Call for Submissions for Education Episode
Monday, September 24th, 2012We’re Seeking Stories for Our Upcoming Special
State of the Re:Union is asking you to share your first-hand accounts of schooling in America. We’re looking for a diverse group of stories from anyone: students, teachers, counselors, parents, valedictorians, high school dropouts -past or present- about how your educational experience has or has not prepared you for life post-high school. We want your insights into how effective our schools really are… in the inner-cities, in the suburbs, and in the rural areas of this country. Your story can come from a place of inspiration or frustration, anger or appreciation, wanting to shock or to inform — it just needs to be true and truly interesting.
How to Submit your Story
You can either call (646) 205-4311 or Email education@stateofthereunion.com.
Just follow these two easy steps:
- Give your name and email address (please make sure you speak clearly!)
- Do your best to cover the who, what, where, when & why of your story in under a minute.
If your story is selected for broadcast, SOTRU will professionally record you telling it and include it in an hour-long collection of stories.
Deadline for submission is Friday, October 12, 2012.
About American Graduate:
This project is funded in part by American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, a public media initiative by the Corporation of Public Broadcast to raise awareness of the high school dropout crisis in America and spark dialogue on how to keep kids on the path to graduation. For more on American Graduate, visit: http://www.americangraduate.org

Sometimes you don’t know how perfect a place is… until you’ve left it. That’s what Chuck Palahniuk discovered. He grew up in a part of southeastern Washington, called the Tri-Cities—after the trio of cities clustered along the Columbia River: Richland, Pasco and Kennewick. It’s in this area that, in the 1940s, the federal government bought up a huge piece of land to make plutonium for nuclear bombs. And theTri-Cities are still shaped by the odd hybrid of farming the soils of the region– and plutonium production. Every episode of State of the Re:Union, we ask residents to write a letter to the place they live. Chuck, who’s the author of Fight Club, and several other books, writes that, with time even things you never appreciated become oddly… perfect.
In this episode we explore a community where when evil rears its head, someone finds a way to set things right, even if they have to make sacrifices and defy the laws of our universe to do it. In this hour we tell the stories of real-life battles between good and evil in the world of comic books, where underdogs often come out on top and fantasy merges with reality.
The Ozarks have long been an isolated part of the country. Steep mountains break up the landscape into hills and hollows, making each little town into its own microcosm. Here, families have stayed in the same hollows for generations with little influence from the outside world, which means that their daily life is steeped in the past. In this episode, SOTRU goes deep into the lives of people who live with the ghosts of their past.
Baltimore is a city of many neighborhoods, of intense divides—racial, class, and otherwise– not easily overcome. It’s a city bogged down by a reputation for crime, poverty and dysfunction (thanks, in part, to the acclaimed TV show The Wire)—a reputation not entirely undeserved. But all of that often overshadows the passion and dedication many Baltimoreans have for their city, and for taking on what’s wrong with it in ways small and large.
Quaint storefronts along Main streets, covered bridges over clear streams, cows from dairy farms dotting green valleys: across the state, these are the iconic images of Vermont. But beyond its pastoral beauty, this is a place that prides itself on its independent spirit. In this hour, we’ll hear a range of stories of the way Vermont’s “small town state” identity manifests: from finding new ways to treat mental health problems, to a gallery with a surprising monthly ritual to dealing with the most devastating natural disaster the state has ever seen.





