Each year, the Stanford Storytelling Project awards Braden Grants to support the research, writing, and production of audio documentaries. The aim of the program is to help students learn how to tell powerful, research-driven stories based on testimony they gather through interviews, research, or oral history archives. Grantees receive up to $2,500, along with teaching, training, and mentorship for the duration of the project.

Here's what the 2023 Grantees had to say about their experience.

How Patsy Cline shifted the country music industry--and a whole country's idea of femininity.

Interviewees: Ellis Nasser Margaret Jones Sources: Country Music USA by Bill C. Malone Creating Country Music by Richard A. Peterson Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk by Jane E. Song Catchers, Ballad Makers, and New Social Historians: The Historiography of Appalachian Music Music by Patsy Cline & Blue Dot Sessions

"New Flowers" explores the history of Addis Ababa's Piassa's neighborhood: its birth, destruction, and what sense of home remains.

Includes interviews with Paul Buddenhagen, Sine Berhanu, Messay Gesesse Mikael Shebele, Dany Dereje, and Yalew Berhanu. Music: Mulatu Astatke: "Tezeta," "Tension," "Yekeremo Sew," "Yegelle Tezeta" Daniele Serra