Third Coast International Audio Festival :: HAPPENINGS :: Conference

Third Coast Festival
Navy Pier
848 East Grand
Chicago, Illinois
60611-3509

312-948-4682
info@thirdcoastfestival.org

Who talked at the 2012 Conference?
These folks:

Jad Abumrad is the host and creator of Radiolab, which reaches roughly 2 million people per month. Abumrad studied creative writing and music composition at Oberlin College in Ohio. He composes much of the music for Radiolab, and in the past has composed music for film, theater and dance. In 2011, Radiolab received a Peabody Award, the highest honor in broadcasting, and Abumrad was awarded a prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. (These Are a Few of My Favorite Things)

Shawn Allee is editor of WBEZ’s Chicago-based community bureaus, which cover developments in the city’s diverse neighborhoods. He also edits multimedia reports and investigations produced for the audience-driven Curious City, a collaboration between producer Jennifer Brandel, AIR and WBEZ. Allee’s own broadcast work has appeared, among other places, in Michigan Radio’s The Environment Report, NPR's Morning Edition, WNYC’s On The Media, and WBEZ's This American Life. (Audio Doctor)

Tina Antolini has produced stories on everything from the sex lives of lobsters to Iraqi religious minorities to a secret bunker in the woods of Massachusetts that houses an archive of East German films. She joined State of the Re:Union in 2009 after several years as a reporter, producer and host at WFCR, the NPR-affiliate for Western New England. Antolini's series documenting the transgender community in western Massachusetts won a 2009 Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television. (Parachuting In: SOTRU's Secret Recipe for Serious Place-Based Storytelling...)

John Barth, besides working at PRX, AOL, Marketplace and Audible, has been a reporter, news director and occasional indie producer. He has seen a minidisc recorder eat his interview with Fareed Zakaria as they were talking; negotiated for more money from networks on deadline pieces; and battled national program hosts and editors so they didn’t ruin, distort or inject errors into stories. Barth works with hundreds of producers and advocates for their voices and vision in public media. He lives below the Third Coast, in St. Louis. (Own Your Thing)

Julia Barton has been writing and producing for more than two decades. Her work airs on Studio 360, The World, 99% Invisible and other programs. Barton also writes a regular column about audio storytelling for Nieman Storyboard. She’s been an International Reporting Project Fellow, a staff reporter at WHYY/Philadelphia, and an editor at Weekend America. She’s also done extensive media training in the former Soviet Union and will bore you with renditions of Russian rock songs if you give her the least encouragement. (Audio Doctor)

John Biewen is audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where he teaches and produces work for national and international audiences. He reported for Minnesota Public Radio, covered the Rocky Mountain West for NPR News, and spent eight years as a correspondent/producer with American RadioWorks, the documentary unit of American Public Media. Biewen’s work has won many honors, including two Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Awards, the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and Third Coast’s Radio Impact Award.(Sure-Handedness: Radio That Knows What It's Doing)

Emily Botein is an award-winning independent radio producer based in New York, with a focus on documentaries and cultural programming. She has launched national shows, produced pilots and selected series. Botein's work has been broadcast on a range of shows and institutions, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Metropolitan Opera, National Public Radio, The Next Big Thing, Studio 360, Weekend America and WNYC Radio. Currently she produces WNYC's Here's the Thing. (Pitch Perfect: The Art of Editorial Persuasion)

Martina Castro is an award-winning radio producer and editor based in San Francisco, CA. In 2011, she became co-founder and senior producer of Radio Ambulante, a Spanish-language radio podcast of sound-rich, uniquely Latin American stories. Castro is also Managing Editor of KALW News 91.7FM, where she moved after five years working at NPR as a producer and trainer. Her independent work has been featured nationally on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and the online radio magazine The [Un]Observed. (Own Your Thing)

Krissy Clark is the senior reporter for Marketplace’s Wealth & Poverty desk, and founder of Storieseverywhere.org, a location-based mobile-phone storytelling project. Her stories and documentaries have aired on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Freakonomics Radio, BBC and American RadioWorks. Her sound-walks have been exhibited by The New Museum’s Festival of Ideas in NYC in collaboration with StoryCorps, and at San Francisco’s Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. (The Story as Walkabout)

Amy Costello is host and senior producer of Tiny Spark, a podcast and multimedia platform aimed at igniting debate and investigation into the Business of Doing Good. Before launching her start-up, Amy worked as a public radio and television correspondent in Africa. Her PBS television story from Darfur, Sudan was nominated for an Emmy Award. Amy has worked as a producer at NPR in Washington and as an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, her alma mater. (Own Your Thing)

Maisie Crow is a freelance photographer and multimedia producer. In 2010 her multimedia piece A Life Alone was nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy and recognized in the NPPA Best of Photojournalism Competition. In 2011, she shot and produced Half-Lives: The Chernobyl Workers Now which received honors from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, and Best Use of Online Video from the Overseas Press Club. Crow has taught multimedia storytelling at Columbia University and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. (Radio Producers are from Venus, Photographers are from Mars)

Dogs On Tour is an ambitious experiment in live multimedia performance, built out of a group of friends seeking the challenge of blending sound, story and song in a new and surprising way. Each tour features a number of different contributing artists including Chicago band Hudson Branch and radio producer Andy Mills. (Third Coast Awards Ceremony)

Jesse Dukes is an independent writer and documentary maker. He studied radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, worked for With Good Reason at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and is a principal at Big Shed. Last year, his essay “Consider the Lobstermen” was selected as one of Byliner.Com’s 101 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories. His multimedia work for the Virginia Quarterly Review has been recognized with a National Magazine Award (with Elliott Woods) and an Overseas Press Club Award (with Maisie Crow). (Radio Producers are from Venus, Photographers are from Mars)

Luke Eldridge is a first-time producer from the UK who found his calling with the 2012 ShortDocs Challenge. He has spend the past couple of years discovering and listening to the great public radio story-tellers from across the Atlantic and felt compelled to follow their lead. Eldridge works in Financial Services during the day but always has one ear out for the fascinating stories in everyday life that go untold. (Knock Knock: Introducing the 2012 ShortDocs)

As the project director of Generation PRX, Johanna (Jones) Franzel helps young producers share their stories with the world via PRX. She is also senior producer for Blunt Youth Radio’s Incarcerated Youth Speak Out Project and regularly teaches and writes on all things youth media-related. Franzel co-founded “Youth Noise Network,” at the Center for Documentary Studies and studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. She lives in Maine with her husband, two-year-old, and the world’s sweetest dog. (Audio Educators Assembly)

Writer and journalist Silvain Gire is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of arteradio.com. He started working for France-Culture the French public cultural radio, in 1991, then joined the cultural television ARTE in 1994 to work in communication, until he was asked to create a radio online. Gire founded arteradio.com in 2002 with young sound engineer Christophe Rault. ARTE Radio introduced podcasting in France in 2005, and has played a major role in making radio creation relevant again for young generations. (Radio 2.0)

Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of the documentary radio program This American Life, produced by Chicago Public Media and distributed by Public Radio International. Under Glass' editorial direction, the program has won the highest honors for broadcasting, including the Peabody, duPont-Columbia and Robert F Kennedy Awards. In 2001, Time magazine named Glass "Best Radio Host in America." In 2006 Glass and his staff began producing a television version of This American Life, which won several Emmys.
(Late(ish) Night with Ira Glass)

The Hudson Branch is a band from Chicago, IL. They have toured nationally from New York to California performing concerts, live storytelling, and multimedia shows. They have scored music for both film and radio. Their latest record, World Kid, was recorded with John McEntire (Tortoise, Broken Social Scene) and produced/mixed by Neil Strauch (Andrew Bird, Iron and Wine). Their collaboration in radio has earned them Third Coast's Best New Artist award for "Kohn"and a spot on WNYC's Radiolab. (Third Coast Awards Ceremony)

Adam Kampe tripped and fell into audioland about 10 years ago as a volunteer at WPFW in Washington, DC. A few years later, he was hooked and later attended Salt in 2005. This experience and a bit of luck landed him a job at the NEA, where, for the past six years, he's been producing audio (and now video) about the arts. (Knock Knock: Introducing the 2012 ShortDocs)

The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) are the producers of The Hidden World of Girls NPR specials, hosted by Tina Fey, the duPont-Columbia Award-winning series Hidden Kitchens and two Peabody Award-winning NPR collaborations, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project. Their new series, The Making Of..., a collaboration with KQED Public Radio, premieres this fall. (Awards Ceremony hostesses)

Alex Kotlowitz is the author of three books, including the national bestseller “There Are No Children Here.” His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker as well on This American Life, various NPR news shows and on PBS’s FRONTLINE. His recent film, The Interrupters, premiered at Sundance in January of 2011, and was the recipient of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Kotlowitz’s journalism honors include a George Polk Award and Peabody Award. He teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern. (Whose Story Is It?)

Al Letson is a poet, playwright and host of State of the Re:Union. He has received national recognition and built a devoted fan base through his interdisciplinary work. After winning the Public Radio Talent Quest in 2008, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded Letson one of the largest public radio grants ever given to a single project to create a full season of shows. (Parachuting In: SOTRU's Secret Recipe for Serious Place-Based Storytelling...)

Pejk Malinovski is a freelance radio producer, sound artist and poet. His documentaries have aired on PRI, National Danish Radio and BBC; his sound pieces have been shown in museums and galleries. In 2012 he launched Passing Stranger, an audio walking tour of the East Village's poetry history. He was also the co-creator and host of Thirdear, an online audio magazine and he continues to edit and translate books for Forlaget Basilisk, a poet-run publishing house in Copenhagen. (The Story as Walkabout)

Roman Mars is the creator of 99% Invisible, a short radio show about design and architecture, which recently reached #2 in the iTunes rankings for all podcasts, as well as #1 in both the Arts and the Design categories. Mars is also the host and program director of Public Radio Remix from PRX, a 24-hour, innovative public radio story stream broadcast on XM 123 and public radio stations across the country. (Own Your Thing)

Michael May is an independent producer in Cambridge, MA, and radio instructor at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. His stories have aired on This American Life, Studio 360, The World, NPR and other outlets. He has also been the managing editor of the Texas Observer, an editor for Weekend America and a news reporter at KUT in Austin. May has won a Third Coast Festival Gold Award and a National Headliners Grand Award. (Audio Doctor)

Kelly McBride is a writer, teacher and one of the country's leading voices when it comes to media ethics. After working for 15 years at daily newspapers, she joined the Poynter Institute in 2002. The world’s largest newsrooms, including the New York Times, NPR and the BBC, seek her advice for internal decisions and quote her expertise. She currently runs the Poynter’s Sense-Making Project, an initiative examining the transformation of journalism from a profession for a few to a civic obligation of many. (Whose Story Is It?)

Kelly McEvers is NPR's foreign correspondent based in Beirut, Lebanon. In addition to NPR, her radio work has appeared on This American Life, On the Media, and the CBC, and other outlets, and she has written articles for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and the Washington Monthly, among others. McEvers is a founder of Six Billion, an online magazine that was a regular feature at Harvard University's Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.
(Making Radio Against Most Odds)

John Musto lives in Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago. He makes a living as a Union Electrician and is also a woodworker and furniture enthusiast. He has been lucky to be Don Floyd's upholstery apprentice for the last five years. (Knock Knock: Intoducing the 2012 ShortDocs)

Francesca Panetta is an audio producer and sound designer. Originally training at the BBC, she is currently multimedia special projects at the Guardian in the UK but also runs her owns non-profit company Hackney Productions which makes podcasts and location audio apps. The podcasts and apps have won awards in both the UK and US. (Own Your Thing)

As Kickstarter's Art Program Director, Stephanie Pereira looks after art project on site and organizes special events for the community, including artist presentations and workshops. Pereira previously served as Associate Director, Learning & Engagement at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, a non-profit residency center in New York City. She holds an MA in Arts Administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA in Visual Art from Rutgers University.

Paolo Pietropaolo is a freelance broadcaster, composer and producer based in Vancouver. His audio documentary work includes the series The Wire: the Impact of Electricity on Music, which won a Peabody Award, the Prix Italia and the Third Coast Festival Directors’ Choice Award. Pietropaolo is heard regularly on CBC Radio as a broadcaster and correspondent. In Autumn 2012, he will host In Concert, the national classical music performance program on CBC Radio 2. (AuRa: The Chemistry of Sound)

Robert Smith is a correspondent for NPR's Planet Money where he tells stories about the global economy. Before that, he was NPR's general assignment man in New York reporting on all sorts of mayhem and madness in the big city. Smith covered the last three Presidential elections with NPR's political team. He also reported from New Orleans on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. He lives in Brooklyn. (The Quick and the Deadline)

Before joining the State of the Re:Union staff, Laura Starecheski wrangled stories in the wild west of public radio freelancing. In 2010, she covered immigrant communities and mental health for The World and Latino USA as a National Health Journalism Fellow at the USC Annenberg School. She won a Third Coast Silver Award for her story Goat on a Cow, which aired on WNYC’s Radiolab in 2006. Starecheski got her start in radio learning from the incredible team at WNYC’s (now-defunct) The Next Big Thing. (Parachuting In: SOTRU's Secret Recipe for Serious Place-Based Storytelling...)

Matt Thompson has been a prominent voice in digital journalism since 2004, when he co-created the short speculative fiction movie EPIC 2014. At NPR, he helps craft digital and editorial strategies, working on everything from creating the ethics handbook to training member stations. Thompson's a board member of the Center for Public Integrity and adjunct faculty member of the Poynter Institute. He graduated with honors in English from Harvard in 2002, after writing his senior thesis on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Whose Story Is It?)

As the proprietor of MaximumFun.org, Jesse Thorn is the host and producer of Bullseye and Jordan, Jesse, Go!, and the co-host and producer of Judge John Hodgman. He founded The Sound of Young America in 2000, while a student at the UC Santa Cruz. In 2007, the show began to be distributed by PRI, making Thorn the youngest national host in public radio history. The show became Bullseye in 2012. (Own Your Thing)

Benjamen Walker produces and hosts Too Much Information, a radio program/podcast that airs on WFMU in Jersey City. Walker has produced podcasts for publications and institutions like The Guardian UK, PBS, and Human Rights in China. His radio work has been broadcast on a range of programs including Radiolab and The Next Big Thing, and stations such as WBEZ, KALW and WNYC. (Own Your Thing)

Before creating Snap Judgment, Glynn Washington worked as an educator, diplomat, community activist, actor, political strategist, fist-shaker, mountain-hollerer, and foot stomper. Washington composed music for Kunst Stoff dance performances in San Francisco, rocked live spoken word poetry in Detroit, joined a band in Indonesia, wrote several screenplays, painted a daring series of self portraits, released a blues album, and thinks his stories are best served with cocktails. (How to Rock the Funky Story)

Sandor Weisz is the lead designer at EveryBlock. His secret identity is The Puzzler, the author of a blog of the same name, where he talks about and creates puzzles. He lives in the Lincoln Square neighborhood with his wife, son, and daughter. He's neither short nor a doc, but he's more than capable of bending your ear about his neighbors for 2-3 minutes with only a few seconds pause. (Knock Knock: Introducing the 2012 ShortDocs)

Before moving to Tulsa, Abby Wendle had only visited Oklahoma once. She’s spent most of the last decade bouncing around the east coast working for the BBC and NPR. After graduating from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, Wendle began her journey into America’s heartland. Since arriving, she's gardened, eaten more red meat than she has in the past decade, recorded Reverend Jesse Jackson and acquainted herself with how to handle an AK-47. Safe to say, This Land is becoming her own. (Knock Knock: Introducing the 2012 Third Coast ShortDocs)