So, what's your story?

PORTALES — Everyone has a story to tell, and this spring, eastern New Mexico residents will have a chance to tell theirs in an audio-recording studio.

A national non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the stories of all people will be in Portales from March 15 to April 13, and it wants the community to share conversations with one another.

StoryCorps Associate Director Danielle Andersen and Associate Manager Felix Lopez held a presentation Wednesday morning in the KENW studio to give community members information about their organization.

“Our mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world,” Lopez said.

He explained that, with the help of “community partners,” StoryCorps would bring its MobileBooth — an Airstream trailer outfitted with recording equipment — to Portales to record conversations between two individuals.

“These are 40 minutes of uninterrupted time that we don’t usually have in life, because we’re so busy, to really talk about topics or themes, or ask those questions that we usually don’t have time to do,” Lopez said.

Residents are encouraged to talk about anything they want, according to Andersen.

“You can treat it as an interview, where one person is interviewing the other person about their life or their history, or you can talk about a shared experience that you’ve had together,” she said.

“There’s really no right or wrong way to do it; it’s just 40 minutes of time to have an intentional conversation about something that’s important to you — something that you would like captured, in order to pass down, whether that’s to pass down to your own family, or whether it’s to pass down to future generations of history.”

The participants can then choose if their recordings can be archived at the Library of Congress’ American Folk Life Center and used by StoryCorps. They are free to opt out of archiving the recordings.

After the recordings have been processed, a community can create its own archive to store all of its conversations.

Lopez asked area residents to help promote StoryCorps’ upcoming visit, as well as encourage residents that everyone has a story to tell.

“Encourage members to participate, and tell them, ‘Hey, we have available appointments for you,’ and just letting them know we are there to help them out in booking those appointments, and helping them sign up to participate in that interview,” he said.

About 140 appointments will be scheduled.

Information: Danielle Andersen at 646-723-7020, ext. 208, or Felix Lopez at 646-723-7020, ext. 34