Valley Voices

You wouldn’t think that being part of “the definition of a hot mess” would be a sweet memory, but Tara Bronner brought us right there in her story “Tuesdays with Lois”. That’s this week’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast from NEPM!

This week on NEPM’s Summer Shorts podcast, Ruthy Woodring gets existential about her love of bike riding.

When you know you are the “keeper of a messy desk”, might as well just own it! Angela Combest is this week’s storyteller for NEPM’s Summer Shorts podcast. She looks back on a memory from grade school and gets a peek into how it relates to her head space as an adult.

On NEPM’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts this week, Sarah Madden shares her story “Mother Teresa and a Pit Bull” including a few memories of her early days of teaching. This one should come with a language warning - you probably want to keep this away from kids if you don’t want them learning certain words that they could use against you!

Jennifer Baker is up next in NEPM’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast. At our “Valley Folklore” story slam this season, Jennifer takes a look at an unexpected guest who showed up at her office.

Another veteran storyteller this week for NEPM’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast. Paul McNeil takes a minute to examine his life’s philosophy while in the back of a cop car.

Jessica Geil takes us back to elementary school on NEPM’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast this week. She seems to be remembering a lot of emotions that were specific to her situation, but somehow those feelings are pretty relatable for all of us!

This week on NEPM’s Summer Shorts podcast, veteran story slam participant Matthew Dicks takes a look at one night from the past that could have been just embarrassing, but in the end gave him a chance to re-think his relationship with his in-laws.

As part of NEPM’s 10th season of our Valley Voices Story Slam, we asked for people’s “Valley Folklore” - tales about the unique place that we all live.Helene Busby went to Hampshire College, surely one of the most “unique” parts of our “unique” Valley! For this week’s Summer Short, Helene brings us a funny remembrance of Hampshire and its quirky students in her story “Talking Trees”.

Up next in our Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast season, it’s Valerie Reiss with a story about her and her dad that swoops from the present to the past and back again. Enjoy!

Storyteller Wesley Blixt kicks off 2025's Summer Shorts season of Valley Voices from NEPM - check out his nostalgia for his younger days and how they led him to where he is now.

It’s the Valley Voices Story Slam podcast: We had the winners of season 10’s Story Slams on stage at the Academy of Music in Northampton in April. And now we present to you - the Best of Season 10! There were great stories all year long, but Chris Bell, Ann Marie Zanfagna and Susan Cocalis were the audience’s favorite that night. Enjoy!

NEPM’s latest Valley Voices podcast presents the winners of our Story Slam on the theme “Elementary”. We let the storytellers elaborate on what that meant to them, and then invited them up on stage at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls. The audience favorites that night were Nina Brand, Jeff Conant and Ami Jackson.

NEPM’s latest Valley Voices podcast presents the winners of our Story Slam on the theme of Valley Folklore that we hosted at the Iron Horse in Northampton. The Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts is a very particular place, with lots of folks who have tales to tell about it. The audience favorites that night were Susan Cocalis, Bryan Tawney and Molly Snyder.

NEPM is celebrating 10 years of hosting nights of live storytelling that we call Valley Voices Story Slams. For the first slam in our 10th season, we figured we wanted to be “toasted” - whether that’s a clink of champagne glasses, or something very different! Here are the three winners from that night in Studio A at NEPM in Springfield, MA - Ann Marie Zanfagna, Chris Bell and Julia Mitchell.

This time on the Valley Voices Story Slam podcast: We had 10 winners of season 9’s Story Slams up on stage at the Academy of Music in Northampton. And now we present to you - the Best of Season 9! There were great stories all year long, but Angela Combest, Julia Mitchell and Dave Fromm were the audience’s favorite that night. Enjoy!

For our final Summer Short story of the 2024 season, we bring you Susan Bartfay and her story “Bad boys are my weakness”. Some people just have to recount things that happened in their life to bring a really incredible story to the stage. Susan told this one at our “Pot Luck” story slam that we held at our NEPM studios in Springfield. We’re making plans for season 10 of Valley Voices Story Slams at venues throughout western Mass. this fall - hope to see you there!

Rachel Leventhal Weiner is up next in NEPM’s Summer Short podcast series. She takes out an old personal memory set to the back drop of a quite public memory that we all share. Enjoy “Girl Meets Boy” from our “Missed Connections” story slam last fall.

This week in NEPM’s Valley Voices Summer Shorts podcast series, we reach back to our Whodunit? story slam last fall to hear from Judy Gutlerner and the life perspective she got from a household mixup.