Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories in the outdoors.

Before we get started today, I have two pieces of exciting news to share. The first is that we're planning to host our first live event.

We know you all have loads of stories from your adventurous lives,

and we would love to help you tell them,

help you develop those stories so you can share them outside your circle of friends and family.

We're working on a new idea for a series of storytelling workshops.

If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, we would love to hear from you.

We put together a brief survey to get a sense of what you might want to get out of a workshop like this.

Just head over to our website, out therepodcast.com to fill out the survey.

It'll only take a few minutes and your input will help us create live

events that will actually be meaningful to you.

So that's the first piece of good news. The second is that Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, or Prundy,

just honored us with a first place award. Prindy is an association of public radio

professionals from across the country, and their annual awards honor the best audio stories of the year.

One of our episodes got the gold medal in the independent podcast category.

We are absolutely thrilled to be recognized this way by the most trusted voices in public media.

And to celebrate, we wanted to play you the story that won the award.

It comes to us from New York City-based producer Sam Anderson, and it's about his first time hunting. When he set out with his father to

kill a deer, Sam had no idea whether he'd actually be able to pull a trigger. He wanted to know

whether he had it in him to be a hunter. And if so, what would that say about him? Would taking the

life of an animal fundamentally change who he was?

Here's his story.

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