Spontaneous Vegetation

Nance Klehm, Radical Ecologist — Elise Pepple is the GM of Marfa Public Radio in Far West Texas. She believes in the power of storytelling to shape and animate who we are, where we live, and how we relate. Elise spent the last decade learning the contemporary branches of oral storytelling apparent to her: oral history, radio, live storytelling, and podcasting. She got her start in radio when she brought StoryCorps to her small town in rural Alaska. She studied radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Study. She used to produce fun projects like The Other AK: an experiment in narrative tourism and Portland Brick, a project building public memory. She also used to host a live storytelling series called Hear Tell where everyone would end up laughing and crying together. She also also used to teach college students. Now she fills out a lot of paperwork, deals with lightning strikes to a transmitter on a mountain, and raises money.