening to what they had to say.

Flash forward 25 years and one of my favorite projects is to collect oral histories. Oral histories are recorded memories. They can be about early childhood, work experiences, war experiences or family life. It is extremely important for families to record the memories and voices of older generations so those memories are not lost.

During FestivALL 2015, I’ve been asked to coordinate collecting oral histories around Charleston June 22-26. (We’re planning to do some person-on-the-street interviews on the weekends, too). The FestivALL Oral History Project seeks to collect oral histories from everyday Charleston residents and those who live in the surrounding area. Where appropriate, we’ll direct oral history interviews with questions relating to life in the Charleston area, (earliest memory, connections to the river, etc.) but will leave the oral history up to you.

We’ll use excerpts from these recordings to develop a multimedia documentary and memory wall. Participation in that portion of the project is voluntary and not required if you want to have your oral history recorded.

I’m still looking for a couple locations who are interested in hosting a day of recordings. So far, we are recording at The Clay Center (June 22) and Emmanuel Baptist Church on the West Side (June 23). We can set up to record in churches, libraries, community centers or wherever. If you’re interested in hosting the FestivALL Oral History Project, send me an email. I’m asking that the location sponsors maintain the schedule for their location to keep people flowing in and out.

If you want to have your story recorded as part of the project, watch the FestivALL website for details on locations and contact information on how to sign up. Each interview will take about an hour..

A few months ago, I began interviewing Appalachian authors for a radio show/podcast called Writer’s Block on Voices of Appalachia. I will be the first to admit that the idea for the show was largely self-serving. I get to spend time with authors from all over the region, learning what makes them tick and understanding how they approach their craft. The learning process has never been higher than an interview I did last week with West Virginia’s Poet Laureate Marc Harshman.

I know some of you were tempted to tune out the moment I said “poet”. Honestly, until recently, I would have felt the same way. Poetry was a form of writing that I never “got”. I could appreciate the craft of it. I could appreciate the work that went into it. But appreciating the poems themselves was always difficult for me. And what the heck is a “laureate” anyway?

Last question first: In ancient Greece, a hero or a poet was crowned with a laurel wreath. The word has come to signify literary awards or military glory. A poet laureate is the official poet of a state or country as designated by the government. So, the state of West Virginia chose Harshman to be the state’s poet representative. West Virginia has had a poet laureate for nearly 90 years.

Harshman was in Charleston last week for the Creators Talks at the WVSU Economic Development Center where he read selections of his own poetry, along with the poetry of others, and answered questions from a full house of attendees. Listening to Harshman read his work was an eye-opener.  It was stirring and profound. You hear the emotion, you hear the authority. You hear the rhythm and the music of it. He said he learned about poetry from his father as a child on the farm. It wasn’t high art the senior Harshman read for him, but even then, he could hear the “words making music.”

Harshman spent his entire adult life in West Virginia. He said he fell in love with the Mountain State when he came East from Indiana to study at Bethany College. Even though he left a couple times for school, he kept coming back. He lives in Wheeling now. “West Virginia is a small state but there’s such an abundance of amazing poets and writers and sculptors and dancers. My obligation to promote all the arts,” he said.

In his presentation, Harshman also paid tribute to Irene McKinney, the previous poet laureate of West Virginia. She held the post until she died in 2012. He read her poem At 24. “She didn’t expect to be here afterward. She had to fight for everything she had,” Harshman said.

For me, one of the most notable lines in the poem was “I was writing to save my life.”Any writer or story teller will tell you that you don’t write for money or awards or notoriety. You write because you have to. You really don’t have a choice in the matter. I think that was what McKinney was saying. Filmmaker and the host of the Creators Program, Daniel Boyd, summed it up, saying “There is poetry in everything we do.”

If you want to hear the interview with Harshman, you can listen online in the Show Archive at www.voicesofappalachia.com..