Cultivating Curiosity and Conversation
Across Geographic, Class & Cultural Divides
Reframing Rural is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Butte America Radio,
Gallatin Valley Radio, Missoula Community Radio, Missoula Community Access Television
and most everywhere podcasts are available.
Reframing Rural's mission is to share stories of people and places in rural America in an effort to celebrate culture, preserve history and cultivate curiosity and conversation across geographic, class and cultural divides.
Telling stories of people and places not fully represented in the media or pop culture is at the heart of Reframing Rural's mission to reframe the narrative on rural America. TedGlobal speaker and writer Chimamanda Adichie recognizes this phenomenon as the “danger of a single story.” Single stories, or stereotypes of rural people in the news leads to their dehumanization, further wedging the divide between city and country, republican and democrat, and myriad binaries that are uncreative and damaging.
For those with a rural background, Reframing Rural provides a place where people’s experiences can be validated. For those generationally removed from their rural roots, the podcast inspires curiosity in rural Americans whose stories are not being fully told through election maps or newspaper headlines.
Photo by Megan Torgerson
"The fate of rural America matters to everyone, no matter where you live." - Reframing Rural founder,
Megan Torgerson
Hailing from the windswept Great Plains of Dagmar, Montana, Megan Torgerson is a writer, social entrepreneur and founder of the original podcast series, Reframing Rural. Megan holds an MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University and a BA in English with a creative nonfiction emphasis from the University of Montana. Following a position working for Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ian McCluskey in Portland, Oregon, she moved to Asheville, North Carolina to live with her partner and artistic collaborator, Andrew Drinnan. In 2018 they moved to Seattle where Megan began her MFA journey and launched Reframing Rural, which was awarded the inaugural Public Humanities Fellowship from Humanities Washington in 2022 and the 2020 fellowship from Guest House Cultural Capital Residency in Richland, Washington. Reframing Rural has also received awards from Humanities Montana, the Greater Montana Foundation, the Headwaters Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. It has been heard on The Modern West, an award-winning podcast by PRX and Wyoming Public Media and in 2023 the podcast was named a finalist in the impact category by the international audio festival Third Coast. Fueled by storytelling’s ability to bridge divides, Megan splits her time between producing Reframing Rural and agricultural media projects, and consulting with nonprofits, like the Red Ants Pants Foundation, that serve rural Montana communities. In 2023 Megan returned to her home state of Montana to further her personal mission to advocate for geographically remote regions of the American West.
Photo by Jeremy Lurgio
Reframing the Narrative on Rural America through Oral Storytelling
Megan Torgerson launched Reframing Rural while an MFA student at Seattle University. Watch her thesis presentation Reframing Rural: Rewriting the Narrative on Rural America from June, 2020.
In February 2023, Ed Roberson of the popula podcast, Mountain & Prairie, interviewed Megan on her journey creating Reframing Rural and what she has learned in her three years producing the podcast.
Connect
It takes a community to tell stories and we want you to be a part of ours. Get in touch with Megan at reframingrural (at) gmail.com.
And sign up for Reframing Rural's newsletter to receive news about new podcast episodes, blog posts and more!
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