REALITY RADIO with JOHN BIEWEN and THE KITCHEN SISTERS

JOHN BIEWEN

Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound

with THE KITCHEN SISTERS

Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate storytelling from an ever-widening array of producers on programs including This American Life, StoryCorps, and Radio Lab; online through such sites as Transom, the Public Radio Exchange, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint; and through a growing collection of podcasts.

Reality Radio celebrates today’s best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In these twenty essays, documentary makers tell -- and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts -- how they make radio the way they do, and why. Contributors include Jad Abumrad, Jay Allison, damali ayo, John Biewen, Emily Botein, Chris Brookes, Scott Carrier, Katie Davis, Sherre DeLys, Lena Eckert-Erdheim, Ira Glass, Alan Hall, Natalie Kestecher, The Kitchen Sisters, Maria Martin, Karen Michel, Rick Moody, Joe Richman, Dmae Roberts, Stephen Smith, and Sandy Tolan.

Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, even audio artists -- and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach -- all use sound to tell true stories, artfully.

John Biewen is audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where he teaches and produces documentary work for NPR, PRI, American Public Media, and other public radio audiences. Joining him in discussion this evening are Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, radio’s superb The Kitchen Sisters.

“A powerful and illuminating anthology about our most powerful and intimate medium. Reality Radio is a must-read for anyone who feels called to make documentary work or whose imagination and heart are stirred by the sounds of nonfiction storytelling on the radio. A wonderful book!”—Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps and Sound Portraits Productions

“Reality Radio is a fabulous book I wish I could have read when I started at NPR in 1974. It would have shaved 10–15 years off the learning curve in discovering how to make great radio.”—Bob Edwards, host of The Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio

 “The essays in this book were written by people thinking with their ears.”—Rick Moody, from the foreword

Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound (Paperback)

By John Biewen

$25.25

ISBN-13: 9780807871027
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: University of North Carolina Press, 3/2010

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