Really Excited, Really Scared

This year has felt like a roller coaster in so many ways. We’ve been through a heated political campaign season, and the United States turned 250 over the summer in the middle of a war that we’re waging on the other side of the world. We hear a ton of people talking about politics and government and all the challenges of living in the U.S. right now, but hardly any of those voices belong to teenagers — like Zoya, who’s 15.“Sometimes when I sit down and think about everything that’s happening, it’s so overwhelming and it’s so scary,” she says. “It feels hopeless for us because we don’t have a vote, and a lot of times we don’t really have a say. Like, people won’t really listen to us.”Over the summer, Two Daughters Productions talked with a group of Vermont teenagers about how they’re feeling and what they’re thinking. They told us they feel overwhelmed and frustrated and sometimes dismissed by the adults around them. But they’re also calling up the governor’s office, advocating for themselves and other kids, and pushing their schools to listen to what they have to say.From Nora, 18: “This is gonna sound, like, so stereotypical, but I wanted to be the change that, like, I wanted to see.”

Greg and Jordan Camp are the fourth and fifth generations running the Cabot Funeral Home in Woodstock, Vermont, which has been in business for more than a century.Funeral homes can seem so mysterious, like they're in their own world. But at the same time, they're almost unavoidable. They're the place most people go to when there's a death in the family. What is that like to be the person who's helping, to be the person everyone else is turning to?In this story, Greg and Jordan talk about their job, which is pretty much the same job that all small funeral homes do, not only in Vermont but across the country. The work is practical, but also delicate; full of logistical details, but also big, complicated emotions.What’s it like to be the person who’s caring for community members when they’re at their most vulnerable, feeling grief, confusion, and loss? This story is produced by Elissa Pine and Jennifer Sutton of Two Daughters Productions.

July 1st, 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of civil unions in Vermont. This legal alternative to marriage was the first of its kind in the United States. In the Vermont Supreme Court case Baker v. Vermont, the court ruled that the state had no legal basis to discriminate against same-sex couples. If the legislature would not allow same-sex couples to get marriage licenses, lawmakers would have to figure out a legal alternative. The result: civil unions.Vermont Public's Andrea Laurion spoke with LGBTQ+ Vermonters who were coming of age — and coming out — when civil unions became legal. They were likely too young at the time to be thinking about marriage for themselves, but old enough to know what was going on and how it might affect them one day.See photos and learn more at vermontpublic.org.Support Vermont Public's longform audio storytelling with a donation.

For Tibetan-American artist Migmar Tsering, music and dance are inextricably linked to being Tibetan.Migmar first learned traditional dance in the village of Langkor in the county of Tingri. He was born there almost 3 decades after the invasion of Tibet by communist China in 1950.Since the 1950s, the Tibetan diaspora has expanded, with multiple groups of Tibetans relocating to India and later the U.S., Canada, Australia, and some European countries. Under the United States 1990 Immigration Act, 1,000 Tibetans living in exile in India, Nepal, and Bhutan were chosen via lottery to receive U.S. visas.In 1993, Vermont became one of 25 resettlement sites in the U.S. Migmar arrived to Vermont in 2011 and soon began teaching traditional music and dance to kids in Vermont's Tibetan American community.The Arts that Shape Us is a podcast by Vermont Folklife, produced with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund. Hosted by Mary Wesley, it’s devoted to exploring the state’s cultural heritage and what different local artforms say about the past and present of Vermont.

Since at least the 1870s, people in central Vermont have cut, chiseled, hoisted, polished, and carved local granite, creating monuments, statues, and especially memorial grave markers. The granite industry brought Italian, French, Canadian, Scots, Scandinavian, Irish, Greek, and Spanish workers to the city of Barre, each bringing their own stone carving traditions.Over time, these artisans and the manufacturers they worked for shaped an enduring identity: The Barre stone carver.The Arts that Shape Us is a podcast by Vermont Folklife, produced with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund. Hosted by Mary Wesley, it’s devoted to exploring the state’s cultural heritage and what different local artforms say about the past and present of Vermont.

“There is a lot of change from the beginning up to now, and we are still learning every day.”The experience of resettling in Brattleboro has changed not only the Afghan women who had to rebuild their lives, but also the people and the town that helped them do it. There are many challenges—a housing shortage, the loss of federal funding that supports refugee programs, pockets of resentment among local residents. But in the words of one longtime Brattleboro citizen, the town has learned a lot “about resiliency, support, and what really matters.”The Afghan Women of Brattleboro was produced by Two Daughters Productions with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund.

“My daughters will be raised in America, so their lives will be different from mine.”Some Afghan women in Brattleboro left their country because their husbands had jobs connected to the Afghan military or to the U.S. government evacuation in 2021, which put them in danger. Coming from traditional families, these women focus on the same things in Brattleboro as they did at home: raising their children, practicing their faith, and preserving their culture. But they’re also doing new things, like learning how to drive.The Afghan Women of Brattleboro was produced by Two Daughters Productions with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund.

“Many of us who are here in Brattleboro ... we had a good life in Afghanistan.”Afghan women in their 40s and 50s grew up surrounded by war. They went to school off and on, depending on how much violence was happening in their neighborhoods. They raised children. Many built careers. But those careers put them in danger when the Taliban returned in 2021. Today these women face the double burden of supporting themselves and their families in Brattleboro and also their families back home. The Afghan Women of Brattleboro was produced by Two Daughters Productions with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund.

“I grew up with all these stories, all this history. How can I accept in one night, everything is changed?”Many young women who came of age during Afghanistan’s 20 years of democracy went to high school and university and were charting their futures when the Taliban took power. Their lives were in danger so they fled. In Afghanistan, they had been academic powerhouses, artists, educators, rising business managers. In Brattleboro, they started over. The Afghan Women of Brattleboro was produced by Two Daughters Productions with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund.

“Is any place in the United States of America called Vermont?”As Afghan women left their country and embarked on a journey halfway around the world, they mourned their losses: family, homes, careers, comfort. They mourned their loss of Afghanistan. They landed in Vermont, a place they’d never heard of before. A brand new resettlement agency and a cadre of volunteers were waiting for them.The Afghan Women of Brattleboro was produced by Two Daughters Productions with support from Vermont Public's Made Here Fund.