In this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast, four storytellers share their true personal story on the theme “Going Home”. Our stories today were recorded live in person in front of a packed house on June 11, 2024, as part of the opening Missoula Pride events.

In our first story, Kiki Hubbard, her mother and her grandmother are on a plane returning back to the United States from former Yugoslavia after a trip tracing their ancestry. The grandmother, a strong immigrant who fled war and violence, is frustrated because customs won’t let her bring bacon into the US. Kiki calls her story “What Bacon?”

Kiki Hubbard graduated from the University of Montana’s Environmental Studies program and now works remotely for the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an academic collaborator with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Kiki lives in Missoula, by way of Wisconsin and Washington D.C., and is a national expert in policy issues that affect our nation’s seed supply. She’s passionate about protecting family farms and community food systems from unfair and destructive corporate practices.

Next up is Adria Jwort, who, as a trans woman, wrestles with Montana’s anti-LGBTQ climate and complex relationship with her dad. The Club Q shooting prompts her to return home, prioritizing family despite ongoing struggles. We call her story “From Vegas to Montana — A Father’s Call”.

Adria L. Jawort is a Northern Cheyenne fiction writer and transgender/2 Spirit journalist based in Billings, Montana. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, and Indian Country Today, among other publications. She is the Executive Director of the nonprofit Indigenous Transilience. You can also find her on Instagram.

In our next story, Teri Wing leaves Butte, MT for convent life before leaving and finding love and family. Her journey home was a wild ride. Teri calls her story “Going home: The Long Way Around”.

Teri Wing is a born and raised Montananan. The mother of two and a grandmother of three boys, Teri is a retired educator who loves dogs and other living things. She hasn’t yet climbed tall mountains, run a marathon, or jumped out of a plane, though she says she may put those on her bucket list.

Our final storyteller in this episode, Chloe Williams, searches for happiness in love, places, & self-expression before finally figuring out what love is and where to find it. Chloe calls her story “The Rusty Screeching Turn Toward Home”.

Chloe Williams is many things. She is a seeker, a painter, a middle school teacher, a mother, a partner, and a friend.

Hailing from the West Coast, Chloe was born in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and raised in San Francisco. She spent some summers on a farm in Illinois. Eventually, she spent seventeen years in Portland, Oregon and ten years ago moved to Missoula. Chloe has lived at approximately forty addresses in her life, though she really has lost count.

Storytelling was passed down from her mom in the many long car rides of her childhood and is her favorite thing her mother gave her. Only in the last few years has she been called to try storytelling herself, and it feels like something her spirit needs to do.