Frequently Asked Questions

The stories are submitted by anyone with a story to tell about a person or place. They are submitted to us online and we help to provide structure and best practices to polish their story. A writer (storyteller) may email us with ideas or to ask questions about story development. We review drafts and offer suggestions. info@starhitchers.com

There are several ways to use Star Hitchers in your classroom, for example:

1. Use our guidelines and resources to assign students to research and write stories.

2. Read and discuss individual stories, compare stories, review stories from the same era in history. See especially the Threads to Follow at the end of each story.

3. Assign students research projects based on Threads to Follow.

Great question. Family historians (amateur or professional) are accustomed to writing reports with lots of detail about a person’s life. Star Hitchers stories focus on an aspect of a person’s life and present it as a narrative, a story with a theme. The aspect may be a characteristic that runs through the life, or an episode in the life.

Place stories also take a focus within the history of a place. It may be a theme that runs through the history of the place, or an event that took place there. It is told in narrative form, thematically.

A place may be a location (neighborhood, town, region, for example) or an institution (school, church, business, organization). Sometimes place stories include a couple places for comparison. Of course, place stories usually include the people in the place.

If you are a genealogist, we can help you put a smile on your clients' faces.

If you are a family historian, we can help you put smiles on your family's faces.

You have done the research. You have found the names, dates, records, photographs.

What We Do

We encourage stories about people and places in American history.

Our stories are narrative stories, not reports.

We maintain a growing library of all posted stories, free to the public.

Each story is approximately 1,000 to 1,500 words—about eight to twelve minutes in the audio version.

Everything is free.

You have a story. Let’s tell it.

See our Storyteller Guide at StarHitchers.com.

A Star Hitchers person story is a short, researched narrative that brings an ordinary American—or a little-known aspect of a better-known American—to life within the larger currents of history. It is more than a biography or collection of facts. The story focuses on a meaningful question, experience, decision, struggle, achievement, or moment in a person’s life and explores what that life can tell us about the time and place in which the person lived. The writer combines reliable research with narrative storytelling, allowing readers to see both the individual and the historical world that shaped them.

A Star Hitchers place story is a short, researched narrative that explores the history and character of a particular American place through the people, events, changes, and experiences connected to it. It is more than a description or chronological history of a town, neighborhood, farm, building, or landscape. The story seeks the human meaning of a place—what happened there, who lived there, why it mattered, and how larger historical forces left their mark. Through a focused narrative, the writer helps readers see a familiar or overlooked place as a doorway into the larger American story.