Listen to our new podcast, Life Became Very Blurry

Five years after the first COVID lockdowns, the Vermont Historical Society will release a new podcast as part of its Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story project that documented the experiences of Vermonters who lived through the pandemic in their own words. The podcast, titled Life Became Very Blurry, was released on VHS’s podcast feed, on our YouTube channel, and other podcast platforms on April 3rd and is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. New episodes will be released weekly.

VHS began documenting the outbreak starting in March 2020 and with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services [Grant Number MA-251676-OMS-22], launching Collecting COVID-19: A Vermont Story to collect, document, and preserve the impact that COVID-19 had on the state and its citizens. This grant supported the hiring of field interviewers who conducted more than 100 interviews from a wide range of Vermonters.

Those interviews will be included in the podcast, which will run for eight episodes. Each episode explores a different theme from the pandemic, such as homes, schools, having COVID, healthcare, and more.

Though the podcast shares the same name as VHS’s recent book edited by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Vermont author Garrett M. Graff, they are separate windows into the same archive. The book was released on Tuesday, March 25th as a trade paperback and eBook.

VHS Executive Director Steve Perkins says “VHS’s role is to tell our state's story. Since history is ongoing, it often means collecting and preserving stories in real time. VHS has become adept in that role and this book is an example of immediate history-making that will stand the test of time.”