Megan Torgerson

I'm a new independent podcast producer who founded Reframing Rural: Cultivating Curiosity Across the Urban Rural Divide. My background is in creative writing and grant writing. I'm fueled by storytelling's ability to bridge divides.
Member since 2020

Locations

  • Seattle, WA
  • Missoula, MT
  • Dagmar, MT

Portfolio

Languages

German

Contact Megan

Megan is available for

While I finish Reframing Rural's first season Coming Home, I am looking for more freelance work grant writing. The last two years, while I was working toward my MFA, I also spent countless hours researching rurality; as a rural-raised storyteller who has dedicated her academic career to studying rural issues, I would love to offer my knowledge to projects within the rural niche.
  • Business
  • Scripting
  • Writing

About Megan

Before I launched Reframing Rural I worked as a nonprofit development professional, point PR person, digital marketer, blogger and film critic. I've worked for a nonprofit that supports marginalized small business owners, a nonprofit that serves documentary filmmakers, and currently I work for myself writing grants for a choreographer and managing all aspects (writing, recording, interviewing, editing, producing, making music, promoting, fundraising) of my independent podcast Reframing Rural, which was awarded the 2020 Remote Scholar in Residence award and fellowship from Guest House Cultural Capital Residency in Richland, Washington. I am a recent graduate of Seattle University's Arts Leadership MFA program where my academic research focused on, you guessed it, rural identity and rural social issues. My thesis "Rewriting the Narrative on Rural America through Oral Storytelling," addressed the adverse effects of single stories of rural America, urban-rural and intra-rural divides, decentering a white-rural narrative to elevate Indigenous stories and history, as well as rural embodied knowledge and rural cultural traditions that should be more widely celebrated. I earned my BA in English with a creative nonfiction emphasis from the University of Montana. I have lived all over the country from Alaska to North Carolina and in Germany and the Czech Republic.

Currently I divide my time between Seattle, WA, Missoula, MT and one of the most rural counties in America, Sheridan County, MT. I've helped deliver baby calves, can drive a tractor, conduct ethnographic research, edit podcasts, secure grant funding and love to sing and play Doc Watson songs on the guitar. I am looking to grow my audio storytelling skills while supporting my creative endeavors through freelance work, marketing and fundraising.

Megan's Portfolio

Reframing Rural Thesis Presentation: Rewriting the Narrative on Rural America through Oral Storytelling
Reframing Rural is part oral history, part memoir and part initiative to reframe the narrative on rural America through storytelling. Elevating the unexplored stories and embodied knowledge of rural residents, this original podcast series seeks to cultivate conversation across geographic and cultural divides. The first season is set in Northeastern Montana’s remote prairie wilderness and features stories from: a mother and environmental compliance officer in the oil industry; a high school teacher, teaching American history through an Indigenous lens; a playwright; a lay minister; a retired country school teacher; a taxidermist; a well-traveled young farmer; and a farming couple nearing retirement.

For those with a rural background, Reframing Rural provides a place where people’s experiences can be claimed and celebrated. For those generationally removed from their rural roots, it inspires curiosity in rural Americans whose stories are not being told through election maps or newspaper headlines. This project engages Linda Tuhiwai-Smith's Indigenous project of reframing to interpret ethnographic observations and interviews conducted near Megan's unincorporated hometown, Dagmar, Montana. Storytelling is not only an outcome of this project, it is a method of practice-based research that Megan engages to validate experiences othered by cultural homogeneity and to explore the following questions:

How do single stories of rural America limit rural and non-rural individuals? How can embodied forms of rural knowledge expand dominant ways of knowing? How do mythologies of the pastoral impact rural communities’ ability to navigate change and embrace diverse perspectives? Why is storytelling the method to bridge intra-rural and urban-rural divides?
Reframing Rural Trailer
Podcast trailer for "Coming Home," Season One of Reframing Rural: Cultivating Curiosity and Conversation Across the Urban Rural Divide set on the Northern Great Plains of Eastern Montana.
Episode 1: Preservation and Motherhood on the Northern Great Plains
Kim Rudnigen is a mother of four, working as an environmental compliance officer in the oil and gas industry in Northeast Montana. In Reframing Rural's first episode, we'll learn from Kim what it is like to raise a family in a county where there are two people per square mile and how the Rudnigens are helping to reinvigorate the community surrounding Dagmar, MT.
Episode 2: The Scary Prairie Will Not Get the Best of Me
Margaret Hoven and David Anderson moved to Plentywood, Montana from Washington D.C. 15 years ago. Northeastern Montana culture, political memory, change and the power of music are themes explored in this episode named after Margaret's original song "The Scary Prairie Will Not Get the Best of Me" from a play the couple co-wrote, titled "Dead Thing On the Wall."

Experience

Skills

  • Field Recording
  • Grant Writing
  • Hosting
  • Interviewing
  • Logistics and Coordination
  • Marketing
  • Producing
  • Reporting
  • Research
  • Scoring
  • Social Media
  • Story Editing
  • Tape Syncs

Equipment

  • Tascam DR-40, Blue Yeti mic, Nikon DSLR

Previous Work

  • Freelance Grant Writer at Self-employed
    (n/a)
  • Development & Communications Officer at Business Impact NW
    (March 2020)
  • Account Lead at Darby Communications
    (April 2018)
  • Development Coordinator at NW Documentary
    (October 2016)
  • Marketing & PR Coordinator at The Audience Awards
    (May 2015)