Podcasts about third coast festival

This year's Third Coast Festival winners and finalists produced incredible work. It got us thinking about winners from previous years. So, we dug up this fantastic interview with Rachel Matlow who won a "Best New Producer" award in 2016 for their thoughtful and creative story "Dead Mom Talking."

Shannon Cason has shared his stories all over the country. Shannon is a host, MainStage storyteller and GrandSlam champion with The Moth. He is a regular on Snap Judgment; awarded their Best Performance Award. Shannon has appeared on countless podcasts and storytelling stages, including TEDx, RISK!, Third Coast Festival, Podcast Movement, and upcoming film projects. He hosts his own long-running storytelling podcast, Shannon Cason’s Homemade Stories. Shannon also hosted two other podcasts -The Trouble with Shannon Cason (WBEZ) & In Good Company Detroit. His storytelling has been featured in the anthology, The Moth Presents: All These Wonders. CHIRP Radio’s Live Lit and Music series, ‘The First Time’, is unlike any storytelling show in Chicago. It pairs our readers' personal stories about a first-time experience with a song performance. This unique structure allows the story to resonate with audience members as they experience the accompanying song covered by our house band, live at Martyrs in Chicago's North Center neighborhood. Show hosted by Jenn Sodini; produced by Julie Mueller & Bobby Evers. Podcast recorded by Tony Baker, Andy Vasoyan, and Alex Stone; produced by Jenn Rourke.

Piers Plowright described himself as a 'radio man'. He'd grown up in a home where the wireless was moved into the living room of an evening for family listening. Others have called Piers, who died in July 2021, the Godfather of the British Radio Feature. His thirty-year BBC career began in 1968 as a trainee in English By Radio, after which he migrated via drama to documentaries. There, his programmes received radio's highest accolade, the Prix Italia, on three occasions. Yet he remained always modest, a practised listener, a supporter of colleagues, a composer of sound, silence and word, and - for all his erudition and love of culture - a mischievous spirit. All of this is felt in his many programmes (see below). In a medium described as having no memory, the quality and distinctiveness of Piers' radio programmes - and the grace of the man - are long remembered. You are invited to lend your ears to some of his work in this tribute from colleagues and admirers: Melvyn Bragg, his close friend from student days and distinguished broadcaster, Dr Cathy Fitzgerald, an award-winning feature-maker and presenter Seán Street, poet and Professor of Radio Marta Medvešek, the young Croatian recipient of the 2021 Prix Europa for radio documentary Matt Thompson, a younger colleague who fell under Piers' spell in the BBC documentaries department Julie Shapiro, formerly Artistic Director of the Third Coast Festival in Chicago, which awarded Piers the Audio Luminary Award in 2006 Martin Williams, a celebrated producer and amateur radio historian Redzi Bernard, producer and co-host of the Telling Stories podcast Tony Phillips, former production colleague and radio commissioning executive. Including interview excerpts with Piers from Roger Kneebone's Countercurrent podcast and Victor Hall's Pocketsize Studio and extracts from the following programmes in the BBC Sound Archive: Stepping Stones (R4, 2015) A Fine Blue Day (R4, 1978) Splashpast! (R4, 1993) Mirooo (R3, 1993) Mr B - a portrait of James Bellamy (R4, 1991) Setting Sail (R4, 1985) One Big Kitchen Table (R4, 1989) Mr Fletcher, the Poet (R4, 1986) Nobody Stays in This House Long (R4, 1983) What Are They Looking At? (R3, 1997) Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 (Photo credit: Lucy Tizard)

'Punk in a pandemic' was named as a finalist in the prestigious Third Coast Festival awards (2021) in the Director's Choice category! If you missed it the first time around, here it is: Three Canadians start a punk band called F*cking Carnage to get through quarantine. They don't care if their mothers are offended. Hear more of the winners and finalists of the 2021 Third Coast Festival here: https://www.thirdcoastawards.org/winners See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Laura y Santiago hablan sobre podcasts (otra vez). Resulta que Laura asistió a un evento de gigantesco de la industria, como parte de su trabajo con Radio Ambulante. Cuando llegó el momento de contarle los aprendizajes a Santi, decidieron conversar en frente del micrófono. Este episodio es también un relato de viajes, pero sobre todo es una conversación muy ñoña. www.cosasdeinternet.fm Con el apoyo de: ▸ Oyentes como tú en Patreon ▸ Servientrega  Notas del episodio:  El evento de narrativa en audio se llama Third Coast Festival. Podcon era la convención orientada fanáticos. Y el Podcast Movement es la conferencia a la que asistió Laura este año. Becas del Podcast Movement.  Para aprender más de anuncios dinámicos, dejamos esta entrada de blog: «Dynamic Ad Insertion – What it is and Why You Should Be Utilising it». El video que más ganancias, por publicidad, le ha dejado a Magic Markers en YouTube es el que explica Bitcoin. Presentación de Tom Webster en el Podcast Movement 2018: «Podcasting's Next Frontier: 100 Million Listeners». Presentación de Tom Webster en el Podcast Movement 2019: «Let’s Put On a Show». Tuit de, Kellie Riordan, la mujer de ABC sobre sus aprendizajes del Podcast Movement. Uno de ellos es que el texto y las descripciones son vitales para atraer nuevos oyentes. Si quieren escuchar más podcast grabados en Bogotá, visiten: www.mismoestudio.com y si quieren asistir a Podcastinación el evento donde estaremos el 12 de octubre, hagan clic acá.

This episode features the first official guest to the 7 Minute Stories Podcast. During this 7 minute segment I talk with fellow storyteller Shannon Cason. We dive into Shannon’s creative process, what inspires some of his stories and something we hope the storytelling art form can adopt in future. Shannon is a host, MainStage storyteller and GrandSlam champion with The Moth. He is a regular on NPR’s Snap Judgment and was awarded their Best Performance Award. He has appeared on countless podcasts and storytelling stages, including: TEDx, RISK!, Third Coast Festival, Podcast Movement, and an upcoming television pilot. He also hosts his own long-standing storytelling podcast, Shannon Cason’s Homemade Stories.

In this episode, we politick with Shannon Cason. Shannon Cason has shared his stories all over the country. Shannon is a host, MainStage storyteller and GrandSlam champion with The Moth. He is a regular on NPR’s Snap Judgment; awarded their Best Performance of 2013. Shannon has appeared on countless podcasts and storytelling stages, including TEDx, RISK!, Third Coast Festival, Podcast Movement, and an upcoming television pilot. He also hosts his own storytelling podcast, Shannon Cason’s Homemade Stories. Shannon recently launched a new podcast with WBEZ Chicago called The Trouble with Shannon Cason. His storytelling is featured in the anthology, The Moth Presents: All These Wonders. Shannon serves as the chief educator for the Brutally Honest Storytelling workshop series, where he has helped companies, pro athletes, and celebrities tell their stories more honestly. https://www.facebook.com/ShannonCasonTalks/ https://twitter.com/shannoncason --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

A sneak peak of what we'll cover during our "Live! ... from The Astro!" live taping from The Third Coast Festival in October!

Today’s guest is Bryan Orr from Podcast Movement: Sessions. Bryan's podcasting story: Bryan got into podcasting doing a typical interview show around small business. He found he was getting bored listening to his own content. Some guests were great and the application was strong but it wasn’t grabbing attention the way shows like 99% Invisible and This American Life had done. He had a real discontent with what he was producing, so he began Mantastic Voyage with his brother. Now he does more of a narrative style with Podcast Movement: Sessions. It’s not quite storytelling, but synthesis: synthesising information into a story. Define narrative: A narrative is anecdotes, so descriptions of things that happened, plus emotions or moments of reflection. If you take something that is an occurrence and add in elements of reflections or emotion into it, that can become a narrative. Another way to describe a narrative is to raise questions but be much more slow to answer them using occurrences or a sequence of events. In a question based podcast the host would ask a question and the guest would answer it. But in a narrative based podcast you explore the answer, and you find it by weaving through a set of occurrences. The pros and cons: A good reason to have a narrative of any kind is if you are wanting to make an emotional connection. If you have no interest in emotion whatsoever, making an emotional connection or getting people’s emotions to rise and fall, then don’t do a narrative. If all you’re wanting to do is simply express information and have information absorbed, then narrative doesn’t make sense. But Bryan challenges anyone who says that all they’re doing is relaying information because information is absorbed when it’s attached to emotion. If we have no relationship to information given to us then you’ll have a tough time remembering it. But if you can attach information to an emotion, then you’ll remember it. Humans are hard-wired for story. As soon as you hear a story, you’ll listen to it. The only reason to decide not to do it is if you don’t have the time, the discipline or a subject matter that has any emotion whatsoever. If you don’t have any time, if what you’re wanting to do is simply create a content machine and not actually go through and edit and write, then don’t do narrative. Narrative requires a great amount of effort on the front, middle and back end in order to pull it off. It requires a time investment a lot of people don’t have, and for certain niches, it may not be worth it. The steps required: The steps required depends on the type of narrative podcast you’re doing. Some are content-centric. For example, Podcast Movement: Sessions is content centric. Take the content that you already know you want to talk about and find the best story you can from within that. It’s easier than starting from scratch. Fiction podcasts start from scratch and are much more difficult because they centre around really good writing. First, distill one idea, even if it’s a content-centric podcast. Figure out what the one idea is that everything you’re doing is surrounded around. Think about how you want the podcast to sound: intense, mysterious, funny. How do you want it to sound generally speaking? Then start to lay it out on a timeline. What are some pieces you can fit in, and then see the gaps that need effective narration or sound clips to augment it. Bryan's editing process has evolved over time as he has used different programs and learned to be a better podcaster over time. His process is to record the audio and load it into Reaper, which is non-destructive software so you can make changes and go back later not having lost the original take. He will then go through and log the tape using markers, making notes at significant points. Brian uses brown, green or red markers: red says ‘no way to use it’, green says ‘definitely going to use it’ and brown says ‘maybe’. Then, aggressively hack it because it’s non-destructive so he can get it all back later if he wants. He will then assemble the piece with all the narration and extras, then do a final edit where he makes it even tighter, and then he does the scoring which is adding the music. The timeline also helps in the editing. Loosely, you will  know generally the points you want to hit, maybe 6 points. As you log the tape you find the specific things that you want so you fill in the timeline with the specifics, adding more detail until get to a really tight story. Bryan says you can still create a good podcast even if you don’t know where you’re going, but it will take more time. It’s better if you have the general outline of where you want to end up and how you want it to sound before you start. The interviews: In Podcast Movement: Sessions the main topic for each episode is the main speaker. Then Bryan weaves in interviews and discussions with other people as well as his own narrative comments. He works ‘in the tape’ a lot. That means he goes through the tape a lot to find some areas that are really strong, and some areas that are weak. It’s nice to have balance from other voices when you have areas that aren’t so strong, that don’t stand on their own that well. Bryan turns on a recorder when anyone is willing to talk to him. He has a mobile set-up and does a cell phone interview for the secondary voices. The point of these sections is to create some balance so the audio quality can be less than that of the main interview. He emphasizes the need to get a lot of tape. You never know what you’re going to get, sometimes you’ll get great stuff from unexpected places. The ethos of a one-take interview show doesn’t translate into narrative because the whole interview won’t necessarily be strong. The cutting room floor: Bryan uses a list of questions to ask himself to make sure he’s not missing anything in the editing process. Is there an idea of place? Is there emotional balance? Are there ups and downs? In the timeline you can mark this with up arrows and down arrows. Is the story bouncing or falling flat? What are the stakes? What is at stake in the story if the subject if the narrative doesn’t go the way that you hope it goes? Establish that early on. Look at your story and if it happens just like someone expects it to happen then it’s not a good story. It has to have some element of the unexpected to it. Rob Rosenthal of the House Down Podcast says use your best tape first, and Bryan follows this advice. Figure out a way to take some of your most engaging audio and use it early on. It creates draw into the story and interest in the story. It establishes the ‘why you should care’ factor. Be conscious that whatever you end the story on is what you’re leaving people with. It’s ok to leave it unclosed. Good modern storytelling very rarely has grand summation, however it does have something that you want to leave the audience with and they’re very intentional about that. Whatever it is that you’re doing with your narrative, you want to make sure you’re conscious of that. As for out-takes, if it’s good, clip it so you can have it later. If it’s topical and interesting, save it as a clip and maybe you’ll use it later. Transitions: Bryan advises you think of the mood and emotion, make sure the timing is appropriate, give people enough time to digest what just happened and then transition them emotionally into what’s about to happen next. Music is a huge part of that. Ira Glass says This American Life uses ‘plinky’ music. The biggest mistake people make getting into narrative is they just use the wrong music. Music for sound and transitions is not the same kind of music that works if you’re doing an interview podcaster type of intro. Pick music that is very understated and simple and mood appropriate to what’s going on. Usually it’s fairly neutral, even for sad scenes. Tracking is the name for the cutting of those little narrations in between pieces. What works nice is to not only introduce the next thought, but do some of their talking for them so that the narrations aren’t literally just introducing the next idea. Resources: Listen to really great narrative podcasts. The RadioTopia podcasts are great examples of narrative podcasts: 99% Invisible, The Memory Palace, The Illusionists, Kitchen Sisters, Lost and Found Sounds. That will give you a feel for what is good, it helps you obtain good taste. You have to actually enjoy it yourself. If you’re not passionate about stories at all, it won’t work. Listen to podcasts that specifically talk about how to do narrative. How Sound by Rob Rosenthal is the best one around, or Out on the Wire by Jessica Abel. Also look into Alex Bloomberg’s storytelling workshop on Creative Live. Go to the Third Coast Festival in Chicago, where the world’s best audio storytellers go to meet and learn to each other. Transom.org and Airmedia.org are good places to go. Look into Smart Sound, which you can use to create your own music tracks and make them exactly what you want them to be. It’s not cheap but it’s a good resource. The takeaway: Just do it. Do it even if you’re never planning on publishing it. Start with your family, start with the stories you can tell about yourself, and sit in front of the microphone and work on editing it. You can’t read your way into becoming a good storyteller or a good editor. Just get started and you’ll find once you put in some hours you’ll be good. If you’re going to do narrative, you can’t outsource it. You are going to have to learn how to do it all. Bryan strongly suggests getting in and learning every step of how to do it. Cutting your own tape, doing your own logging, learning how to write your narrations, learning how to write your own music. If you want more from Bryan you can find him at PodcastMovement.com    

In GBA 186 we get better acquainted with Connor. In a glass house late at night in the cold eating crisps we have a conversation where all roads lead back to radio, passing through Ireland, Brussels, China, childhood, The Third Coast Festival, In the Dark and more. There's also lot's of podcast talk. Connor plugs: In the Dark: http://www.inthedarkradio.org/ Invisible Picture Palace: http://invisiblepicturepalace.com/ We mention: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-87-in-conversation Invisible Picture Palace episodes: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/sets/gba-live-the-invisible-picture Helen and Olly's Required Listening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m5j91 Spark London: http://sparklondon.com/ https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-127-robin-the-fog Rethink Daily: http://rethinkdaily.co.uk/ Ricky Gervais podcast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ricky_Gervais_Show Radio Sweden: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=2054 Ministry of Stories Ouch! http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/podcast/ Farming Today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/farming The Live GBA Episodes: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/sets/gba-live 100th Episode: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/sets/gba100-1 International Crisis Group: http://www.crisisgroup.org/ Magritte: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte BBC Chinese Service: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/chinafocus DX Listening Digest: http://www.worldofradio.com/dxldmid.html The World Service: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio Radio 4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 China Radio International: http://english.cri.cn/ Coffee Flavoured Tea: http://www.coffeeflavouredtea.net/wordpress/ https://soundcloud.com/coffeeflavouredtea RTE: http://www.rte.ie/ Radio 1: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 Radio 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2 Radio 5 Live: http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live Murphy Radio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Radio https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/gba-74-mervyn Good Friday Agreement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement 6 Degrees of Separation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation Open Society Foundation: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/ George Soros: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/george-soros Stand Up Tragedy: http://www.standuptragedy.co.uk/ This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/ Third Coast Festival: http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/ The Story: http://thestory.org.uk/ Karl James episodes: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/sets/the-chris-and-karl-episodes Timehop: http://timehop.com/ Maplin: http://www.maplin.co.uk/ The Sound of Silence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4 Simon and Garfunkle Greatest Hits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Garfunkel's_Greatest_Hits Carry On Up the Charts Beautiful South: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_up_the_Charts Bailrigg FM: http://bailriggfm.co.uk/ Teenage Kicks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAtUw6lxcis John Peel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peel Micheal Fenton Stevens episodes: https://soundcloud.com/gettingbetteracquainted/sets/the-michael-fenton-stevens Pigs in Space: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTGDpUg3CHY Lights Out Listening: https://lightsoutlisteninggroup.wordpress.com/ You can hear Getting Better Acquainted on Stitcher SmartRadio, Stitcher allows you to listen to your favourite shows directly from your iPhone, Android Phone, Kindle Fire and beyond. On-demand and on the go! Don’t have Stitcher? Download it for free today at www.stitcher.com or in the app stores. Help more people get better acquainted. If you like what you hear why not write an iTunes review? Follow @GBApodcast on Twitter. Like Getting Better Acquainted on facebook. Tell your friends. Spread the word!

On this edition of HowSound, a 2005 Third Coast Festival award-winner from Long Haul Productions about a transracial adoption.

This hour: we explore two struggling Texas towns through the beautiful and mournful voices of those who still live there. The Third Coast Festival's Re:sound is hosted by Gwen Macsai and produced by Katie Mingle. http://thirdcoastfestival.org/

Ghana sounds like everything you might imagine, and some things you never could. Producer Julie Shapiro recorded these sounds during a trip to Ghana in January, 2008. Julie was one of the very first producers featured on the Big Shed podcast back in 2005, and if you were lucky enough to listen to her piece "The Only Reason You and I Are Here," then you will recognize her distinctive style in this work. When not creating her own work, Julie fills the spare hours as the artistic director of a little thing called the Third Coast Festival in Chicago. If you're planning to be at the Third Coast Festival Conference in October, you'll be seeing Big Shed there as well--come find us!  

“Jennie’s Secret” on PRX About Jennie’s Secret I don’t remember how I first encountered the story of Civil War veteran Jennie Hodgers (aka Albert Cashier), but I was smitten from the start. I was amazed that hundreds of women had posed as men during the Civil War. I couldn’t imagine how she (or they) pulled it off. And I was positively gob-smacked when I found out that Hodgers went on to spend most of her adult life – as a man – in the tiny town of Saunemin, Illinois. That’s just 12 miles down the road from Pontiac in Livingston County. And Pontiac is where my family comes from. For me though, probably 
the most fascinating part of this project was trying to unpeel the onion to find a more nuanced portrait of Jennie Hodgers. I found a person who could be kind to children, offering them a treat whenever they came to her home. But there was also a hot-headed, disingenuous, petty and unquestionably eccentric Jennie Hodgers. She had her foibles, just like the rest of us. We hear about her darker side in the letters that Sammuel Pepper, a fellow soldier, wrote home to his wife. I got to those letters through the footnotes of an amazing book by Lauren Cook and Deanne Blanton. It’s called, “They fought like Demons – Women Soldiers of the Civil War” and I recommend it to everybody. When I met Frank and Velma Crawford (who are in possession of over 200 of Samuel Pepper’s letters) they read me a newly discovered letter about Cashier with even more explicit information about his/her wartime experience. So hopefully this radio story deepens the historical record about Jennie Hodgers. More nuanced information about Jennie Hodgers also came courtesy of Cathy Lannon. Today Cathy is a lawyer, but back in 1969 she wrote her master’s thesis about Hodgers’ life. Lannon was from Saunemin and interviewed older people in town who still remembered Hodgers. Here’s one story Cathy Lannon told me. You’ll see that she (and a lot of people in Saunemin) refer to Cashier as “he.” Lannon’s great grandparents lived across the street from Albert Cashier and often invited him (her) over for meals. But that overture wasn’t always met with the gratitude that you might expect: A few years before the rest of the world found out about Cashier’s true gender, Cathy Lannon’s great grandmother made the discovery. She had heard that Albert was sick one day and so she asked a nurse to go over to help him out. In short order the nurse came running back and spluttered,“ Mrs. Lannon, he’s a full fledged woman!“ The nurse was so upset that she packed up and left town and Lannon’s great-grandmother in a great act of empathy, didn’t tell anyone about it, including her husband. When I first approached Jay Allison about this story, the only tape I had was of 93 year-old Nina Chesebro. Her great-uncle is the one who first hired Albert Cashier (Jennie Hodgers) as a farmhand when (s)he got to town. I pretty much cornered Jay at a Third Coast Festival conference. He didn’t know me, but sat there anyway and listened to some tape. And then he said he bet we could make a story of it. I was obsessed with the history of Cashier’s life. Just such a wild story. But Jay wanted to know more about the people who objected to restoring the house. After all, it’s been moved at least nine times. One time it was almost burned down in a practice drill for the Saunemin fire department. I mean the town didn’t seem too invested in the thing. And Jay wanted to know more about that. That tack, I think, was fruitful. Because it turns out that there’s a long history of ambivalence in town about their most famous citizen. And bringing that angle together with the current effort to re-build the house gave us a frame to tell the history part. Gear I have almost no experience using music in stories.

“Jennie’s Secret” on PRX About Jennie’s Secret I don’t remember how I first encountered the story of Civil War veteran Jennie Hodgers (aka Albert Cashier), but I was smitten from the start. I was amazed that hundreds of women had posed as men during the Civil War. I couldn’t imagine how she (or they) pulled it off. And I was positively gob-smacked when I found out that Hodgers went on to spend most of her adult life – as a man – in the tiny town of Saunemin, Illinois. That’s just 12 miles down the road from Pontiac in Livingston County. And Pontiac is where my family comes from. For me though, probably 
the most fascinating part of this project was trying to unpeel the onion to find a more nuanced portrait of Jennie Hodgers. I found a person who could be kind to children, offering them a treat whenever they came to her home. But there was also a hot-headed, disingenuous, petty and unquestionably eccentric Jennie Hodgers. She had her foibles, just like the rest of us. We hear about her darker side in the letters that Sammuel Pepper, a fellow soldier, wrote home to his wife. I got to those letters through the footnotes of an amazing book by Lauren Cook and Deanne Blanton. It’s called, “They fought like Demons – Women Soldiers of the Civil War” and I recommend it to everybody. When I met Frank and Velma Crawford (who are in possession of over 200 of Samuel Pepper’s letters) they read me a newly discovered letter about Cashier with even more explicit information about his/her wartime experience. So hopefully this radio story deepens the historical record about Jennie Hodgers. More nuanced information about Jennie Hodgers also came courtesy of Cathy Lannon. Today Cathy is a lawyer, but back in 1969 she wrote her master’s thesis about Hodgers’ life. Lannon was from Saunemin and interviewed older people in town who still remembered Hodgers. Here’s one story Cathy Lannon told me. You’ll see that she (and a lot of people in Saunemin) refer to Cashier as “he.” Lannon’s great grandparents lived across the street from Albert Cashier and often invited him (her) over for meals. But that overture wasn’t always met with the gratitude that you might expect: A few years before the rest of the world found out about Cashier’s true gender, Cathy Lannon’s great grandmother made the discovery. She had heard that Albert was sick one day and so she asked a nurse to go over to help him out. In short order the nurse came running back and spluttered,“ Mrs. Lannon, he’s a full fledged woman!“ The nurse was so upset that she packed up and left town and Lannon’s great-grandmother in a great act of empathy, didn’t tell anyone about it, including her husband. When I first approached Jay Allison about this story, the only tape I had was of 93 year-old Nina Chesebro. Her great-uncle is the one who first hired Albert Cashier (Jennie Hodgers) as a farmhand when (s)he got to town. I pretty much cornered Jay at a Third Coast Festival conference. He didn’t know me, but sat there anyway and listened to some tape. And then he said he bet we could make a story of it. I was obsessed with the history of Cashier’s life. Just such a wild story. But Jay wanted to know more about the people who objected to restoring the house. After all, it’s been moved at least nine times. One time it was almost burned down in a practice drill for the Saunemin fire department. I mean the town didn’t seem too invested in the thing. And Jay wanted to know more about that. That tack, I think, was fruitful. Because it turns out that there’s a long history of ambivalence in town about their most famous citizen. And bringing that angle together with the current effort to re-build the house gave us a frame to tell the history part. Gear I have almost no experience using music in stories.

This hour: the wild and wonderful results of the Third Coast Festival's 2007 Audio Challenge: Dollar Storeys.

(Produced by ) David Traver, Alaska's reigning Mr. Fur Face, is the president of the Southcentral Alaska Beard & Mustache Club, and his belly-length whiskers won him a first-place prize at the 2003 World Beard & Mustache Championships.  This fall, he's competing in the 2007 World Championships in England, after which he'll retire -- shaving his award-winning facial hair down to something more manageable -- much to the delight of his wife.  Rebecca spent time with David at the barbershop where he's a brand new customer (his former barber recently fled Alaska for the Lower 48). We met last year at the Third Coast Festival, where her story received the Director's Choice Award.  Rebecca is also a Host and Producer for .  We're tickled pink to welcome her to the Shed. Just in case our bbq outing piqued your aural appetite, here's a little where Shea reveals insights from one of the darker periods of his life. Ps. Thanks for bearing with our belated posting of new audio.  We have (um ... shea has ;-) been running a bit behind.  But please stay tuned.  We've got a ton of great tape coming soon that's definitely worth the wait! Check out the   or go straight to the

(Produced by ... aka Stray Dog Recording Company) A tragic turn of events at the worldâs smallest circus.  Les Petits Tristes is an excerpt from , Tiny Tales of Woe, a collection of audio shorts.  Notes:  Words by Jill Summers, music by David Whitcomb. Engineered by David Whitcomb at Stray Dog Recording Co. in Chicago.  Also, do yourself a favor and check out their beautiful submission to the Third Coast Festival's project.

Radio Dramas was an introductory podcasting unit for 7th graders at Hanes Middle School. Following guidelines first published by Chicago’s WBEZ radio for their 2006 Third Coast Festival, students created a story that began with the sentence, “To begin with, they never got along.” In this first podcasting project students learned to write a script, […]

This hour: 99 Ways to Tell a Radio Story, an audio experiment orchestrated by the Third Coast Festival in collaboration with cartoonist Matt Madden.

Reviews galore! We go to 92 shows in Pilsen with Liz Armstrong, we appear live without a net at the Steppenwold Theater for the Third Coast Festival and Chicago Public Radio, Brian Andrews reviews Scott Reader and other stuff, Amanda and Duncan review more stuff, and Amanda talks about going to NYC and what she saww at the Armoury.Three WallsLiz ArmstrongPRXCatalog of ShipsNPRCPRWhitney MuseumBlindspotLove and RadioGapers BlockDavid ElfingsBack to the Lab/Radio LabJulie ShapiroSkylarkJager!PilsenDubhe Carreno GalleryDenis Lee MitchellMichael Goro4 ArtsMatthew Thomas GrimaldiMoka GalleryChicago Art DepartmentGo Go VideoJhonmar RadamesScott ReederTyson ReederJack HanleyMeg DuguidLaugh InGoldie HawnAndrea CohenRyan SwansonMichael AndrewsNathan RedwoodLoul SamaterClinton KingThe Armory ShowDiva Art FairPulse Art FairScope Art FairNova Art FairMichael WorkmanTony FitzpatrickJoan LivingstonAnne WilsonBarry McGeeDietch ProjectsRhona HoffmanKavi Gupta

- Jeff Ward, Shannon Stratton interviewed, Michael Miller, and the "Made in China" show at the Museum of Contemporary Photography reviewed. - ALSO LIVE WITHOUT A NET, Bad at Sports that the Steppenwolf garage theater this Wednesday the 8th as a part of the NPR, Third Coast Festival, Listen Room series. Come throw rocks at us you jerks! THIS WEEK: Jeff Ward and Shannon Stratton have curated the wonderful series of shows, the Happiness I Seek. Showing consecutively in 5 spaces throughout the Chicago community, The Happiness I Seek will feature artists Andrea Cohen (at ThreeWalls), Loul Samater (at Fraction Workspace), Ryan Swanson (at The Chicago Cultural Center), Mike Andrews (at 40000) and Clinton King (at The Suburban). Through a format of dispersing the sculptural installations throughout the city, the exhibition takes on the rhizomatic and cooperative nature of current art and exhibition practice: the materials of the artworks and the artworks of the exhibit and the spaces in a community imply the ideas of attraction, chemistry and the dancing cheek-to-cheek as evoked by the title's Irving Berlin's lyric. NEXT WEEK: Artist, Alison Ruttan invites us to her home for an interview about her work, and research on Bonobo chimps. We continue our conversation with Jeff Ward about the Core Program in Texas, and talk with Shannon Stratton about the Three Walls Residency. We finish the show off with a cacophony of reviews! Catalog of Ships and Michael KraskinShannon StrattonJeff WardSonia YoonThe Pond GalleryHoward FondaDavid CoylePete FagundoJoan Fransel Youthcast Podcast from PRXJonathan RhodesThe Core ProgramGlass TireArt LiesTerence HannumArt NexusBridge GalleryIrving BerlinAndrea CohenRyan SwansonMike AndrewsLoul SamaterClinton KingCharles Stuckyhttp://www.mocp.org/Roger Brown ResourcesThe Cultural CenterJun YangEdward BurtynskyPolly BradenMelanie JacksonMichael WolfDanwen XingJohn SchmidRick RomellSara RanchouseFraction WorkspaceThe SuburbanMichael MillerWalsh GallerySally Alatalo