I hung out with Forrest Foster in his sugarhouse a few weeks ago. Sugarhouses are the best because they’re full of warm, sweet steam and there’s nothing to do but hang around and make sure the pan doesn’t burn. Also, if sugaring is happening it
This is a show I made a few years ago that very significantly involves Total Eclipse of the Heart, which is my favorite song. I am playing it again now because it is ECLIPSE WEEK. I hope you enjoy it.
Kasey Phipps is transgender and has always been transgender. But Kasey didn’t grow up in a place where the word transgender was well understood. Or understood at all. It’s only in the last four years that Kasey’s put a name to this lifelong exp
Many of you got in touch with me after Isaac's story aired in the first week of What Class Are You. Isaac's on his way to Columbia in the fall, on a full scholarship, and you came up with amazing ideas for how you might be helpful, so I went ba
Irfan Sehic and his family fled the war in Bosnia when he was seventeen, and landed in Barre, Vermont. Irfan did a lot of jobs when he got here, then went to college, and now runs an insurance company out of his house. I’ve interviewed Irfan fo
Isaac lives in Newport, Vermont, which is as far north as you get in Vermont. It’s a town in the Northeast Kingdom with a beautiful lake. It’s also a town with a state prison and a lot of drugs and poverty.I met Isaac at a writers group in town
Today is the first episode of What Class Are You, a periodic series I make for VP. This series started as an experiment a few years ago. I wanted to have conversations with people about the terrible cultural divides that keep growing in our cou
Today is the first episode of What Class Are You. Most people think of money when they hear the word "class" and how much or little of it they’ve got. And we really don’t like to talk about it. I think we’re getting better at talking about thin
This is a rerun of what could be called a VALENTINE’S DAY SPECIAL, and I hope you enjoy it.Last year on Hardwick's Front Porch Forum, someone called Tiana asked if there was anyone who could help her with her hair and makeup for an important da
This is one of my all time favorite shows. I made it for Vermont Public in 2019 and I think about these guys all the time. It was the little league playoffs in St. Johnsbury in 2019, before the pandemic, recorded in a simpler time. Let's play s
I got in a car accident. For some reason I thought it would make me feel better to talk with Forrest Foster about all the accidents he’s had and how he thinks about pain.
A lot of people in rural America live near small towns or villages. Here in Vermont, a lot of small village schools and general stores and post offices are closing for all kinds of reasons. And this isn’t unique to here. Small town centers are
My friend Kelly Green is a defense attorney who represents people accused of murder. She spends a lot of time reading autopsies and driving around talking with witnesses and worrying. She’s got a lot going on at the moment. A couple weeks ago s