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Emelia González is one of 23 Colombians to tell her story in “Throwing Stones at the Moon” (out September 12 from the nonprofit book series Voice of Witness), a collection of first-person accounts from people who have been displaced by the violence that has plagued the country since the 1948 assassination of the populist presidential frontrunner at the time, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, set off a civil conflict split down party lines. Journalist Sibylla Brodzinsky and Human Rights Watch researcher Max Schoening took on the role of oral historians and spent two years interviewing people across the country, from the Andes and the Amazon to the cities and the eastern plains.  For full story click here.

Edmonds-Woodway High School assistant principal Geoff Bennett started a history club last fall with the goal of getting young people interested in history and learning from the older generation.  Students in the club have spent the year visiting people at Brighton Court retirement home and recording their stories. For the summer, they teamed up with the Edmonds-South Snohomish County Historical Society to interview people during the Saturday farmers market.  For full story click here.

Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who marked an epochal achievement in exploration with “one small step” from the Apollo 11 lunar module on July 20, 1969, becoming the first person to walk on the moon, died overnight at 82.  In an interview, Hansen, author of First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, cited another “special sensitivity” that made the first man on the moon a stranger on Earth. “I think Neil knew that this glorious thing he helped achieve for the country back in the summer of 1969 — glorious for the entire planet, really — would inexorably be diminished by the blatant commercialism of the modern world,” Hansen said.

“Looking back, we were really very privileged to live in that thin slice of history where we changed how man looks at himself, and what he might become, and where he might go,” Mr. Armstrong said in a 2001 NASA oral history project. “So I’m very thankful.”  For full story click here.

 

We are very proud to announce our President, Ariella Van Luyn has been shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards for her unpublished manuscript Hidden Objects which is based on oral histories done in Brisbane.  You will see Ariella and the story on page 3 of today’s Courier-Mail.  For on line story see http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-wordsmiths-dominate-shortlist-of-queensland-literary-awards/story-e6freoof-1226454330073.  She was also interviewed on ABC News last night http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-20/literary-awards-short-listed/4211132?section=qld

We wish her well with the Awards and look forward to her work being published. 

The Valley Rattler is capturing the oral history of the Mary Valley railway line from the mid- to late 20th century. The project is being funded by a Regional Arts Development Fund grant which will be used towards the costs of research, interviews and photography of a selection of railway employees who worked on the Mary Valley branch line and Gympie Station during operation of the Brooloo branch by Queensland Railways.  For full story click here.

An innovative project to tell the story of Catterick Garrison through the eyes, ears and mouths of the people who lived and worked there is to begin this summer.  Garrison Voices will record the history of the largest British Army base in the world through a mix of oral history recording, maps, photographs, and written documents.  For full story click here.

Life stories are fascinating. Everybody has a special story to tell about their life and events especially and event that left a lasting impression on them.  Oral historians find those stories a wealth of untapped history and reflection of years gone by.  We all know the corporate history of events but it is the personal stories that have the most impact.  Currently Ben Ross is collecting life story interviews with generations of Tasmanians born between 1920 and 1980. It is part of a collaboration with historians at Monash and La Trobe universities and ABC’s Radio National.  For full story including radio interview with Ben Ross, click here.

A hundred-and-fifty years ago, young ni-Vanuatu men were brought to Australia to work on sugarcane plantations in northeast Queensland.  The practice, known as Blackbirding, went on for 41 years.  Now the Blackbird descendents are trying to track down their families and a new association’s being set up to help them.  Oral historians in Vanuatu say around 1,000 men were loaded every year on to ships to work the Australian cane fields, from 1863 to the early 20th century. For full story including radio broadcast click here.

Stories told by residents form part of a new interactive tour of Kiama launched this week for mobile devices and smartphones.  App versions are available for Apple iPhones and iPads, as well as for devices running Android software, designed to lead residents and visitors on a 45-minute guided walking tour, complete with sound recordings and photos.  Kiama library manager Michelle Hudson said the stories were gathered as part of an oral history project several years ago, but the app offered a way to bring the tales to more listeners.  For full story click here.