Here's where you'll find:

            - Press Releases
            - Images
            - The Schedule for this Year's National Third Coast Festival Broadcast
            - More about the Third Coast Festival and its public events series, annual competition and conference
            - News from the Third Coast Festival

If you have further questions, or if you're interested in covering the Festival please contact Public Relations Manager Cindy Hansen.

Look no further for regularly updated news and announcements about the wide world of audio - from projects to competitions to new websites, audio blogs, podcasts and radio shows. If you have some audio happenings to spread the word about, let us know!

Also, if you're a social networking fiend (like us), check out our Facebook page!
And if you're the tweetin' kind, be our friend on Twitter!

2009 TCF / RHDF COMPETITION - OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS
The 2009 TCF / RHDF Competition has gone digital: With help from our friends over at PRX.org, this year you can submit your entries online for the first time. No more paper! No more pesky CDR cases and sleeves! Less fuss and more audio joy.

Submit your best and brightest audio stories to the TCF / RHDF Competition! Read the full details here.

Happy submitting!

BIG NEWS FROM THE TCF!
The TCF is on its way to becoming an independent media/arts organization spreading the gospel of audio. We've established ourselves as a non-profit in Illinois, and we just received our tax-exempt status from the IRS. While cash funding from Chicago Public Radio ended March 31, the TCF will remain closely allied with the station, continuing to work from its Navy Pier Offices and producing our weekly CPR program Re:sound.

Thanks to generous funding from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the TCF will host the 2009 TCF / RHDF Competition.

Sadly, we’re taking a year off from the audio challenge, but we'll bring it back in 2010, promise. And while we won’t be hosting the 2009 Conference in Chicago, we still hope to offer TCF sessions at other upcoming conferences. Also, look for us around the country as we host listening events and take part in other festivals from coast to coast.

Onward!

Featured Link!
Claire Schoen Media
Claire Schoen is an audio producer and image maker, who has been at work as a documentarian in both capacities for the past two decades. Claire just launched her new website, which is an extensive archive of over 25 years of her media productions. Her audio stories are sound-rich, in-depth, and visual-- truly stories that you will both see and hear, even if only through your headphones. Especially check out her latest documentary “Survivors,” which examines the use of solitary confinement in America’s prison system.

New Class at Center for Doc Studies at Duke
Listen Up! Audio for Educators - Thursday to Sunday, July 30–August 2

The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (one of the TCF's partners!) is offering a brand new course for teachers, youth media activists, and those who have recently stumbled on the possibilities of sound. Participants will gain practical skills for working with audio in different contexts and take home tools that use sound to foster youth leadership, learning, and inspiration. The course is lead by Johanna (Jones) Franzel, the director of Generation PRX ; Shea Shackelford, an independent producer based in Washington, D.C.; and Tennessee Jane Watson who teaches radio and multimedia production to teens at the Latin American Youth Center's Art + Media House in D.C.

To register for courses, contact Duke Continuing Studies by calling 919-684-6259 Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. or visit their Web site at: http://www.learnmore.duke.edu/weekend/courses/

Rural Radio
The FCC has proposed new legislation which stands to boost radio service in rural areas. Specifically with an ear towards Native Americans broadcasting to their tribal lands near urban areas, these new rules would give priority FM allowance access to federally recognized tribes. If you're so inclined, you can read a .pdf straight from the FCC here.

Swedish Radio's Radiovideo Docs
Swedish Radio has launched an English version of their webpage, featuring a rich cache of Swedish documentaries with English subtitles. Dubbed Radiovideo, Swedish Radio hops to promote this new audio/visual format for translated audio documentary work. What’s great about the Radiovideo for English speakers is the ability to hear the Swedish voices and the lush sound, with the written English subtitles silently intact. For these reasons Swedish Radio’s docs are certainly a webstop that’s not-to-be-missed. Check out Swedish Radio’s documentary page here.

CHIRP into Spring Like a Radiobird
CHIRP (Chicago Independent Radio Project) needs your help! CHIRP has been invited to Low Power FM Leadership Days in support of the Local Community Radio Act. If passed, the Local Community Radio Act will provide support for low frequency community radio stations, and bring more local programming from the airwaves to your ears.  You, too, can help gain traction for the Act (and for local community radio coverage across the nation) by handwriting a letter full of all of the reasons why you love local radio. For more info, including CHIRP’s suggested form for the letter, click on over here.

We're in the Movies!
Check us out on Vimeo.com! From the 2008 Public Audio Challenge: Radio Ephemera
Scared, Forest to Desert, Is That My Imagination?, A Transgender Childhood