Sarah Smarsh was a Spring 2018 Fellow at the Shorenstein Center. During her fellowship she began work on a podcast featuring voices from the American heartland, which has now been released as The Homecomers. The podcast continues many of the themes from Smarsh’s bestselling book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.
From The Homecomers‘ website:
The prevailing story about rural America—often told by people with no direct experience of that place—is that it’s regressive, dying and homogenous in identity. This national blindspot toward a vast, diverse space threatens the well-being of those who call it home—as well as the rest of the country, whose food supply, natural resources and political futures are intertwined with rural America.
As an author, national commentator, longtime journalist and fifth-generation Kansas farm girl, Sarah Smarsh frequently offers a corrective to misleading stereotypes about working-class, working-poor and rural communities…. The Homecomers with Sarah Smarsh, [is] an original podcast series that—through intimate conversations on class, race, policy, labor, wellness and the earth—reveals six “homecomers” fighting for areas where the common narrative of American success would have them “get out.”
Listen to The Homecomers on your favorite podcast app, through the podcast’s website, or on Spotify.
