Podcasts about salt institute

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Avery Moore Kloss. Have you ever been in a place where you knew deep down something had to change, but fear kept holding you back? That's exactly where Avery found herself, watching her husband, an entrepreneur at heart, slowly lose his spark in the corporate grind post-pandemic. Avery candidly shares how she wrestled with the fear of losing financial stability, realizing that she was the one holding him back from his dreams. In this episode, we dive into the moment she finally said to her husband, 'Just quit the job. We'll figure it out.' Avery Moore Kloss is the founder and lead creator of Folktale Studio. As a journalist, educator, entrepreneur, podcast host and award-winning radio documentarian, Avery's passion is in helping others capture their stories through audio. With Folktale Studio, Avery is committed to helping up-and-coming digital storytellers create podcasts that connect their unique stories with the world. As the host of the podcast “Grown Up,” Avery dives deep into the unconventional career journeys of her guests, exploring how they've navigated the twists and turns of the working world. It's a show about finding your way—even if that way looks nothing like what you expected. When she's not crafting podcasts, Avery teaches Audio Storytelling at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she also serves as the Podcaster-in-Residence. In her classes and office hours, she empowers the next generation of digital storytellers to embrace creativity, curiosity, and authenticity in their work. Avery is a proud graduate of Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communications, holding a combined honours degree in Journalism and History. Her storytelling journey began as a casual Associate Producer at CBC Ottawa before taking her to Portland, Maine, to study radio documentary at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (now part of the Maine College of Art). It was there that Avery discovered the art of long-form audio storytelling, a love that continues to shape her career. Her dedication to storytelling excellence earned her the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award in 2011 for “My Name is Meth,” an in-depth series exploring the growing crystal meth crisis in rural Ontario. Avery lives in Paris, Ontario, with her husband and daughter. When she's not behind the mic, you can find her enjoying the simple joys of small-town life, dreaming up her next big story, or sharing quiet moments with family.

You may not know the name Judith Jones, but you've certainly felt this dynamic woman's impact and influence on culture. Judith Jones was the editor behind books like The Diary of Anne Frank and Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child; she was also behind authors like Sylvia Plath, John Updike, Langston Hughes, Sharon Olds, and so many others. Her work, as our guest today writes in her new book, was “unrivaled in the industry.” Book editors are kind of shadow figures—they're behind-the-scenes, unsung heroes, who, as Sara B. Franklin writes in her book The Editor: How Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America, which came out on May 28, are people who “work in the service of their authors, not themselves, and their touch is meant to be difficult, if not impossible, for readers to see”—a bit of an invisible hand, if you will. Judith Jones rose through the ranks of publishing when it was very much an industry still dominated by men; one of her gifts was the ability to see talent in women writers, especially women writers many had overlooked. It's hard to believe that, for example, publishers weren't chomping at the bit for the works of Anne Frank or Julia Child, but they weren't; it was Judith who saw their books through to the finish line. She is most associated with cookbooks, and Sara writes that Judith may never have fully gotten the respect she so deserved because “books about food were (and to some extent still are) treated with an air of condescension by the literary world.” Sara and I talk about that on the show today, as well as topics like Judith's portrayal in the 2009 Nora Ephron film Julie & Julia—which Judith didn't like so much—and some of Judith's misses, like with the aforementioned Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar. Through Sara's book, Judith emerges from the shadows to the spotlight—the amount of passion and dedication Sara put into this bestselling book is remarkable. I can't wait for you to meet Sara and, through her, meet Judith. A little about Sara: she is a writer, teacher, and oral historian who teaches courses on food, writing, embodied culture, and oral history at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In addition to writing The Editor, she also edited Edna Lewis, co-authored The Phenicia Diner Cookbook, and holds a PhD in food studies from NYU and studied documentary storytelling at both the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Take a listen to our conversation.   The Editor: How Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sara B. Franklin

How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America Sarah B. Franklin Come join us as food historian and author Sara Franklin gives insight into Judith Jones, the visionary behind some of the most important authors of the 20th century, including Julia Child, Anne Frank, John Updike and Sylvia Plath. This iconic editor finally gets her due in Ms. Franklin's newly released book, The Editor. Ms. Franklin recounts that when Judith Jones began working at Doubleday's Paris office in 1949, the then twenty-five-year-old spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a manuscript caught her eye. She read the book in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of Jones' culture-defining career in publishing. Jones moved to Knopf publishing, and during her more than fifty years at that company, she published the who's who of food writing, including Edna Lewis, M.F.K. Fisher, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, Joan Nathan, and, most famously, Julia Child. Jones helped turn these authors into household names and changed the way Americans think about food, cooking, and culinary diversity. Ms. Franklin became friendly with Ms. Jones, conducted numerous interviews with her and studied her personal papers. And now she wants to share the life of one of our country's most influential tastemakers. Biography: Sara B. Franklin received a 2020–2021 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) public scholars grant for her research on Judith Jones and teaches courses on food culture, writing, and oral history at NYU's Gallatin School for Individualized Study and via the NYU Prison Education Initiative at Wallkill Correctional Facility. She is the author of Edna Lewis and The Phoenicia Diner Cookbook. She holds a PhD in food studies from NYU and studied documentary radio and nonfiction at both the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. SaraBFranklin.com. Recorded via Zoom on June 10, 2024 CONNECT WITH CULINARY HISTORIANS OF CHICAGO ✔ MEMBERSHIP https://culinaryhistorians.org/membership/ ✔ EMAIL LIST http://culinaryhistorians.org/join-our-email-list/ ✔ S U B S C R I B E https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Y0-9lTi1-JYu22Bt4_-9w ✔ F A C E B O O K https://www.facebook.com/CulinaryHistoriansOfChicago ✔ PODCAST 2008 to Present https://culinaryhistorians.org/podcasts/ By Presenter https://culinaryhistorians.org/podcasts-by-presenter/ ✔ YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Y0-9lTi1-JYu22Bt4_-9w ✔ W E B S I T E https://www.CulinaryHistorians.org

Episode #95: Oversharing, overtalking, undertalking, undersharing, small talk, deep talks, mismatches in vulnerability, and the art of listening---these are the tricky friendship topics we are dealing with today. I'm joined by Micaela Blei, a GrandSLAM-winning storyteller and former founding Director of Education at The Moth.Topics we covered:There is no right or wrong in how much to talk or how much to share. The words "over" or "under" signal a potential mismatch in conversation styles. The connection between overtalking and over-explaining (the fear of being misunderstood).Ways to sense when someone is ready to move beyond small talk.How the dynamics of managing new friendship conversations is similar to flirtingSome lessons from storytelling include: an awareness of "airtime," listening attentively (no phone), not confusing your friends for your audience. It takes work to share with friends, and it takes work to listen.Flexibility between deep and casual conversations is a sign of true intimacy in a friendship.Learning not to take responsibility for the success of every conversation.  (That one was for me to work on myself!)Meet Micaela Blei, PhD: Micaela has been teaching, studying and performing true, personal storytelling worldwide since 2012. She is a two-time Moth GrandSLAM winner and former founding Director of Education at The Moth. She's currently the visiting professor of Storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine, and a story editor for history, comedy and true crime shows at Wondery.Micaela's own storytelling can be heard on The Moth Radio Hour and podcast, Family Ghosts, Risk! and many others. Her Audible Original memoir, “You Will Not Recognize Your Life,” will be released on Audible later this year. Find out more, and hear more stories, at micaelablei.com. * All transcripts are available on the main Buzzsprout "Dear Nina" site. Click on any episode and find the transcript tab. Let's connect over all things friendship! My Substack newsletter about friendship & more Dear Nina website with show notes and a guide to pitching yourself as a guest Instagram , TikTok, Twitter, Youtube, Threads JOIN the Dear Nina Facebook group Ask an anonymous question

Micaela Blei, PHD has been teaching, studying and performing true, personal storytelling worldwide since 2012. She is a two-time Moth GrandSLAM winner and former founding Director of Education at The Moth. Her storytelling has been called “heartbreaking and hilarious” and can be heard on The Moth Radio Hour and podcast, Family Ghosts, Risk! and many others. Her memoir, “You Will Not Recognize Your Life,” will be released in late 2024 as an Audible Original. Micaela is a senior story editor and writer for the podcast network Wondery. And, currently she's the visiting professor of Storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies here in Portland, Maine. She also works as story editor and story coach. In this conversation recorded on January 5, 2024 on Zoom, Micaela shares with Rachael how she accidentally found herself on stage at The Moth and basically redirected her professional path as a result. She talks about mining our own lives for stories, why we don't need to make our personal experiences universal and how sharing the small moments in life can lead to the deepest connections. She also shares stories of her grandmother who she fondly referred to as “a dish” and "a real flirt." For more about Micaela Blei and to read the episode transcript, visit: www.alongtheseam.com/micaela-bleiFor more from Rachael and Along The  Seam, sign up for the Along The Seam newsletter.

Featuring Arielle Nissenblatt from Descript Arielle Nissenblattwill tell us all about how to use Descript with Squadcast. Yes! Descript now includes Squadcast! Now, you have complete recording and production solutions at your fingertips. Do everything in one place from editing to production and promotion. In this episode of the Women in Podcasting Network, Arielle Nissenblatt, a seasoned podcaster and expert in audio editing, shares valuable insights on seamlessly creating and editing Squadcast recordings in Descript, an all-in-one recording and editing platform. Podcasters can publish projects, collaborate with team members, and export files in various formats, enhancing the overall podcast production process. With Arielle's step-by-step guidance, podcasters can transform their raw audio and video files into polished, engaging content. Arielle's expertise provides a valuable resource for podcasters seeking efficient ways to edit their Squadcast recordings. Her insights empower podcasters to elevate the quality of their content, ensuring a captivating listening experience for their audience. Arielle Nissenblatt is the Community Marketing Manager at Descript. She is the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective, a podcast recommendation newsletter. She's a graduate of the Salt Institute for Audio Documentary Studies. She is obsessed with listening to podcasts and helping creators make great audio. Arielle has spoken at Podcast Movement, Radiodays Asia, Radiodays Europe, International Documentary Day at USC, and many more! Watch all the tutorials here: www.womeninpodcasting.net/descript This event is delivered by Jennifer Henczel and the Women in Podcasting Network. Join our community here: www.womeninpodcasting.net   DAY 5 CHALLENGE:  (1.) Have you tried Squadcast? Share a link to your creations in one of our groups: Women in Podcasting group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/womeninpodcasting Elevating Leaders Network group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/elevatingclub Try Descript: descript.com?lmref=uAB0_A Use our link to try Descript. It is our affiliate link and if you subscribe to their service, we will get a kickback. Your support helps us to keep events like this free and furthers our efforts to elevate women's voices everywhere. We'll put the link in the comments.

What do radio producers Phoebe Judge (Criminal), Zoe Chase (This American Life), Greg Warner (Rough Translation), Matt Kielty (Radiolab), Emily Kwong (NPR) and dozens if not hundreds of others you've heard on your favorite podcasts and radio shows have in common? Salt. They're all graduates of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. Salt turns fifty this year! Isaac Kestenbaum, the director of the program, joins Rob to celebrate the occasion and talk about what makes the Salt experience so unique. 

The Witch Wave fairy podmother and sonic sensei, CC Paschal, has been on a spiritual - and material - journey to save their family's ancestral home *by the end of this month!* Please share CC's GoFundMe widely and do contribute if you are able to!CC Paschal (she/they) currently heads editorial content and development at the audio production house, Molten Heart. She also teaches audio documentary art, most recently at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies at Maine College of Art & Design. Their book, "Audiocraft, The Art and Business of Making Podcasts that Mean Something" is out later this year from Routledge.Previously, CC was the series editor of NPR's critically acclaimed narrative series Louder Than a Riot, about the interconnected rise of mass incarceration and hip-hop culture; as well as Malcolm Gladwell's Broken Record, and the award-winning independent show about intimacy and power, The Heart. In 2017, CC was a lead producer on Gimlet Media's Peabody award-winning production Uncivil where she honed her genealogical research skills and first discovered her Melungeon / Free People of Color ancestry.On this bonus episode of The Witch Wave, CC discusses their magical mission to save their family's home, the importance of Black land stewardship in America, and the spiritual synchronicities that helped them heed this ancestral call.(Here's CC's GoFundMe page once again!)

The Trailer Park Podcast is coming soon! This is a pre-trailer designed to get you pre-excited(!) for the show. Discover more from us: Visit our website to submit your podcast  Follow us on Instagram  Follow Arielle  Follow Tim  About the hosts: Arielle Nissenblatt is the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective, a weekly podcast newsletter and podcast. She is the Community Manager at SquadCast.fm, a remote recording platform. She is a graduate of the Salt Institute of Audio Documentary Studies. Nissenblatt is a podcast marketing expert, having spoken on panels at conferences such as Radiodays Asia, Sounds of New York, Podcast Movement, International Documentary Association's Podcast Day, at USC, Montana Media Lab, American University, and more. She is one of the founders of Podcast Taxonomy, an international effort to categorize roles and credits in the podcast industry. She is the cohost of Sounds Profitable, Adtech Applied,  a show about adtech in the audio space.  Tim Villegas: Throughout his sixteen-year career as a special education teacher, Tim advocated for the inclusion of students with significant disabilities in general education classrooms and systems change in schools and districts. Tim spent thirteen years as a classroom teacher and three years as a district-level program specialist supporting students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), emotional and behavioral needs, and intellectual disabilities. He joined MCIE in 2020 as the Director of Communications to advance the vision that neighborhood schools be the foundation of inclusive communities. He is also the Founder of Think Inclusive, now MCIE's official blog and podcast, which serves to build a bridge between families, educators, and people with disabilities to advocate for inclusive education by publishing news, opinion, and educational articles. Tim earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Azusa Pacific University, and later a teaching credential for moderate to severe disabilities from California State University Fullerton.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: The town of Eastport, Maine, has weathered many changes in the last decades, transitioning from empty sardine factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to an uncertain future. This month we feature two stories from Maine's easternmost town: “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront,” a recent episode on the From the Sea Up podcast, and “The Drama of Eastport Tides,” an older (2017) but timeless episode from the Salts and Water podcast. Our first is called “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront.” In the far eastern corner of Downeast Maine there's a 3.7 square mile island. Connected to the mainland by a causeway and road that passes through the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, Sipayik, this island is home to the town of Eastport, population 1,300. Once the most prominent sardine canning village along the coast, Eastport's last sardine factory closed in 1983. With that, a century-long industry was gone. In this episode we learn how Eastport has transitioned from a waterfront of empty factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to a very uncertain future. This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine's complicated future. This is the first in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months. People and organizations Featured in this story include: Tides Institute, Hugh French, Moose Island Marine, Dean Pike, Eastport Port Authority, and Chris Gardner. This story is part of the podcast series From the Sea Up A note from producer Galen Koch: Thank you for listening to From the Sea up. This episode was written and produced by me, Galen Koch and assistant producer Olivia Jolley for the Island Institute. Nicole Wolf takes the beautiful photographs that accompany this episode. From the Sea Up's Senior Editors are Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman. Additional audio editing on this episode by Liz Joyce and Claudia Newall. Special thanks to Camden Hunt, Hugh French, Dean Pike, Chris Bartlett, and Chris Gardner for their help and participation. And thanks to the Salt Institute and Pamela Wood, Hugh French, and Lynn Kippax Jr, who together researched and wrote the 1983 journal publication, “Eastport: For Pride.” Most of the music in this episode is by Cue Shop. From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Past episodes and more information are available here Our second story Is called “The Drama of Eastport Tides” The defining feature of the easternmost point of America is the dramatic tides of the Atlantic Ocean at the coast of Eastport, Maine. Learn why incredible natural feature exists and visit one of the largest confluences of whirlpools in the world. Hear from the Salts—people with deep connections to the sea, whose lives are shaped by this natural wonder. This story was pulled out of the Coastal Conversations archives, from 2017, when well-known New England audio storyteller Rob Rosenthal partnered up with an initiative called Experience Maritime Maine to produce the Salts and Water podcast. Eastport is one of six towns covered in this series. People and organizations featured in this story include: Butch Harris of Eastport Windjammers, harbor pilot Bob Peacock, photographer Lisa Tyson Ennis, some Eastport visitors, and of course, the tide. This story is part of the podcast series SALTS & WATER: Stories from the Maine Coast Experience Maritime Maine presents Salts & Water, a 6-part podcast series by award-winning producer Rob Rosenthal. These audio stories paint remarkable character portraits along the coast of Maine, through Eastport, Stonington, Searsport, Rockland, Bath, and Portland. Meet the “women lobstermen” of Stonington, island-hop aboard a Windjammer in Penobscot Bay, and discover the salty fishmonger whose work on Portland's piers is integral to Maine's culture of seafood. Get to know meticulous boat builders, and learn how the dramatic tides shape life in Downeast Maine. Enjoy this podcast series. Salts and Water is a project of Experience Maritime Maine, funded in part by the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Hamilton Marine, Maine's MidCoast & Islands, and sponsored by Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors. To hear the other stories in the series, visit Salts and Water Podcast Series About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation's since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland's Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio. The post Coastal Conversations 10/28/22: Eastport- Maine's Easternmost Town first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program. This month: The town of Eastport, Maine, has weathered many changes in the last decades, transitioning from empty sardine factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to an uncertain future. This month we feature two stories from Maine's easternmost town: “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront,” a recent episode on the From the Sea Up podcast, and “The Drama of Eastport Tides,” an older (2017) but timeless episode from the Salts and Water podcast. Our first is called “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront.” In the far eastern corner of Downeast Maine there's a 3.7 square mile island. Connected to the mainland by a causeway and road that passes through the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, Sipayik, this island is home to the town of Eastport, population 1,300. Once the most prominent sardine canning village along the coast, Eastport's last sardine factory closed in 1983. With that, a century-long industry was gone. In this episode we learn how Eastport has transitioned from a waterfront of empty factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to a very uncertain future. This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine's complicated future. This is the first in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months. People and organizations Featured in this story include: Tides Institute, Hugh French, Moose Island Marine, Dean Pike, Eastport Port Authority, and Chris Gardner. This story is part of the podcast series From the Sea Up A note from producer Galen Koch: Thank you for listening to From the Sea up. This episode was written and produced by me, Galen Koch and assistant producer Olivia Jolley for the Island Institute. Nicole Wolf takes the beautiful photographs that accompany this episode. From the Sea Up's Senior Editors are Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman. Additional audio editing on this episode by Liz Joyce and Claudia Newall. Special thanks to Camden Hunt, Hugh French, Dean Pike, Chris Bartlett, and Chris Gardner for their help and participation. And thanks to the Salt Institute and Pamela Wood, Hugh French, and Lynn Kippax Jr, who together researched and wrote the 1983 journal publication, “Eastport: For Pride.” Most of the music in this episode is by Cue Shop. From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Past episodes and more information are available here Our second story Is called “The Drama of Eastport Tides” The defining feature of the easternmost point of America is the dramatic tides of the Atlantic Ocean at the coast of Eastport, Maine. Learn why incredible natural feature exists and visit one of the largest confluences of whirlpools in the world. Hear from the Salts—people with deep connections to the sea, whose lives are shaped by this natural wonder. This story was pulled out of the Coastal Conversations archives, from 2017, when well-known New England audio storyteller Rob Rosenthal partnered up with an initiative called Experience Maritime Maine to produce the Salts and Water podcast. Eastport is one of six towns covered in this series. People and organizations featured in this story include: Butch Harris of Eastport Windjammers, harbor pilot Bob Peacock, photographer Lisa Tyson Ennis, some Eastport visitors, and of course, the tide. This story is part of the podcast series SALTS & WATER: Stories from the Maine Coast Experience Maritime Maine presents Salts & Water, a 6-part podcast series by award-winning producer Rob Rosenthal. These audio stories paint remarkable character portraits along the coast of Maine, through Eastport, Stonington, Searsport, Rockland, Bath, and Portland. Meet the “women lobstermen” of Stonington, island-hop aboard a Windjammer in Penobscot Bay, and discover the salty fishmonger whose work on Portland's piers is integral to Maine's culture of seafood. Get to know meticulous boat builders, and learn how the dramatic tides shape life in Downeast Maine. Enjoy this podcast series. Salts and Water is a project of Experience Maritime Maine, funded in part by the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Hamilton Marine, Maine's MidCoast & Islands, and sponsored by Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors. To hear the other stories in the series, visit Salts and Water Podcast Series About the host: Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation's since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland's Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio. The post Coastal Conversations 10/28/22: Eastport- Maine's Easternmost Town first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

Welcome to Feedback with EarBuds, the podcast recommendation podcast. Our newsletter brings you five podcast recommendations each week according to a theme, and curated by a different person. Our podcast is an audio version of the newsletter.Subscribe to the newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/cIcBuHThis week's theme is episodes to make you fall in love with podcasts. The curator is Emma Reynolds.Why did Emma choose this theme? "Earlier this year, I fell in love with podcasting. It was a swift, certain love — the kind I had been waiting for. I just graduated from the Salt Institute for Audio Documentary Studies and have been reflecting on the shows that laid the foundation for this career."This week's episode of Feedback with EarBuds is brought to us by Cast of Creators. Cast of creators is a podcast about the business of content creation, and the lives of creators behind successful blogs and brands. Each week, guests join the cast for a conversation about their lives, content creation, and business.Listen: https://pod.link/1634441184We are also sponsored by Vocaster. It's the easiest way to bring studio-quality sound to your podcastVocaster features Auto Gain, to set levels quickly and easily; Enhance, to get your voice sounding its best in one click; and connections for your phone, camera, and so much more.Learn more: https://twitter.us15.list-manage.com/track/click?e=30c45e7ca0&id=e76ac030b4&u=23dcd7a2c6f1281f17223e7b9We are also supported by The Zen(ish) MommyA place where moms can slow down, be authentic, and take their time without guilt.Host Jessica Gershman understands what it feels like to know that every time you walk into a room, someone needs something from you. As a mom of four, zen is often the last place she ended up until she made a change. Listen: https://link.chtbl.com/vGmDQREtLinks mentioned in this episode:- Podcast Movement: https://podcastmovement.com/- Trailer Park Podcast: https://trailerparkpodcast.crd.co/- On the EarBuds blog: https://www.earbudspodcastcollective.org/blog/best-podcasts-for-book-lovers-2022Find this week's podcast recommendation list here: https://www.earbudspodcastcollective.org/fall-in-love-podcast-recommendationsHere are this week's podcast picks from Ilina:- The Shadows- Millennial- Still Processing- Anthropocene Reviewed- Life sentencesThis week's podcast spotlight is My Mother Made Me."My Mother Made Me" is a four-episode series from Radiotopia Presents in which writer Jason Reynolds and his mother, Isabell, explore their shared history, how she raised him, and what they're teaching each other.They go deep — birth, death, spirituality — but they also keep it light: pushing a cart through Costco, birthday lunches, and hitting the casino together. That's just how they do.Listen: https://radiotopiapresents.fm/my-mother-made-me_______________________________________________Apply to have your podcast spotlit: https://www.earbudspodcastcollective.org/podcast-spotlightsSubmit to our Community section: https://962udey3mps.typeform.com/to/zZadg6y2EarBuds Blog: http://earbuds.audio/blogCurate a list: https://www.earbudspodcastcollective.org/earbuds-podcast-curators-formFollow us on Twitter @earbudspodcol: https://twitter.com/EarbudsPodColFollow us on Facebook at EarBuds Podcast Collective: https://www.facebook.com/earbudspodcastcollectiveFollow us on Instagram @earbudspodcastcollective: https://www.instagram.com/earbudspodcastcollective/Website: http://earbuds.audio/Tee Public: https://www.teepublic.com/user/earbuds-podcast-collective

Arielle Nissenblatt is the founder of EarBuds Podcast Collective, a weekly podcast newsletter, and podcast. She is the Community Manager at SquadCast.FM, a remote recording platform. She is a graduate of the Salt Institute of Audio Documentary Studies. Nissenblatt is a podcast marketing expert, having spoken on panels at conferences such as Podcast Movement, International Documentary Association's Podcast Day, at USC, Montana Media Lab, American University, and more. She is one of the founders of Podcast Taxonomy, an international effort to categorize roles and credits in the podcast industry. Nissenblatt listens to over 40 hours of audio content per week. She is a podcast industry futurist and believes in the power of audio to break down cultural barriers. 00:00 - 01:18 Arielle's Bio 01:19 - 11:36 Marketing Essentials Moment: New Marketing Trends 11:37 - 12:18 Welcome to Peppershock Media's Marketing Expedition Podcast 12:19 - 14:26 Welcome to the show, Arielle! 14:27 - 19:06 Growing and reaching a wider audience 19:07 - 23:36 Combined tactics in email marketing 23:37 - 26:13 Arielle's journey as a speaker 26:14 - 27:03 Kitcaster specializes in booking podcasts with massive audiences! Join Today! 27:04 - 29:53 What inspired Arielle into the podcast space 29:54 - 32:25 “I like to stay entertained both as a listener and as a creator and as somebody who helps creators.” -Arielle Nissenblatt 32:26 - 34:18 Getting your audience involved 34:19 - 36:23 Importance of newsletters 36:24 - 39:00 Arielle's future goals 39:01 - 40:23 Buiding a community for your audience 40:24 - 40:47 How to subscribe: https://www.earbudspodcastcollective.org 40:48 - 41:25 Thank you so much, Arielle! Enjoy your Marketing journey! 41:26 - 42:12 Join The Marketing Expedition Community today! #podcastmarketing #podcast #podcasting #podcaster #podcastshow #podcastinglife #podcasthost #podcastaddict #podcastlife #podcasts #branding #advertising #marketing #marketingtips #earbudspodcastcollective

Video of this event is available here: https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/30/maine-voices-live-with-bill-nemitz/ Bill Nemitz Bill Nemitz has worked as a journalist in Maine since 1977, when he became a reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He moved to Portland in 1983, working first as a reporter for the Evening Express and later as a city editor and assistant managing editor/sports for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. He began writing his column in 1995. While focusing on Maine people and issues, his work has taken him three times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with members of the Maine Army National Guard and the Army Reserve; to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Peace Accord; to Manhattan for the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; to the Gulf Coast for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Nemitz is a past president of the Maine Press Association and for many years taught journalism part-time at St. Joseph's College of Maine in Standish. He also served for eight years, including three as chairman, on the board of trustees for the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland. In 2004, the Maine Press Association named Nemitz Maine Journalist of the Year for his reporting on the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion in Iraq. In 2007, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the New England Newspaper Association. In 2015, Nemitz was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame.

On this episode of the Audience podcast, Matt talks with Arielle Nissenblatt about building a community around your podcast. There are so many great takeaways from this episode, from community engagement to building an audience, podcasting habits to monetization. Arielle lends her expertise in answering Matt’s questions about podcasting and Twitter. Arielle is a podcast expert in every sense of the word. She founded the EarBuds Podcast Collective in 2017, a podcast recommendation engine which sends a themed newsletter (including five podcast episodes centered around that theme) each week. She has also been the emcee for the Outlier Podcast Festival, attended the Salt Institute in Portland, ME for documentary studies, and has worked with podcast industry leaders to establish the Podcast Taxonomy system. The Podcast Taxonomy system aims to systematize roles for audio and podcast production. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to Castos.com/podcast. And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at castos.com/subscribe. Today you’ll learn about: Mental investments to building community Where to house your community Questions to ask to establish what your audience and peers want Beta testers as community members Where is your audience most active? Getting through the overhead of customers that know nothing about podcasting Engaging and gripping content Monetization and independent creators Arielle’s podcasting and Twitter habits Resources/Links: Arielle Nissenblatt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arithisandthat?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Arielle Nissenblatt’s website: https://www.ariellenissenblatt.com/ Castos Academy: https://academy.castos.com/ Castos, private podcast: http

On this episode, Alexandra speaks with Allison Behringer, who is an award-winning narrative audio journalist and podcast producer. She is the creator, host and producer of Bodies, a feminist documentary podcast supported by NPR-affiliate KCRW and she has been working on season two of The Cut throughout 2020 and the start of 2021. They talk about their shared hometown and what they did and didn't learn in sex ed. Allison shares about her time at Salt Institute, what she learned about ethical storytelling and documentary-style stories. They also discuss the effects of birth control, painful sex, and how these two things started Allison's idea for Bodies. Toward the end of the conversation, they discuss the importance of female friendship, Allison's episode of The Cut where she is one of the main speakers, and how podcasting has changed her relationship with not just the people in her life but with herself. Follow Allison Behringer:WebsitePersonal TwitterPersonal InstagramBodies TwitterBodies InstagramBodies: "Sex Hurts"The Cut: “You Might Actually Be in Love With Your Best Friend”Follow POD.DRALAND for more:Website: https://www.poddraland.com/Instagram: @pod.dralandTwitter: @poddralandFacebook: @pod.dralandTikTok: @poddralandSubscribe to the newsletter for updates on this show and more. Share about the episode on your social media and hashtag the following to connect with other listeners:#ThePodBroads#PoddralandAd info:The Wave Free guideUse code: POD.DRALAND10  for 10% off of the full guideOriginal music by Kerry Blu:Website kblumusic.orgInstagram @kblumusicCover Art by Elsa BermudezWebsiteInstagram @oddahtchoice.crd.codonations4abortion.com

Gretta Cohn is the founder and CEO of Transmitter Media. Gretta's experience runs the gamut of all things audio, from public radio and ringtones, to producing chart-topping podcasts. We discuss her time touring with the band Bright Eyes, being hired as the first production executive at Midroll Media and Earwolf, and starting her own podcast company with only $7,000 of savings. Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow The Come Up on Twitter: @TCUpodEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders. Gretta Cohn:I thought I would take the more productive path, the one where I didn't leave podcasting and I made this decision in December of 2016 to myself and then spent the next couple of months just tucking away money. And when I say I saved money before starting the business, I saved $7,000. Chris Erwin:This week's episode features Gretta Cohn, the founder and CEO of Transmitter Media. Now, Gretta's experience runs the gamut of all things audio. From being a touring cellist with the band, Cursive, to teaching radio workshops at NYU, to working in audiobooks, ringtones, and most recently podcasts. And Gretta's done some groundbreaking work along the way like turning Freakonomics Radio into an omni channel media brand, launching the number one podcast show, Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People and helping build Howl, which eventually became part of Stitcher. But Gretta's career transformed in 2017 when she decided to do podcasting on her own terms. So with only $7000 of savings, Gretta founded Transmitter Media and quickly began producing premium podcasts for clients like, TED, Spotify, and Walmart. Today, Gretta is focused on scaling her Brooklyn based team and creating more, as she describes, beautiful things. Chris Erwin:Gretta's love for her craft and team is so genuine and her story is a great example of how sheer will and passion are the ultimate enablers. All right, let's get into it. Chris Erwin:Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. I believe that you grew up in New York City. Is that right? Gretta Cohn:Well, I grew up in the suburbs, so I grew up on Long Island. My mom is from Queens and my dad is from Brooklyn and there is a sort of mythology of their meeting. My mom's dad was a butcher in Queens and my dad would always tell us that they didn't have toothpaste growing up and he'd go over to my mom's house and just eat. Yeah, they moved out to Long Island after they got married. Chris Erwin:Nice. And what part of Long Island? Gretta Cohn:Initially I grew up on the eastern end in the town called Mount Sinai and then when I was 13 in a very traumatic move at that age we moved to Huntington, which was more like smack in the middle of the island. Chris Erwin:My cousins are from Huntington. That's where they grew up, but then I think they moved to Lloyd's Neck shortly after. Why was that move so traumatic at 13? Gretta Cohn:I think it's that really formative age where you are sort of coming into yourself as a human, as a teenager and I remember writing my name on the wall in the closet because I wanted to leave my mark on that particular house that we grew up in. But then we moved and I made new friends and it was fine. Chris Erwin:Everything is scary at that age. It's like, "Oh, I have my friends and if I move to a new high school or middle school, I'll never have the same friends again." Gretta Cohn:My best friend at the time, Alessandra, never to be talked to or seen again. Chris Erwin:What was the household like growing up? Was there interesting audio from your parents? I mean, I think you mentioned, remind me, your father was a butcher and your mother was... Gretta Cohn:No, no. Those are my grandparents. Chris Erwin:Those are your grandparents. Got it. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. No. My parents were both teachers in the education system. My dad was a teacher his whole career life. He taught shop and psychology classes and computer classes. And my mom ended up being a superintendent of the school district on Long Island. She got her start as a Phys Ed teacher and then became an English teacher and worked her way up to superintendent. The sort of interest in audio they instilled in me and my two brothers extremely early. We all started learning to play string instruments at the age of three through the Suzuki method. Chris Erwin:The Suzuki method? Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Which is like an ear training style of learning music. So you essentially at three years old, you cannot possibly understand how to physically play an instrument and I remember a lot of time spent in those early group lessons just hugging the cello and singing this song, I love my cello very much, I play it every day and crawling up and down the bow with spider fingers, that's what they called it because your fingers kind of looked like spiders crawling up and down the bow and we all started playing string instruments at that age. I played cello and then the brother who came after me played violin, and the brother who came after him also played cello. Chris Erwin:Wow. And did you parents play instruments as well, string instruments? Gretta Cohn:No. My dad loves to say he can play the radio. Chris Erwin:I respect that. Gretta Cohn:I think they are educators, they are really invested in the full education of a person and so I think that they thought it was a good teaching discipline and it certainly required a kind of discipline. I can recall really fighting against practicing because I had to practice probably every day and I would rebel and not want to do it, but it was not really an option and I'm glad that ultimately I was pressed to continue to play because playing music has played such a huge part of my life. Chris Erwin:Clearly. It led you, which we'll get to, into founding a podcast production company and network and so much more. So very big impact. But, I get it. I began playing the alto saxophone in fourth grade and my twin brother was playing the clarinet and it was lessons with Mr. Slonum every week, an hour of practice every day and it was, when you're putting it on top of sports and homework and academics, it's a lot and it's intense and there's moments where you really don't want to do it and it's not fun and then there's moments where you're very thankful for it. And I think a lot of the more thankful moments came later in my life, but if you can get some of those early on, it's meaningful. When you first started playing, did you really enjoy it or was it just like, uh this is what I'm just supposed to do? Gretta Cohn:I remember enjoying it. I remember in particular being able to do little recitals every so often and I know there are photographs of myself in recital that I've seen even recently and there is such a joy in that and I think that showing off something that you've done and your family claps for you, it's a good job. Ultimately, what it feels like to play in a group, in an ensemble, it's pretty magical. I played in orchestras starting in grade school all the way up through college and there is something really amazing about the collective and your part and you can't mess up because it's glaringly obvious if you're the one out of the section of 12 cellists whose got their bow going the wrong direction or the wrong note playing. But it's also really beautiful to play in a group like that. Chris Erwin:Yeah. It's a special team sport, right? You rely on other people and people rely on you. When it comes together, it's an absolutely beautiful event, for you and the audience. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. I also played soccer growing up, speaking of team sports. Chris Erwin:Okay. What position? Gretta Cohn:I was defense. They would enlist me to run around and shadow the most powerful player on the other team. I don't know why, but I remember that. Chris Erwin:I was very similar. I started out as a recreation all-star like a forward and then got moved to right fullback, which is defense. That was my soccer career. All right. So interesting. So yeah, speaking of studying music, I think that when you went to university, you almost went to study music at a conservatory but you ended up going to Brown instead. What were you thinking, because were you going down a path where it's like, "I want to be in audio, I want to create music." What was your head space there as you started to go through advanced education, beginnings of your career? Gretta Cohn:I remember collecting fliers for conservatories. I was interested in conservatory, I think though that as I began to really think about what that would mean, I don't know that I was thinking really broadly, like oh... No one at 17 or whatever really has a full picture of what those choices ultimately mean but I'm glad that I didn't go to music school. I was always the worst player in the best section. So I remember I was in the New York Youth Symphony and I was definitely not the best player in that section, but it was really hard to get in. One summer I went and studied at the Tanglewood Institute in Boston, which is, again, extremely competitive and hard to get into but I was definitely not the best player there. Gretta Cohn:And I think that thinking about what it would mean to devote oneself entirely to that, I had other interests. I wasn't so completely focused on being a performer that it didn't ultimately feel like it would make a lot of sense because I wanted to study history, I wanted... And obviously, you go to conservatory, you have a well-rounded education ultimately, I would imagine, but it's not where I think I ultimately wanted to go. That was not the direction I ultimately wanted to go. Chris Erwin:Yeah. It's a really big commitment going from good to great, but I mean, you are great. You are getting into these elite orchestras but to be the first chair, that's a level of dedication practice that's really tough. It's funny, I actually read a David Foster Wallace article about the sport of tennis and he played and he was very good and I think he could have even gone pro, but he's like, "I'm good, I put in enough hours and I have fun with it, but for me to go to the next level..." He's like, "It's not fun to me and I don't want to do that." It's not for him. So you make a decision and you go to Brown. What's your study focus at Brown? Gretta Cohn:I ultimately was in the American Studies Department, but I had a special sort of crossover with the music department so I took a lot of music classes, I took a lot of American Studies classes which is basically like cultural history, social history, history through the lens of various social movements or pop culture, which I think is really fascinating and I wound everything together so that my senior thesis was about cover songs and the history of sort of copying and the idea of creating various versions of any original work and the sort of cultural history and critical theory lens of it, but also just I selected three songs and I traced their history over time from a performance perspective but also from like, how does this song fit into the narrative of music history? Chris Erwin:Do you remember the three songs? Gretta Cohn:I think I did Twist and Shout. Chris Erwin:Okay. Gretta Cohn:I Shall Be Released and I can't remember the third one. But I had a lot of fun writing it and I really liked the bridging between the music department and the American Studies department. And strangely, there are so many journalists who came up through American Studies. There are several producers on my staff who were American Studies students in college. I think it just gives you this permission to think about story telling in the world from just this very unique cultural vantage points. Chris Erwin:Did you have a certain expectation where you had an idea of what that story was going to be over time or were you surprised and as you saw how the narrative played out with the original song and recording and production and then the covers, anything that stands out of like, "Oh, I did not expect this, but I found this very fascinating."? Gretta Cohn:I don't really remember at this point. Chris Erwin:Sorry for putting you on the spot, it's such a long time ago. Gretta Cohn:The thing was like more than 100 pages and it's probably a door stopper now at my parents house. I remember that I put a big picture of a mushroom on the last page. John Cage wrote a lot about mushrooms and so I wove some of his work into the thesis but this idea that the mushroom takes the dirt and crap and stuff that's on the forest floor and turns it into this organic material, the mushroom. So yeah, I don't remember the specifics. Chris Erwin:Yeah, no. All good. My thesis was on the Banana Wars and that is... It's not even worthy of being a door stopper. That's just straight to the trash. But I did, for a music class, I think I did break down a song by the Sex Pistols. Gretta Cohn:Cool. Chris Erwin:I can't remember specifically which one, but I think I dove deep into the lyrics and I think I was pretty disappointed. I expected to find more meaning and have more fun with it, and I think it was maybe my young mind, I couldn't go deeper than I thought I could. Anyway... So fast forward to 2001 and as I was going through your bio, this really stood out and it hits close to home. You become a cellist for some alternative rock bands including Cursive, The Faint, and Bright Eyes. And I just remember The Faint, I think a song from 2008, The Geeks Were Right. I remember listening to that shortly after college. So tell me, what was that transition going from university to then moving, I think you moved to Omaha out of New York to play in these rock bands? Gretta Cohn:So when I was in college, I continued to play in the school orchestra, but I also met some friends who became collaborators and we would just improvise in the lounge like, bass drums, guitar and cello. And that was really freeing for me. Growing up on Long Island, I had such easy access to New York City and for whatever reason, I was really given a lot of freedom to... I would take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan and go to concerts all through high school, like rock concerts. Chris Erwin:What was some of your earliest concert memories? Gretta Cohn:Purposely getting to an Afghan Whigs show and planting myself in the front row because I wanted to be as close as possible to the stage. So I used to go to concerts all the time and I was really, really interested in... I wasn't only a person who thought about classical music at all and so I met this group of people and formed this little group together and so I was playing music in college, eventually joining a band mostly with locals in Providence and we became the opening act for a lot of bands that were coming through. Chris Erwin:And what type of music were you playing, Gretta? Gretta Cohn:It was arty rock. Chris Erwin:Arty rock. Okay. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Some of it was instrumental, but then some of it was like pop. I think one of the bands that I was in was called The Beauty Industry and it was probably a little bit reminiscent of Built to Spill and The Magnetic Fields and a little bit like Poppy. So in that band we would serve as the opening act for a lot of artists that were coming through and through that I was able to meet the folks from Saddle Creek from Omaha, Nebraska. And I didn't know that I made an impression on them, but I did and after I graduated I moved to New York. I didn't really know exactly where I was headed. I got a job working in the development office at Carnegie Hall and I didn't love it. We had to wear suits. And one day the folks from Omaha called my parents home phone and left a message and asked if I would come out and play on a record with them and I did. Chris Erwin:When you got that message, were you ecstatic, were you super excited or were you just confused, like, "Hey, is this real? What's going on here?" Gretta Cohn:Yeah. I think I was like, "Huh, well, that's interesting." Like, "I didn't expect this." So Cursive is the group that invited me out to record. Just sort of like come out and record on our album. And I didn't actually know Cursive. I had met Bright Eyes and Lullaby for the Working Class when I was at Brown, but I hadn't met Cursive and my best friend, who is still one of my best friends was a Cursive fan and dumped all of their CDs and seven inches in my lap and was like, "You need to listen to them, they are so good." So I did and I sort of gave myself a little Cursive education and then I started to get really excited because I felt like there was a lot of interesting potential. Yeah. Gretta Cohn:Moving out there was not an easy decision. It was very unknown for me. I love New York City and I always imagined myself here and I had never been to the Midwest so I didn't know what my expectations were and I didn't... Also at that time Cursive was a fairly well-known band but it wasn't understood that I would move out there and that would be my job, right? I was moving out there to join this community and play in Cursive and do Cursive stuff, go on tour, record records, but at that point there was no promise like, "Oh, I'm going to live off of this." And so I went to a temp agency and I did paperwork in an accountant's office and- Chris Erwin:While also performing with Cursive? Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Yeah. I will also say though, after the first year, things really took off after The Ugly Organ and I would say at that point I was no longer working in the temp office and we were going on long tours and when I came home in between stretches on tour, I was recovering from tour because it's quite exhausting and working on the next thing with the bands. Chris Erwin:Were you touring around nationally? Any international touring? Gretta Cohn:Yeah. National and international. We went all over the States, Canada and then European tour is like often... Cursive was very big in Germany so we would spend a lot of time in Germany, Scandinavia. We went to Japan once. Chris Erwin:What an incredible post university experience! Gretta Cohn:It really, really was incredible. Chris Erwin:Playing music because of a skill that you formed very early on and then working in New York at Carnegie Hall and a job that you weren't too excited about and then you just get this serendipitous phone call. And you started listening to Cursive records in seven inches and you're getting more and more excited and all of a sudden you're traveling the world. That's like a dream scenario. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. It was pretty dreamy. And I think I recognized at the time. I mean, those first tours, we were sleeping on... I had my sleeping bag and we would be sleeping on hardwood floors, end up in like a row and someone's apartment in like Arlington. And I remember some of those first tours internationally, like in Germany, you would play the show and then everyone would leave and they would shut the lights off and we would just sleep on the stage. And in the morning the promoter, like the booker would come back and they would have bread and cheese and fruit and coffee. And it was just this beautiful... But we were sleeping on the stage. Chris Erwin:I mean, you're all doing it together. So it was cool. Right. You just were a crew. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, yeah. It was great. I loved it. I really, really loved it. Chris Erwin:I look at your work timeline between 2001 to 2010, which includes, you're a touring international artist, but then you do a lot of other things in audio. Like you study with Rob Rosenthal at the Salt Institute, do some time in Studio 360, and then you go to radio and then audio books. So what are the next few years? How does this audio adventure start to transform for you? Gretta Cohn:While I was in Cursive, there were other parts of me that I felt needed feeding and so I started writing for the local alternative weekly in Omaha. And I was doing like book reviews and reviewing art shows and doing little pieces, which sort of opened up to me, this understanding that journalism was something that I was really interested in. And while I was still essentially based in Omaha and still, essentially based out of Saddle Creek, I came back to New York for a few months and did an internship at The Village Voice because I just really wanted to sort of start exploring these paths of what would potentially come next. I didn't necessarily think that I was meant to stay in Omaha like for the rest of my life. When I first moved out there, I thought, "Oh, I'll give it a few years. See how it goes and then probably come back home to New York." Gretta Cohn:And then things really took off and so I didn't want to leave. And I was really having a great time and loved it and loved everything that I was doing. And I think that at the time that chapter was coming to a close, it was sort of like naturally coming to a close and I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do next. I was interested in journalism, I was interested obviously in... still thinking about music and audio although I think I needed a break from music after that time. Like when you're so intensively working on something like that, you just need a minute to let everything kind of settle. Chris Erwin:Yeah. It's all encompassing. Right. You're just living, breathing, eating music and the band. It's a lot. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. So I took a couple of years and started to figure it out. Actually, something that's not on your list is I worked at a ringtone company for a bit. Chris Erwin:It is audio based. So I'm not surprised. So yeah, tell me about that. Gretta Cohn:It was just a job that I got. Actually, looking back now, I think that it was a company that was founded by two classical musicians. They mostly had contracts with major record labels and I remember turning Sean Paul's Temperature into a ringtone in particular. It was just like chopping things into little eight seconds and looping them and mastering them and- Chris Erwin:Were you doing the technical work as well? Gretta Cohn:Not really, you spend time in the studio and so you learn and you pick up things. I wasn't recording the band, but that was the first time that I got my own pro tools set up and so I had my own pro tool setup, like was using it for my own little projects at home, but I was not technically involved with the making of any of the records that was on now, except for playing on them. Chris Erwin:Yeah, you were dabbling in pro tools then pretty early on. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, yeah. I had the original Mbox, which is like this big plastic, weird alien looking object with just like a couple of little knobs on it. I finally got rid of it a couple of years ago. I held onto it for a long time and now you don't even need it. Chris Erwin:So you're dabbling and then I know that you spend time as a producer at The Story with Dick Gordon, North Carolina, and then you went to audio books. Is that when things started to take shape for you of knowing kind of what you wanted to do? Gretta Cohn:I think as soon as I went to Salt to study with Rob Rosenthal is when I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I took a few years after Cursive to kind of reset a little bit and then I started working at the ringtone company and began to have conversations with people about where all my interests collided. Like I loved working in sound, storytelling and journalism were really important to me. I don't think at that point that... There was a whole lot that I was exposed to apart from NPR, This American Life and Studio 360 were sort of the major outlets for audio storytelling that I understood and spent time with. And I just remember having a meal with someone who I don't recall his name, but he's done a lot of illustrations for This American Life and public radio outlets and he was like, "There's this place, it's called salt. You can learn how to do this there." And so I just decided that I was going to step down this path. Right. Chris Erwin:Yeah. And Salt is based in Maine, is that right? Gretta Cohn:Yeah. So I moved to Maine for six months. I was very excited. I got a merit scholarship to go there. Chris Erwin:Oh wow. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, and I basically... There's so many fundamentals that I learned there that I use every single day now still. I think Rob Rosenthal is absolutely brilliant and he has trained so many radio producers. It's insane. Chris Erwin:Of all the learnings from Rob, just like what's one that comes to mind quickly that you use everyday? Gretta Cohn:I don't know that this is one I use every day, but it's one that's really stuck with me, is he really counseled to be really mindful when thinking about adding music to a story. He used the phrase, emotional fascism. Essentially, if you need to rely on the music to tell the listener how to feel, then you haven't done your job in sort of crafting a good story. So like the bones of the story, like the structure, the content, the sort of stakes intention and the character you've chosen, like all of that have to clear a certain hurdle and then you can start thinking about adding music, but if you're relying on the music to sort of create tension or drama or emotion, then you've kind of missed something. Chris Erwin:Yeah. That's very interesting. What a great insight! I like that. Emotional fascism. Gretta Cohn:I'll never forget. Chris Erwin:So after the Salt Institute, what's next? Gretta Cohn:I got an internship at WNYC at Studio 360. At that time the internship system at New York Public Radio was like largely unpaid. I think I got $12 a day. So I interned I think three or four days a week and then I had like two other jobs. Chris Erwin:Just to make ends meet, to make it work. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. I worked at a coffee shop, like most mornings. And then I worked at a Pilates studio many afternoons and on the weekends. So it was like a lot, I was really running at full steam, but I really enjoyed the internship there. And then that was my first real glimpse into what it was like to work in a team to make impactful audio storytelling and I learned a lot there too. The team there was really amazing. Yeah. So Studio 360 was fantastic. And then a friend of mine had found out about this gig at The Story with Dick Gordon. It was a short term contract producer role, like filling in for someone who was out on leave. And I got the job and I moved down to Durham, North Carolina, and found an apartment, brought my cat and worked on that show for a few months, which I think was a pretty crucial experience to have had, which helped open the door into WNYC. Chris Erwin:Why's that? Gretta Cohn:So this was in like 2008, 9 and there weren't like a whole lot of opportunities in the audio storytelling space. Like your major opportunities were at public radio stations and public radio stations were highly competitive. It didn't have a lot of turnover. They understood that they were the only game in town if this was the career path that you were interested in going down. So having had a job at a radio station on staff on a show was such a huge opportunity. I don't know that I was like chomping at the bit to leave New York or move to Carolina, although I loved it there. And I had friends who lived there that I knew from the Saddle Creek community. So it was really great. I moved down there and I didn't have to... I can't recall ever feeling lonely. Right. Like I immediately had this community of people, which was amazing, but that gig was only three months. Gretta Cohn:And so I came back to New York and basically spent the next couple of years banging on the door to get back into WNYC, which is when I went to the audio books company where quite a few radio producers worked. Like that's how I found out about it. There were folks who had passed through Studio 360 or elsewhere. And my boss at the audio books company is David Markowitz, who is now currently working in the podcasting department at Netflix. And he previously was at Pushkin and at Headspace and he... So he and I, although our paths crossed at that moment, because our paths have continued to cross over and over again since that time working together with the audio books company. Audio books wasn't my passion, but while I was there I got the idea to pitch the podcast to the audio books company, which they agreed to let me do. And so I had this outlet to just do a little bit of experimenting and to grow some skills and also have just like an outlet to doing this kind of work that I wanted to be doing. Chris Erwin:Had you ever pitched a project or an idea before to any place that you worked at? Gretta Cohn:I pitched stories to Studio 360, but to pitch an idea for something that had not existed before, no. Chris Erwin:It becomes, I believe, The Modern Scholar podcast, is that right? Gretta Cohn:Yeah. You've done like a really deep research. Chris Erwin:Look, it helps to tell your story. Right. So you pitch, and then you get the green light, which must feel validating. It's like, okay, this is a good idea, but now it's got to be more than a pitch, you had to execute. Was that intimidating or were you like, "No, I'm ready to go I got it." Gretta Cohn:I was ready to go. They had an audio book series called The Modern Scholar. Professors would come in and record like 10 hours worth of like Italian history. And so what I did was just have a one hour interview with the professor who was the author of this series and talk about their work, go into detail on something really specific. I will say at that time that like I applied for a mentorship with AIR, the Association of Independence Radio, they gave me a mentor and I had like a few sessions with him and it was great. Like I had someone... I had an editor, right. I wasn't totally on my own kind of like muscling through. And so he really sort of helped refine the ideas for that show and that was a great help. So I'm lucky that I was able to get that. Chris Erwin:What I'm really hearing Gretta is that you moved around a lot and participated in and developed all these different music and audio communities around the US and even the world from like Omaha and international touring and Scandinavia and Europe, and then the Salt and Maine and North Carolina and New York and more, and I'm sure, as you said, with David Markowitz, that these relationships are now serving you in your current business. So it feels like that was like a really good investment of your time where the networking was great, but you also learned a lot and were exposed to a lot of different thinking and ideas. Is that right? Gretta Cohn:Absolutely. Definitely. Yeah. Chris Erwin:After dabbling around a bit for the first decade of the 2000s, you then go to WNYC and you're there for around six years, I think 2008 to 2014. And you work on some cool projects. You're the associate producer at Freakonomics and you also work on Soundcheck. So tell me about what made you commit to WNYC and what were you working on when you first got there? Gretta Cohn:At the time there weren't a lot of options for people doing this work. And WNYC obviously is an incredible place where really amazing work is done, really talented people. It basically was like the game in town, right? Like there weren't a lot of other places where you could do audio storytelling work in this way. There was a pivotal moment that I think could have gone in a different direction, but I had applied for a job at StoryCorps and I applied for the job at Soundcheck. Chris Erwin:What is StoryCorps? Gretta Cohn:They have a story every Friday on NPR that's like a little three minute edited story and it's usually like two people in conversation with each other. It's highly personal. And they're very well known for these human connection stories. It's I think influenced in part by oral history and anthropology, but it's basically this intimate storytelling. And I did not get that job, although I was a runner up and the person who did get the job is now one of my closest friends. But at the same time was an applicant for Soundcheck and I did get that job. And I think it was... That was the right path for me because I have such a passion for music. Right. My background kind of really led me to have an understanding of how to tell those stories. Chris Erwin:What is the Soundcheck format? Gretta Cohn:It changed over time. But when I joined Soundcheck, it was a live daily show about music and really open, like wide open as far as what it covered. So in any given episode, you could have like Yoko Ono there for an interview, you could have the author of a book about musicals from the 1920s, and then you could have like a live performance from Parquet Courts. So it was really wide ranging and varied and super interesting. And there's so much about working on a daily show that's I think extremely crucial to building up chops as a producer because every single day you have a brand new blank slate, you have to work extremely quickly and efficiently. Working in the live setting can create so much pressure because not only are you keeping to a clock, like the show went from like 2:01 to like 2:50 every day, and there had to be certain breaks and you have an engineer and you need the music to cue in a certain place. Gretta Cohn:And so you're like, "Cue the music." And you're whispering to the host like, "Move on to the next question." You're like this master puppeteer with all these marionettes and it's pretty wild. It's really fun, super stressful. You go off stage and it's like- Chris Erwin:It sounds stressful. Gretta Cohn:You can't fix it. You just have to move on and you learn a lot. Chris Erwin:It feels like something, you do that for maybe a couple of years or a few years and then it's like, ah you need a break from that. It's amazing that people who work in like live video or live radio for decades, like kudos to the stamina that they build up. Gretta Cohn:And that's exactly what happened is I needed a break from it. And that's when I went to Freakonomics. Chris Erwin:Got it. Before we go into Freakonomics, you also helped create Soundcheck into an omni-channel media brand where you were launching video and live events and interactive series. Was that something that had been happening in the audio industry or were you kind of setting a new precedent? Gretta Cohn:Our team was tapped to reinvent Soundcheck. So it had been this live daily show for quite some time and I think that WNYC wanted to reshape it for a variety of reasons. So we were sort of tasked, like we pulled the show off the air and kind of went through this like sprint of re-imagining, what the show could be, how it would sound, what it would do. And actually, I remember that I pitched this video series that was a lot of fun. I can't remember the name of it now, but we worked with a local elementary school and we would have three kids sitting behind desks and we would play them clips from pop songs- Chris Erwin:Whoa. Gretta Cohn:... and they would review them and- Chris Erwin:That's a really cool idea. Gretta Cohn:... it was awesome. It was so much fun. We did a lot of live performances and I started producing sort of like more highly produced segments and storytelling for Soundcheck at that time, because there was more space to try and figure that out. Ultimately, what it turned into was like a daily delivery of a show that I think ultimately resembled the old show in many ways, but it was not live anymore. And there were all these other tasks. I also created a first lesson type series for Soundcheck at that time where we would like stream a new album before it came out and I would write a little review. It was really fun. When we pulled the show off the air and we were tasked with re-imagining it was like a sandbox that you just kind of could plan, which was great. Chris Erwin:It's a wide open canvas that you can paint to how you desire. I get that why you were burnt out after that. So then you change it up and you become an associate producer at Freakonomics and you work with the fame, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. How has that experience? Gretta Cohn:It was great. It was challenging. I think that show has incredibly high standards and there's a particular kind of brain that I think works extremely well at that show. At the time, there were two of us who were the producers of the show, myself, who has this background in music and in production. And then the other producer was an economist who had been freshly graduated from economics school. And so we were this pair and I think what ultimately happened was that where I shown where these like human stories and where he shown was like distilling econ papers into sort of understandable stories. And so I think the two of us together really complimented each other. One of my favorite episodes that I worked on was about the Nathan's hotdog contest and one of the sort of like champs who had come up with a particular system for how to win- Chris Erwin:Dunking them in water and all that stuff. Yeah. I remember watching some of those segments online. In a minute they put back like 47 hotdogs. It was something crazy. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, it's wild. Chris Erwin:After Freakonomics, you decided to depart for Midroll and Earwolf. What was the impetus for that? Gretta Cohn:My time at Freakonomics was sort of like naturally coming to a close. I think that while my strength was in this sort of human sort of storytelling, I think the show needed someone who had a little bit more of that like econ background. And so I started to look around the station at WNYC, of other places where I could land, right? Like I'd moved from Soundcheck to Freakonomics, like what would be the next place for me to go? And I couldn't find it. I spent a little bit of time in the newsroom helping to look for a host for a new health podcast and I had conversations with people around the station about various other shows. I think I talked to the folks on the media and this producer, Emily Botein, who ultimately founded the Alec Baldwin podcast and a host of other really great shows there, but it didn't seem like there was space or a role that really made sense for me as far as like the next step is concerned. Gretta Cohn:At that time, Erik Diehn who's now the CEO of the Stitcher empire was in the finance office, I think at WNYC and he left to go to Midroll/Earwolf. Chris Erwin:I didn't realize he was also WNYC. Bannon was also WNYC who's now the chief content officer over there? Gretta Cohn:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Chris Erwin:Wow. It was a feeder to that company. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. So Erik Diehn left WNYC and I remember the note that went around, he's going to this company, Earwolf/Midroll. And I was like, kind of filed that away. And then it was probably a few months later that they put a position, they were hiring for a producer. And I sort of leapt at the opportunity. I thought that the shows on Earwolf were awesome. I had not worked really in comedy. Although I think that there's so much crossover in Soundcheck. We really had a lot of license to have basically like whoever on the show, like I booked comedians, I booked authors. Like I booked anyone who had a passion to talk about music, which is like 90% of the world. And so I think that that was really of interest to them. And I had a couple of conversations with Erik and the job was mine. I mean, I went through- Chris Erwin:You make it sound very easy. Gretta Cohn:... a proper vetting and interview process. And there were other candidates, but they gave it to me. And I was really, really excited because I think I was ready for a fresh start and I was ready for something new, something a little bit unknown. I think that I tend to find... Typically, I think if you look over the course of my life, like every few years, I'm like, "Okay, what's the next thing?" And I think that I still feel that way except now I have this entity of Transmitter in which to keep iterating and playing, but I was just ready for the next thing. And it was at that time, a really small company, I was the first New York based employee, like Eric was living in New Jersey. So it doesn't count as a New York employee. There was no office. Chris Erwin:I remember that Jeff Ullrich was the founder and it was bootstrap, didn't raise any venture capital and started I think in the early 2000s, if I remember correctly. Is that right? Gretta Cohn:I don't know the dates, but that sounds right. Chris Erwin:Okay. A little context for the listeners. And Earwolf is a comedy podcast network. So there's a slate of comedy shows and Midroll was the advertising arm of the business that would connect advertisers with the podcasters. But no, please continue. So you're the first New York hire. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Which was really exciting to me. I was the first producer hired by the company. They had a few really amazing audio engineers out in LA who ran the recordings and they did editing, but there had never been a producer on staff. So it was really this like wide open field. And Jeff at that time, I think had taken a step back from the company, but the moment that I was brought in is when the idea for Howl came into the picture and Howl was a membership subscription-based app that has now turned into Stitcher and Stitcher Premium, it was folded in, into Stitcher and Stitcher Premium. But at the time there was like this real push to create a subscription-based app with like a ton of new material. And one of my first jobs was to work extremely closely with Jeff to figure out what was going to be on this app, who were we going to hire to make material? What producers, what comedians, what actors? There was an enormous spreadsheet, like one of the most enormous spreadsheets that I've ever spent time with. Gretta Cohn:So that was my first task and alongside, which was to sort of from a producer's perspective look at this later shows on Earwolf and start to think about what would a producer bring to the network? What would a producer bring to the hosts, to the way that things were made, to new ideas to bring to the network? And so those two things were sort of happening concurrently. Chris Erwin:The producer role was not defined. You're the first producer there. So it's you coming in saying, "Here's how I can enhance the slate. Here's how I can enhance the content strategy of where we're headed concurrently with we're launching Howl, which needs a lot of content, both from partner podcasters and probably owned and operated and then filling..." So creating a new slate, that's going to fill that. That's going to make people want to buy the membership product or subscription product, which are big questions that Spotify and Netflix and the biggest subscription platforms in the world have huge teams to figure out. And it's like you and Jeff, and maybe a couple more people? Gretta Cohn:There was one developer. Chris Erwin:Wow. Gretta Cohn:It was intense. It was a lot of work. I remember because at that time too, I was the only New York based person. Eric was in New Jersey. I think Lex Friedman came along. He was either already there or came along shortly thereafter, also based in New Jersey. Chris Erwin:And Lex was running sales? Gretta Cohn:Yes. And he's now with ART19, but there was no office. I was working from my kitchen table, much like I do now. It was great. I think what really excited me was like the open field of really sort of figuring out what everything was going to be and it was like off to the races. Chris Erwin:So I actually reached out to a few people that we mutually know to just get like, oh, what are some stories I can have Gretta talk about from the early Midroll/Earwolf days. So I reached out to Adam Sachs who was also on this podcast earlier. He's a childhood friend of mine that was also the CEO of the company when it sold the scripts, as well as Chris Bannon, who I consider one of the most like delightful humans on the planet. I think he was the chief content officer while you were there and he still is now under Eric as part of this new Stitcher Midroll combined empire. And what Chris said is that, like you mentioned Gretta, no office for the first six months and that you were taking meetings, I think in sound booths as well. And that when you finally did get an office, it was so small that you were taking turns sitting down. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Well, we put our own furniture together. I learned so much from my years at Earwolf that have completely guided and shaped a lot of how Transmitter kind of came into being. Yeah, we put all of our furniture together ourselves in this first office. Chris Erwin:That's good training for you launching Transmitter where it's lean budgets, you're funding from your savings. You probably had to set up your own furniture yourself too. So that DIY attitude persists. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, yeah. And it was exciting. Whereas a place like WNYC is this like well oiled machine, it's also like a big ship that in order to turn 30 people have to be sort of moving things around and like, is the sky clear? There are just like so many little tiny steps that have to be taken to make a decision. Whereas what working at that early stage at Earwolf meant was like you can just make decisions, you just do it. Eric and I went around to see like five different offices. We decided together, "Oh, let's take this one on Eighth Avenue." This is the furniture. All right, let's put it together. I remember walking into the office when the furniture was first delivered and it was extremely dusty and we were wearing dust masks and trying to figure out where's the studio going to go? And it was just really exciting. It's really exciting to sort of pave your way and build something from the ground up. Chris Erwin:I like what you're saying too, is that you can just get things done very quickly. And that's actually one of the things that Bannon brought up about working with you is you guys launched good shows I think in just a matter of a few months or less, like Bitch, Sash and Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, which was a number one hit on iTunes. And that now making shows like that, if you're at a bigger company with all the bureaucracy and the approvals can take over a year, but you guys were getting stuff done fast, there was no alternative choice. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, we were working very quickly. Chris Erwin:So I'm curious to hear like Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People. That's like an iTunes topper. Was that the first big podcast hit that you had in your career? Gretta Cohn:I would say so. Yeah. I'm trying to remember what if anything came ahead of it, but I'm fairly certain that some of my first meetings after joining the team at Earwolf were with Chris Gethard and working with him on sort of early prototypes of Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People. And he's a remarkable person. He's a brilliant comedian. He's such a good human being. He's an amazing collaborator. And yeah, it was the two of us for a while just, I think the first call that we took, which was sort of just the prototype, the pilot for the show. We're like, "We don't know what's going to happen. Is anyone going to call?" And yeah, I mean, it was really awesome working on that show. And also it was such a departure from the kinds of projects that I had worked on previously, which were extremely buttoned up like very highly produced in the sense that every single step that you took in the process was regimented, right? Like making a Freakonomics episode, making an hour of Soundcheck, thinking about that live daily experience. Gretta Cohn:Like you can't have a minute on the clock that's not accounted for in making those things. And here's a show where we just open a phone line and see what happens for an hour. And it's so freeing to be sort of separated from that regimentation and working with Chris Gethard, I think taught me that you can make something that's really compelling and that's really good. And it was highly produced. Like a lot of thought went into it. There's a lot of post-production, but it didn't need to be the kind of thing where like every single minute of that hour was a line on a spreadsheet. And I love that show. I think that we're all like voyeurs of other people's experiences. Right. And I think it's super interesting the way that people are willing to call and sort of like bare their souls to Chris and working on that show was fantastic. Gretta Cohn:And it was really gratifying and really rewarding when we realized that people were paying attention and they were going to listen. And for that to be one of the first projects of my tenure at Earwolf was great. It was great. Chris Erwin:That's awesome. What a cool story! Bannon even mentioned you work on, I think Casey Holford's Heaven's Gate, which is now an HBO Max series. I think that just came out this week or something, some big projects. All right. So look, in 2015, Midroll/Earwolf sells to Scripps, EW Scripps. Then I think in 2017 is when you start Transmitter Media. I'm curious to hear that after this fun sprint at Midroll and the sale and launching the shows and launching Howl and Wolfpop and all the things, what got you thinking about becoming a founder, which is a very different experience than what you had done for the first 10, 15 years of your career? Gretta Cohn:So after the sale, I think that Adam Sachs kind of offered me the opportunity to reshape my role a little bit. So I had been overseeing the Earwolf shows, developing and producing brand new shows and Howl was in the rear view at that point for me, I believe. I think this is like a classic situation. They're like, "We're going to split your job into two, which half do you want?" And I was like, "This is great." Because it had been a lot to be developing new shows, to have this sort of slate of shows at Earwolf requiring my attention. And I picked the path of new development and that's when they went out and found someone to executive produce the Earwolf network. And in my new role, I needed to build a team and a division. Gretta Cohn:So I had to hire really quickly about six producers to form a team. And there wasn't really a human resources and so it really fell on me to read every application that came in and kind of vet all of the candidates and begin that process of selecting who to talk to. And I probably spent about six months just interviewing. I think that I learned a lot from that process and I think it developed in me like a little bit of an eye for how to spot talent and people that I want to work with, but it also was like supremely exhausting. And at the same time, I think that the company was in a real state of renewal and flux and change following the sale to Scripps, which I think is probably common in any situation where a company is acquired by a company that has a different POV, like maybe doesn't understand podcasting, has its own goals that are separate from what the goals had been at Earwolf. Gretta Cohn:So there were just a lot of strategy shifts that I did my best to kind of keep up with, but ultimately found myself thinking like, "Well, if I were setting the strategy, what would I do? If I were re-imagining sort of the direction that this company was going in, what would I do?" And I looked around and Pineapple Street had been around for a few months, maybe six months. And I went and had some chats with them about sort of like what they were doing and what they wanted to do. And I went over and had a chat with the folks at Gimlet thinking like maybe there would be a place for me there, but ultimately out of my conversations with all of those people, was this kind of clarifying feeling that there was something that I wanted to do and that I wanted to do it differently. I would say it was definitely like burnout that kind of led me to thinking about what I wanted to do next, because it felt like where I was at was like a little bit unsustainable. It was scary. Gretta Cohn:I definitely spent a month sort of quaking with fear on the couch. Like, is this something that I'm going to do? What does it take and what do I need and are there like, long-term consequences that I can't really think of yet? Because I'd always had a job, right? Like I always worked for someone else and enjoyed the freedom, frankly, that that gives you, right? Like you show up, you do the work and then you leave and you can go and take care of whatever. So I just spent a lot of time thinking about it and talking to friends, my close friend who gave me the Cursive records back in the day has run a press, a small press for nearly as long as I've known him. And it's a small non-profit, but it requires the same levels of sort of like entrepreneurship and sort of like- Chris Erwin:Discipline in a way. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Discipline. That's exactly the word. And so I talked to him a lot about he figured out what he was doing. My brother has had his own post-production business for film for more than five years, so I went for dinner with him and talked about... His business relies on film clients who come to him with a movie that needs mixing and sound effects and sound design. So we talked about that and my husband was acquiring a business. He purchased a retail shop in our neighborhood around the same time too. So there was like a lot of this around me where I had just a lot of conversations about this and I decided to do it. I decided that like the fear was not a good enough reason to not do it. And my alternate path to be quite frank was to leave podcasting because I just couldn't see where my next step was going to be. Gretta Cohn:And so I thought I would take the more productive path, the one where I didn't leave podcasting and I made this decision in December of 2016 to myself and then spent the next couple of months just tucking away money. When I say that I saved money before starting the business, I saved $7,000. Like this is not an enormous coffer of like startup money, but it was enough to pay for an office space and to pay for myself for a couple of months to just see what would happen. And I gave extremely early notice at Midroll and I started to look for clients before I left. So I set it up so that by the time I finally left Midroll in the end of March of 2017 and walked into my office, my new office for Transmitter Media, on the 3rd of April of 2017, I already had clients. So this also gave me that added security of like, "I'm not just walking into this empty pit of like who knows what? Like I have work to do." Chris Erwin:Look, that's just like an amazing transition story, but a couple of things stand out. One it's like double entrepreneur household. A lot of couples that I talk to will say, one will start a new venture business that's risky while other has like W2 salaried income. But your husband had just bought a local retail shop in the neighborhood. You were launching Transmitter Media. So you were smart about mitigating risk of landing of clients in advance. Yeah, it's a lot to take on. And the second thing I heard that I think is really interesting is you felt that there was no path for you to stay in podcasting unless you started your own business. So it's either get out and do- Gretta Cohn:It felt that way. Chris Erwin:Yeah. Get out and do something totally different or commit and go deeper with this incredible network and skillset that you've built up for a decade and a half and start your own thing. You committed to it. And yeah, whether it was meager savings of $7,000, it was enough. And you had the confidence. And I think in the early days, confidence is everything that you need. Tell us about what is Transmitter Media or what was it at that point? Gretta Cohn:Transmitter Media was born as a full service creative podcast company, meaning primarily working for clients who needed podcasts production. And it's really 360 ideation. There's like a paragraph that explains what they want the podcast to be and then we figure it out from there. Like it's quite rare that someone comes in the door and they have like a fully fleshed out idea for a show that has all the episodes outlined and the guests and then this and then that. So it's really starting with a kernel of an idea, figuring out how to make it, what it needs, what's the format and executing it all the way up to launch and continued production. And I think that I saw what Pineapple Street was doing. I respect Jenna and Max from Pineapple Street so much. Gretta Cohn:And it felt like the right model, essentially doing what film production companies do or in a way kind of like what advertising agencies do. You have clients, your clients have a story that they want to tell and as a production company, you figure out how to tell it and how to tell it really well. And I think that for me, having a focus on craft was really important quality over quantity and taking the time to really figure out creatively, what does something need was how I stepped into it. Chris Erwin:Clearly as the industry is growing, in terms of more audio listenership, more brands wanting to figure out the space and still early, I think in 2019, the ad market for audio was like 750 million. So you started the company is like two to three years before that, when you look at the total advertising landscape, which is like over, I think, 600 billion globally. But brands are leaning in, they want to figure it out and you have a knack for audio storytelling, and then you commit. And so who are some of the early clients you work with? I think they were Walmart and Spotify. And what did those first early projects look like and had you had experience working with brands before? Or was it like, "All right, I have a skillset, but I kind of got to figure this out on the fly too."? Gretta Cohn:So it was Walmart, Spotify and TED I think were the three sort of major clients at the very beginning. I hadn't worked directly with brands. I understood working with other media institutions. I understood working with hosts. I also understood developing new shows because that's what my team did at Midroll, Stitcher, Earwolf. Before I left, an entire year of just coming up with ideas and piloting them and throwing them at the wall and kind of running them through PNLs and doing all of that. And so I understood all of that. So we have worked directly with brands, but with Walmart, it was running through an advertising agency full of really great creative people and so we were interfacing more with them. And I think that I learned through them a little bit more about how to work with a client like Walmart. Gretta Cohn:But I think also that everyone we were working with at that time was also trying to figure it out for themselves in a brand new way. So we've now been working with TED for over three and a half years, but at the time the show that we developed with them, WorkLife with Adam Grant, I think was their first sort of step into the sort of slate of podcasts that they have now. They had TED talks daily. It was sort of concurrently like I know what the steps to take and the people that I am making these podcasts for don't, they've never done it. And so I think I learned a lot in those first few projects about how to deliver, how to communicate what we're doing clearly. But it's not like I hadn't already done that before. Like I had the skills, it's just was like refining them and putting them into this really particular box. Chris Erwin:Yeah, just a little bit of a different application. Makes sense. Gretta Cohn:Yeah, exactly. Chris Erwin:When we were talking about having to build a development team at Midroll and Earwolf that you said that you had like a unique sense of how to identify good people. So then you start building your own team at Transmitter and it seems that you've built a pretty special team there. So what was your, like when you think about, if I need great people to make Transmitter a success, what type of people were you looking for and what has like your culture become at your company? Gretta Cohn:I love my team so much. I agree. I agree I think they're really special. I think independent thinkers, people who have a really unique creative spark, people who surprise me. Right. I think that what I learned in doing all this interviews at Midroll was like, I prepare a lot for interviews, kind of much like you prepared for this. I would do deep dives. I would listen to a lot of work from the people who were coming into... had applied for the roles. I also like over the years, there are certain producers who I'll just kind of keep in touch with, or follow their work and be excited by their work and hope that one day they might like to come work at Transmitter. And so I also am really keen on people who have a collaborative spirit. So an independent thinker who's down to collaborate, who doesn't necessarily need to put their fingerprints all over everything and it's like cool if their fingerprints kind of merge with other people's fingerprints and we've got this really sort of group dynamic where we're really, everyone is contributing towards something. Gretta Cohn:And people own projects, people own stories, people own episodes, but ultimately, I think that we have a very collaborative team environment. And we're also a group of people who like to celebrate our successes, even like the teeniest tiniest ones. And so we spend a lot of time like talking about the things that go well and I think that creates a lot of pride in work. And I'm interested in working with people who have that same sense of craft as I do. It's not necessarily about perfection, but it's about doing really good work, making something sound as good as it can possibly be. We have an episode that on Monday I got an email about, saying, "This is in its final edit. I'm not looking for any big edit changes. I'm only looking for a notes on music." And I listened to it and I was like, "Ah." Chris Erwin:Is this from a client? Gretta Cohn:"How did they get editorial note?" Chris Erwin:Yeah, was this a client email or internal? Gretta Cohn:No, it's internal. I have a big editorial note and here's why, and I know that you thought you were almost done, but it's going to be so much better because of this. And typically as a group, we come to that agreement very quickly that it's going to be better and our goal is to make work that sounds very, very good. Chris Erwin:I think that's how you build a great company and also become successful and are fulfilled in that. Like yesterday's win or yesterday's excellence is today's baseline and you just keep upping the threshold. My team calls me out for doing that all the time, but I always say, "Yeah, I hired you guys because men and women, you're incredible and I'm going to hold you big." And that makes for a fun work environment. And it's all in our mutual best interests. So I like hearing you say that Gretta and you just talked about celebrating wins often. What is like a recent win that you guys celebrated, big or small? Gretta Cohn:I mean, earlier today we recorded an interview where the host was in a studio in DC, our guests was in her home under a blanket fort in New Jersey. We had a little bit of a technical mishap before it started. One of the newer producers on our team was managing that. And I know that that could have been a situation where she got so stressed out that she could have been paralyzed by the overwhelming sort of urgency of overcoming this technical mishap, but she was calm and she kept us informed of what she was doing and she figured it out and the interview started late and it went long, but that was fine. And you got to give someone a thumbs up for that. Like that was hard and you figured it out. Gretta Cohn:And another recent win is we are about to launch season two of our podcast, Rebel Eaters Club and we have a promotions team working for us this time, we're making new artwork and we've got the episodes of the season in production. It's just exciting for me when all the pieces start to come together and we're like a month away from launch and it's not done and it will get done. But right now it's just this like ball of energy and that feels very exciting. Chris Erwin:This is your first owned and operated podcast where- Gretta Cohn:Yes. Chris Erwin:... your business has helped create audio stories for a variety of different brands and marketers and publishers and now you're investing in your own IP, which is really exciting. And so what is the general concept of Rebel Eaters Club for people who want to check it out? Gretta Cohn:Rebel Eaters Club is a podcast about breaking up with diet culture. Chris Erwin:Ooh. Gretta Cohn:Yeah. Our host is, her name is Virgie Tovar, and she's sort of one of the leading voices on breaking up with diet culture because it's extremely harmful. It is a huge industry. It's a debilitating thing that is, fat discrimination is something that's like not very often discussed, but such a huge sort of point of discrimination in our culture. And I have learned so much from this podcast, it's funny, it's a weird,

Today’s poem is “Our Blood Aligns Toward Something” by Colin Cheney. He is the author of Here Be Monsters and co-creator of the podcast, Poet in Bangkok. He teaches at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Today’s poem is “Our Blood Aligns Toward Something” by Colin Cheney. He is the author of Here Be Monsters and co-creator of the podcast, Poet in Bangkok. He teaches at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Caitie is the Founder/Noter-in-Chief of The Lightening Notes, a short daily post to help us move the world forward. Prior to The Lightening Notes, Caitie was a senior foreign policy advisor in Congress. She co-founded a school in India with a community of lower cast musicians and raised pigs in Italy. She is a graduate of Brown University and is a member of the Brown Women’s Leadership Council. She attended the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies where she co-founded the Salt Alumni Board. She is on the board at the Treehouse Institute, a member of the Portland Parks Commission, and a Truman Scholar from Maine.

Caitie is the Founder/Noter-in-Chief of The Lightening Notes, a short daily post to help us move the world forward. Prior to The Lightening Notes, Caitie was a senior foreign policy advisor in Congress. She co-founded a school in India with a community of lower cast musicians and raised pigs in Italy. She is a graduate of Brown University and is a member of the Brown Women’s Leadership Council. She attended the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies where she co-founded the Salt Alumni Board. She is on the board at the Treehouse Institute, a member of the Portland Parks Commission, and a Truman Scholar from Maine.

Joel grew up in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong and came to Portland, ME in 2012 to attend Maine College of Art (MECA). He later attended The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies before completing his MFA at MECA. Presently, Joel is a graduate school admissions counselor at MECA. This is a link to his virtual reality project called The Penguin Club in the Salt Archives which he referenced in this interview. Joel is a conceptual artist who works in an array of media to include photography, film making, virtual reality, interactive installations and sound design. He works under the pseudonym "Probably Joel" and you can see and hear his work at www.probablyjoel.com. or at instagram.com/peekuh. The ambient street sounds heard in the background of this interview are from the busy market street that Joel grew up on in Hong Kong.Music: "Rolling" by Grayhat, produced by a friend of Joel's.

Caroline is a storyteller who works in illustration, written word and audio. Born in Indonesia, she moved to Los Angeles, CA to live on her own when she was 12. She survived hustling in New York City for seven years before moving to Maine in 2018 to study Audio Storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. See her work at www.hadilaksono.com.​Caroline is the author and illustrator of Surprise! (Scholastic, 2018). It is a picture book about how hart it is to make friends. She says it is partly inspired by her online dating experience in NYC. These days Caroline draws her inspiration from the artists at Spindleworks. They're teaching her about embroidery and fiber arts. One day she hopes to return the favor by showing them some watercolor techniques and working on some audio projects together with them. She enjoys bringing art into the community and sharing her skills in audio and visual arts with anyone who's curious to learn. And, as she continues to make Maine her home, she hopes to find ways to get involved in art-related community projects here in her new home.To follow her latest projects/updates, find her on Instagram for what she humorously calls "a not-so-accurate representation of her life." And, these are links to the two women whose art and work she admires: Eleanor Davis and Jillian Tamaki. ***This episode was pre-recorded from our home studios during the Covid Social Distancing period. Special thanks to Caroline for recording and sharing her end of the conversation and to the good people of WMPG who are keeping the station running with MP3's like this one being submitted from producers in the field. Music: "This Land Is Your Land" by Las Cafeteras.

Between his work as an ad writer and software developer, Mark Barr worked on a classic tale set in 1930s Tennessee that would become his debut novel, WATERSHED. He talks to James about being a Southern voice, identifying as a meat-and-potatoes stylist, setting quotas for his writing, breaking problems down into their smallest components, and fudging the details. Then, Tavia Gilbert discusses being an audiobook narrator.  - Mark Barr: https://www.readmarkbarr.com/ Buy WATERSHED: Buy WATERSHED Mark and James discuss:  Southern Independent Booksellers Association  The Charles Frazier Cold Mountain Series Fund  Meg Reid  Betsy Teter  Malaprop's Bookstore/ Cafe  THE PRETTIEST STAR by Carter Sickels  CBGBs  THE NEXT GREATEST THING: FIFTY YEARS OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN AMERICA by Richard A. Pence and Patrick Dahl  New Coke  Harry Potter  The Engineering Library and UT-Austin  Tennessee River Falstaff Karmann Ghia  Raytheon  Scholastic Book Club  THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster  Terry Brooks  B. Dalton Bookstore  THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner  Flannery O'Connor  Eudora Welty  William Gay  SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy  Ron Rash  - Tavia Gilbert: http://taviagilbert.com/ Tavia and James discuss: The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies  Maine School of Art  NERVES OF STEEL by Captain Tammy Jo Shults THE MEN AND THE GIRLS by Joanna Trollope narrated by Davina Porter  LIBRARY JOURNAL  FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER: A DAUGHTER OF CAMBODIA REMEMBERS by Loung Ung   BEING MEAN: A MEMOIR OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND SURVIVAL by Patricia Eagle  BE FRANK WITH ME by Julia Claiborne Johnson  - http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

Nance Klehm, Radical Ecologist — Elise Pepple is the GM of Marfa Public Radio in Far West Texas. She believes in the power of storytelling to shape and animate who we are, where we live, and how we relate. Elise spent the last decade learning the contemporary branches of oral storytelling apparent to her: oral history, radio, live storytelling, and podcasting. She got her start in radio when she brought StoryCorps to her small town in rural Alaska. She studied radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Study. She used to produce fun projects like The Other AK: an experiment in narrative tourism and Portland Brick, a project building public memory. She also used to host a live storytelling series called Hear Tell where everyone would end up laughing and crying together. She also also used to teach college students. Now she fills out a lot of paperwork, deals with lightning strikes to a transmitter on a mountain, and raises money.

Kelly Christian joined us for a super fascinating look into the world of postmortem photography, essentially, pictures of dead people. The practice was common in the 19th century but went out of vogue in the early 20th century. We also had a lively discussion about death, what “death positivity” means and The Order of the Good Death, lead by mortician, author, and YouTube personality Caitlin Doughty. “Kelly is a writer, maker, and thinker based in Chicago. She is interested in visual representations of death and their cultural ramifications. After photographing military funerals in Maine during the height of the Iraq War, Kelly realized that there was no turning back from the dark side. Kelly Christian holds a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from Syracuse University, a certificate in Documentary Photography from the Salt Institute of Documentary Studies, and a Master of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her dissertation subject was postmortem photography. She has written extensively at Dilettante Army and is a member of the Order of the Good Death. When not totally delighted by the macabre, Kelly is making bad jokes, hanging out with cats, indulging in tacos or trying to go to every obscure museum out there.”

Outdoor athletics are about more than just getting in shape. They’re about having adventures, taking risks, and seeing what you can learn along the way. Today’s guest is Peter Frick-Wright, a writer, radio-maker, and host of the Outside Podcast. Peter studied at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies and has reported from a range of […] The post Ep 37: How Jogging In Burundi Became An Act Of War With Peter Frick-Wright appeared first on Strength Matters.

Welcome to 4 Your Health Radio w/ Marsha Thadison. This health show is designed to inform everyday people about the benefits of healthy food for our mind, body an soul. On this show, people will learn how to prepare meals, to be for medicine and much more. This radio show will help put the power of good health back into the hands of the people. My guest tonight is Jorge Amselle from the Salt Institute we will be talking about the benefit of salt for the body. http://www.yesterdayskitchen4today.com 4yourhealthw@gmail.com

To learn more about Butterflies of Wisdom visit http://butterfliesofwisdom.weebly.com/ Be sure to FOLLOW this program https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wins-women-of-wisdom/id1060801905. To find out how Win walk and about Ekso go to http://www.bridgingbionics.org/, or email Amanda Boxtel at amanda@bridgingbionics.org.   On Butterflies of Wisdom today, Best-Selling Author, Win C and JC welcomes Andrea Silenzi. Andrea hosts a new show for Panoply called Why Oh Why. It's a show about dating and relationships. Before this, she was the senior producer of The Gist with Mike Pesca, a daily news show from Slate. She was once the founding producer of KCUR's Central Standard and a culture producer for WNYC. She studied documentary radio at the Salt Institute and majored in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University. Her work has aired on Serendipity, The Organist from Believer Magazine, BBC4, StoryCorps, PRI's Studio 360, WNYC News, Re: To learn more aboutSound, APM's Performance Today, Saltcast, and on Too Much Information with Benjamen Walker. She holds the world record for most guests booked for an hour-long radio show, and that's 67. To learn more about Andrea visit http://aTo find out more about. Win Kelly Charles visit https://wincharles.wix.com/win-charles. To follow Win on Twitter go to @winkellycharles. Please send feedback to Win by email her at winwwow@gmail.com, or go to http://survey.libsyn.com/winwisdom and http://survey.libsyn.com/thebutterfly. To be on the show please fill out the intake at http://bit.ly/bowintake. Butterflies of Wisdom sponsored by The Muscle Memory Group powered by Professor John. To learn about the magic of Siri go to https://www.udemy.com/writing-a-book-using-siri/?utm_campaign=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email. If you want to donate Butterflies of Wisdom, please send a PayPal donation to aspenwin@gmail.com. Please send a check in the mail so 100% goes to Bridging Bionics Foundation.    In the Memo section have people write: In honor of Win Charles.    Send to:  Bridging Bionics Foundation  PO Box 3767 Basalt, CO 81621   Thank you Win   Thanks,

Reliably “blue” New England turned several shades of red on Election Day, November 8. President-elect Donald Trump picked up an electoral college vote in northern Maine, and essentially tied Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire (the race has been too close to call for days). Republicans won the governors’ races in New Hampshire and Vermont. Jenny Cheung of Braintree, Mass. was volunteering for Donald Trump in Nashua, New Hampshire and election day. Cheung told reporter Shannon Dooling she was volunteering in New Hampshire because it’s a swing state. (Credit: Shannon Dooling/WBUR) Republicans also took some hard defeats. New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte lost her seat to Democrat Maggie Hassan. Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts worked hard on two ballot initiatives, neither of which went his way. Meanwhile, we saw long lines at polling places and very high turnout. We turn to turn to a few of our reporters who covered the issues, and talked to voters. Later in the show, a dying tree gets a second life in Vermont, and the Delta Blues thrives in Portland, Maine. The Purple Zone I felt like some people were gonna call me an idiot if I voted for one person, other people were gonna call me an idiot for voting another person. If I voted  third party I was an idiot ’cause I was throwing away my vote. If I didn’t vote at all I was un-American. It was a tough election this year. – Kristen Snyder, Nashua, New Hampshire We start up north, with the two states making the biggest national headlines and seeing enormous spending on TV ads: New Hampshire and Maine. Fred Bever reports for Maine Public Radio, and Emily Corwin is from New Hampshire Public Radio. Marijuana legalization advocates at the Yes on One Election Night event in Portland, Maine. (Credit: Rebecca Conley/ Maine Public Radio) First time voters at the polls in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Credit: Shannon Dooling/ WBUR) No on 2 Voters in New Haven’s Ward 7 wait outside to cast their ballot on Election Day. (Credit: New Haven Independent) Election Day in New England was not without hiccups. In New Haven, Connecticut, WSHU reporter Cassandra Basler met voters who had been waiting for hours — in the wrong line. And WBUR’s Shannon Dooling spoke with election monitors who told her ballots cast in the state’s new early voting system caused a holdup on Tuesday. Massachusetts Ballot Question 2, which would have allowed for 12 new charter schools to open each year, was the most expensive in the state's history, with about $40 million spent by both sides. Voters in both urban and rural areas rejected the measure, with 62 percent of statewide vote against. If you haven't been paying close attention, you might wonder why such a hard battle was fought over charters, in a state with such a strong reputation for public education. For analysis, we turn to Max Larkin, who has been covering the debate over Question 2 for WBUR's Edify. Mass. Governor Charlie Baker said he would “feel sick” if voters in suburban areas voted against Question 2 and voters in urban areas voted in favor. The results were quite different. (Credit: WBUR) Putting Down (and Tearing Up) Roots An hour into the process of felling a 109-foot slippery elm in Vermont. (Credit: Kathleen Masterson/VPR) One of the largest remaining elm trees in New England has died. But the wood from the 109-foot-tall slippery elm tree is heading on to a new life — as custom furniture. A percentage of the sales proceeds will support research to breed elms that are resistant to Dutch elm’s disease. The fungal disease, carried by an invasive insect, killed millions of stately elm trees across the country beginning in the early part of the last century. Vermont Public Radio’s Kathleen Masterson reports. View more photos from Kathleen’s story. Samuel James is a musician and storyteller with roots in traditional acoustic blues. But he's making his mark writing new songs, as well as covering those from the past. James tours nationally and internationally. He was born and raised in Maine, and calls Portland home. Samuel James is the producer of the web series Kitty Critic, which features Portland-area musicians playing in their fans’ homes… for their fans’ cats. His upcoming album, Already Home Recordings Volume 2 will be released next week. The profile featured here was produced by Shane Perry at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. About NEXT NEXT is produced at WNPR. Host: John Dankosky Producer: Andrea Muraskin Executive Producer: Catie Talarski Digital Content Manager/Editor: Heather Brandon Contributors to this episode: Emily Corwin, Fred Bever, Cassandra Basler, Shannon Dooling, Max Larkin, Kathleen Masterson, Shane Perry Music: Todd Merrell, “New England” by Goodnight Blue Moon, Samuel James Get all the NEXT episodes. We appreciate your feedback! Send praise, critique, suggestions, questions, story leads, and post-electoral ruminations to next@wnpr.org. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Callie speaks with reporters to roundup local news and sits down with the executive director of Salt Institute, the President of the Maine College of Art, and an alum.

WNSR's Sylvie Douglis is in Maine this semester making radio at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Her story Bangor: Pubic Art/Public Forum considers the role of public art in the age of social media controversy.

WNSR's Sylvie Douglis is in Maine this semester making radio at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Her story Bangor: Pubic Art/Public Forum considers the role of public art in the age of social media controversy.

Michael May, a Third Coast Gold Award winner, is a freelance radio and print journalist. He teaches radio documentary at the Salt Institute. "I'm not interested in doing stories where I just label somebody some clinical label — a misogynist, sociopath. It's so easy to dismiss people, it's much more difficult to understand them."

Producer Kelley Libby produced a radio story about 13 year-old farmer Colby Perron while at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. This is not that story. But if you listen to Colby's story, you will hear a very short scene in which a calf is born. Kelley spent all day, waiting on a cold concrete floor in a barn in Topsham, Maine, just to get the recording she needed for that scene. Later, she realized the tape she got told a separate story about waiting, pain, responsibility, knowledge and the beginning of life. We can't help but mention that this story would also fit into Big Shed's Audio Verite + 1 Competition if we hadn't given her some editorial help. But you should be inspired. If Kelley can record an audio verite story without even trying, surely you can too.

Sara Paul's short documentary; ‘Truck Stop Love Affair’ she made while a student at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Maine, America. It explores relationships at a truck stop off interstate 95, near Bangor, Maine. (First Broadcast (2010)

In the Big Shed, we always say that audio is the most visual medium.  And we've even offered some stinky audio before.  Thanks to the crafty work of producer Anna Hamilton, prepare for your first aural gag reflex.  Anna is a proud graduate of the Salt Institute in Maine, and brings us this audio adventure from her time there.  Competitive eating is on the upswing in the world of alternative sports, and South Portland, Maine is on the bandwagon. Join us stage-side at the first-ever World Burrito Eating Championship.  We're also pleased to bring you a very special, surprise guest who payed a visit to Jesse at Big Shed Virginia.  We're honored to air this interview with a creative genius who brings his epicurean expertise to bear on reviewing this story. 

“After The Forgetting” on PRX About After The Forgetting This story started in my living room. I was teaching a youth radio class for the Vermont Folklife Center, and Greg Sharrow, my colleague and friend from the Folklife Center had agreed to a marathon interview with three high schools kids. I’d given the kids a few choice details about Greg’s life—of which there are many—and they’d each prepared some questions. Greg is perfect for anyone’s first interview. He’s completely open. He’ll answer anything. And he speaks in complete sentences. One of the kids had elected to talk with Greg about his mother who has dementia. It was a phenomenal interview. The kid dropped out of the youth radio project and I fell in love with the tape and decided to start working on a story about Greg and his mother. I knew Marj. I’d met her at parties and eaten dinner with her at Greg and Bob’s. I’d sat in the backseat a few times when Greg drove her back to her assisted living place. I remember her exclaiming about the lights driving past Wendy’s, ‘Look at all that RED!’ Greg and I both did recordings at the dinner table, which was no easy proposition in a house with sixteen fish tanks and a cockatiel. Still, some nice stuff came of it. I started to think I’d frame the whole story around a single dinner. I spent a lot of hours making a cutlery track, which I thought I might run under the whole show…so when you were listening to an interview segment with Greg, for instance, you could still hear the dinner conversation in the background, and Greg would fade out and we’d come back to the conversation at dinner. Sort of like Glen Gould’s Idea of North. In the end it didn’t work. I didn’t have enough well-recorded dinner conversation to do it, and there wasn’t enough momentum in the story. I had to ditch the idea, and the cutlery track. Still, the dinner conversation is threaded through the story, and it starts and ends at the dinner table. My favorite audio segments came from the interviews that Greg did with his mother on the couch at his house. They are the most relaxed and intimate; Marj’s mind is at its clearest, and some of the best non sequiturs happen in these conversations. ‘What would you like to do? Would you like to go on and on?’ I edited these sections pretty heavily and slowed them down a lot. I wanted it to feel like they were floating above the rest of the story somehow. When the story was about an hour long, I sent it to SALT Institute’s Rob Rosenthal who had agreed to mentor me on this project as part of the AIR mentorship program. I had read about this mentoring program on the AIR website and jumped at the chance. Essentially, AIR offers its members four hours of advice time with a radio producer. I work alone and I don’t have any associates in radio. It was incredible to be able to talk with someone about this story at that uncomfortable stage of production when you’re wondering, ‘What is this? And who cares?’ Rob was incredible. He listened to the show and did two thorough paper edits, and his criticism helped me take a giant step back from the story and look at it fresh. He made excellent structural suggestions and I remember he pushed me hard to look for conflict. He was left wondering what was at stake for these people. I remember really studying the end of the show then, and noticing that it felt saccharin and bloated. In that initial version, Greg went on and on about all that his mother has taught him about being alive. At a certain time I really loved that tape. What he was saying seemed important and true. But I was also made uncomfortable by it somehow. It felt like a song that only I liked and that I was probably going to get sick of. So I went back and interviewed Greg again. I remember we had kind of a snippy interview. I was really pushing him to tell me where the cracks we...

“After The Forgetting” on PRX About After The Forgetting This story started in my living room. I was teaching a youth radio class for the Vermont Folklife Center, and Greg Sharrow, my colleague and friend from the Folklife Center had agreed to a marathon interview with three high schools kids. I’d given the kids a few choice details about Greg’s life—of which there are many—and they’d each prepared some questions. Greg is perfect for anyone’s first interview. He’s completely open. He’ll answer anything. And he speaks in complete sentences. One of the kids had elected to talk with Greg about his mother who has dementia. It was a phenomenal interview. The kid dropped out of the youth radio project and I fell in love with the tape and decided to start working on a story about Greg and his mother. I knew Marj. I’d met her at parties and eaten dinner with her at Greg and Bob’s. I’d sat in the backseat a few times when Greg drove her back to her assisted living place. I remember her exclaiming about the lights driving past Wendy’s, ‘Look at all that RED!’ Greg and I both did recordings at the dinner table, which was no easy proposition in a house with sixteen fish tanks and a cockatiel. Still, some nice stuff came of it. I started to think I’d frame the whole story around a single dinner. I spent a lot of hours making a cutlery track, which I thought I might run under the whole show…so when you were listening to an interview segment with Greg, for instance, you could still hear the dinner conversation in the background, and Greg would fade out and we’d come back to the conversation at dinner. Sort of like Glen Gould’s Idea of North. In the end it didn’t work. I didn’t have enough well-recorded dinner conversation to do it, and there wasn’t enough momentum in the story. I had to ditch the idea, and the cutlery track. Still, the dinner conversation is threaded through the story, and it starts and ends at the dinner table. My favorite audio segments came from the interviews that Greg did with his mother on the couch at his house. They are the most relaxed and intimate; Marj’s mind is at its clearest, and some of the best non sequiturs happen in these conversations. ‘What would you like to do? Would you like to go on and on?’ I edited these sections pretty heavily and slowed them down a lot. I wanted it to feel like they were floating above the rest of the story somehow. When the story was about an hour long, I sent it to SALT Institute’s Rob Rosenthal who had agreed to mentor me on this project as part of the AIR mentorship program. I had read about this mentoring program on the AIR website and jumped at the chance. Essentially, AIR offers its members four hours of advice time with a radio producer. I work alone and I don’t have any associates in radio. It was incredible to be able to talk with someone about this story at that uncomfortable stage of production when you’re wondering, ‘What is this? And who cares?’ Rob was incredible. He listened to the show and did two thorough paper edits, and his criticism helped me take a giant step back from the story and look at it fresh. He made excellent structural suggestions and I remember he pushed me hard to look for conflict. He was left wondering what was at stake for these people. I remember really studying the end of the show then, and noticing that it felt saccharin and bloated. In that initial version, Greg went on and on about all that his mother has taught him about being alive. At a certain time I really loved that tape. What he was saying seemed important and true. But I was also made uncomfortable by it somehow. It felt like a song that only I liked and that I was probably going to get sick of. So I went back and interviewed Greg again. I remember we had kind of a snippy interview. I was really pushing him to tell me where the cracks we...

(Produced by Rachel Quimby) Nobody really knows why Rockland, Maine has a rather large population of Jews--legend says a ship was turned aside at Ellis Island and sent up the coast to the picturesque and sleepy coastal town. In any case, Adas Yoshuron Synagogue is an old building with many generations of Amita Jarmon discusses what it's like to be Rockland's first rabbi since 1937. Congregants, community members and Hebrew School kids weigh in, too. Rachel Quimby produced the story in the Fall of 2007 while attending the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Now she lives and works in Charlottesville, VA. To set up the piece, our introduction includes outtakes from an interview with David Berman, of the Silver Jews recorded by Jesse Dukes, who produced this piece in 2006. Jesse Dukes continues to usurp curator duties, but seems to be feeling some pangs in his conscience about trapping Shea and Jennifer in a jar. Check out the IndieFeed Big Shed at iTunes.

(Producer: Sarah Elzas) Cathy is 16. She loves listening to Outkast. She thinks she wants to be an accountant. Cathy is also still a freshman in high school because she is the mother of two little boys, the oldest, James, is two years old. She attends a high school for teen moms, which is where she gets the most support from anyone all day. This is a non-narrated, first-person glimpse into the chaotic life of a very young mother. Cathy reflects on her need to be grown-up, as a mother to her two boys, while also wanting to be just a teenager. This piece was produced at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. [photo by: Allison Wightman, Courtesy Salt Archive]

(Producer: TK McGuirt) "My garb, so to speak, is a t-shirt and velvet pant, some people object to that but I like to be comfortable when I play." That is Yvonne Adams, she has been playing the violin for 70 years. Yvonne used to play in symphony halls. Now she walks the halls of Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine playing the violin for patients. Courtesy the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies

Enter Cathy's world of toddlers, diapers and high school parenting classes... Produced by Sarah Elzas at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Enter Cathy's world of toddlers, diapers and high school parenting classes... Produced by Sarah Elzas at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.