Weekend America Voices
Ann Heppermann
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Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler have been producing radio together since 2002, including two series for "Weekend America." The first series, "Song and Memory," is produced along with the author Rick Moody and tells the stories of people's most memorable songs from childhood. The series won an award from the Third Coast International Festival in 2006. Their most recent series, "One Thing," asks refugees from six cities across the United States to describe the most precious object they brought with them from their home country. Together, Heppermann and Oehler have received awards from the RTNDA, Edward R. Murrow awards, the Peabody Awards, the Associated Press and the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Heppermann, located in New York City, also teaches audio documentary at Brooklyn College and has organized educational workshops between CUNY students and NPR's Next Generation Project. At home, you will find her finger picking her guitar and struggling with bar chords.
Oehler lives in Boston. She's documentary audio program director for the Brooklyn-based non-profit Union Docs. She sometimes makes audio/film projects for artist collectives Conflux and Stadtblind. She created an interactive documentary film called "Capitol of Punk" about the DC
music scene with art group Yellow Arrow.
As to what the two do on the weekends: usually, it's work, but they're both working to change that. Which is work. Oops.
Recent Stories
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This Weekend in 1968: Miss America
In Las Vegas this weekend it's the 88th annual Miss America pageant. At the 1968 competition, outside Atlantic City's Convention Hall, a group of women gathered on the boardwalk. They held signs that read "Women's Liberation." Their demonstration was a window into the emergence of a movement that would gain considerable strength in the decade to come.
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Advising Obama from Your Living Room
It's less than three weeks until Barack Obama takes the oath of office and becomes president. A big reason why is that during the campaign, his team was astoundingly effective at mobilizing volunteers, getting citizens to be stake-holders in the campaign, running phone banks, ringing doorbells, holding house meetings. Obama won, but that apparatus is still in place and house meetings are still going on.
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Brazilians Leaving Boston
The tough economy hits everyone in America in different ways. But a Pew Hispanic Center report shows that immigrant incomes are falling faster than others. For some, that's tipped the scale, and they're leaving. There is no reliable snapshot of how many immigrants are going home. But in the Boston area, Weekend America's Kara Oehler talked to one immigrant group that's shrinking fast.
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This Weekend in 1968: Political Ads
Lately if you walk anywhere near a TV, you'll see lots of campaign ads. Everyone's vowing to make things better around here. A lot of what you're hearing this time around in 2008 might seem really novel. But this weekend on our series about 1968, we'll hear how much of what is old becomes new again. Here's a review of more than 80 political ads over the past 40 years. Judge for yourself what's changed and what hasn't.
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This Weekend in 1968: Night of the Living Dead
In movie theaters across the country 40 years ago, terror took a new form: The flesh-eating zombie. "Night of the Living Dead" unearthed an army of ghouls to scare children and adults off their seats. The filmmakers who created the film say the tumultuous events of 1968 have made people read much more into "Night of the Living Dead" than the horror they wanted to create.
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This Weekend in 1968: Democratic National Convention
Forty years ago this weekend, the world watched as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago descended into chaos. Inside, the party splintered on the convention floor. Outside, the "Yippies" led a protest that not only had a lasting effect on politics, but also led to a revolution in protesting. Since then, public safety and control have radically transformed the institution of protest.
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This Weekend in 1968: The Kool-Aid Acid Test
Forty years ago this weekend, people across the country cracked open a brand new book by Tom Wolfe called "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." In the mid-60s, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters hosted big parties where people got together, played music, and dropped acid. What happened at those parties ultimately defined the day-glo painted, summer-loving, acid rock, psychedelic 1960s.
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This Weekend in 1968: Iraq
The Ba'ath Party wrested control of Iraq's government 40 years ago in 1968. Although initially bloodless, the so-called "White Revolution" became increasingly ruthless as a young and ambitious Saddam Hussein consolidated his power and silenced his opposition. On the anniversary of the Ba'athist Regime's rise to power, we hear from Iraqis who witnessed the birth of a new government.
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This Weekend in 1968: At War on the Fourth of July
People nationwide will celebrate our nation's independence this weekend. There will also be hundreds of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women hunkered down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two veterans of two different wars discuss their experiences serving under fire and then and returning home from an unpopular war.
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The Fall of Resurrection City
This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the end of Resurrection City, the last campaign organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., before his assassination. Dr. Maurice Isserman, now a history professor at Hamilton College, was a high school student at the time. He remembers being a part of the last stand.
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This Weekend in 1968: RFK's Enduring Message of Hope
Coming just two months after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy's death was too much to bear for many Americans. People talked about the end of hope. But Kennedy's life continues to inspire others, and his presidential campaign resonates today, perhaps more than any year since his death.
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This Weekend in 1968: Political Plays to the Silent Center
This weekend in 1968, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon gave a radio address that became a pivotal moment in American politics. Nixon emphasized that most Americans did not stage political protests or riots -- and he tried to make himself the candidate for these Americans.
