Third Coast International Audio Festival // Chicago Public Radio

Nubar Alexanian is a documentary photographer whose work has been regularly featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe. Alexanian is currently working on the book Re-enacted Reality, a long-term collaboration with filmmaker Errol Morris, and producing/directing his second documentary film, Flamenco, in Spain. Perfect Hearing, his first radio documentary, aired on This American Life last February. (Image As Metaphor)

Jay Allison is a veteran independent broadcast journalist. His work airs on NPR's All Things Considered, ABC News' Nightline and other national and international programs. In 1996 he received the public radio industry's highest honor, the Edward R. Murrow Award. Over the last 25 years, he has produced hundreds of documentaries and features and has won virtually every major broadcasting award, including five Peabodys.

Allison is Executive Director and founder of Atlantic Public Media (APM), through which he created both the public radio service for the Cape and Islands in Massachusetts and Transom.org, a site devoted to encouraging radio stories from people around the world.APM's latest project is the Public Radio Exchange , a new Internet distribution system for public radio. (Into The Darkness: Presenting the 2004 Third Coast Festival ShortDocs)

Garvia Bailey moved from the world of independent video production into the world of radio to hear voices like her own: those of young, conscious women of color. Two years ago Bailey pitched a story to CBC Radio's personal documentary program Outfront, and she’s been helping others tell their stories ever since. Bailey is also a regular voice on CBC Toronto's morning show Metro Morning , and a regular on-stage presence for a variety of CBC specialty programming. (Audio Doctor)

Sharon Ball is an independent editor and consultant, specializing in public radio. She is the former Senior Cultural Editor of NPR News. During her 15 years with NPR, Ball worked on documentary programs, series and personal essays, produced and anchored newscasts and filled in as host of weekend news magazines. She has received many awards for her work, including two Gabriel Awards. Ball also sings professionally, and served on the White House staff during the Carter Administration. (Image As Metaphor)

John Biewen is a producer and correspondent with American RadioWorks. Since he began his public radio career in 1983, Biewen has produced hundreds of news and feature reports, and dozens of documentaries, for national audiences. Biewen’s recent awards include two Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Awards (2000, 2001) and the Third Coast International Audio Festival's Public Service Award (2002.) He lives in Durham, North Carolina, where, besides making documentaries, he teaches audio documentary-making at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. (Trust Me, I'm An Editor)

Emily Botein joined WNYC’s The Next Big Thing in 1999. Since then, she has held a variety of postions, and is currently Senior Contributor on the show. Before landing at WNYC, Botein was involved with a range of freelance radio projects, including recording suicide prevention tests for teenagers in Harlem. Pre-radio, Botein honed her interviewing skills developing exhibits at the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, and her production skills cooking appetizers at a four-star restaurant in New York City. (Trust Me, I'm An Editor)

Adam Burke has been puzzling over the sound world since at least the age of three, when he started studying classical music. Subsequent study brought Burke into recording studios as an electronic music composition student in college. More recently, he served as the executive producer and host of Radio High Country News , a radio news magazine distributed throughout the American West, for which he edited the work of other reporters and produced his own documentaries. (Into The Darkness: Presenting the 2004 Third Coast Festival ShortDocs)

Cindy Carpien started with NPR's Morning Edition in Dec. 1979—less than two months after it went on the air, when she was barely out of college. She was the Director of Weekend Edition Saturday when the program debuted and worked on the show for eleven years. In 1996, she moved to Arizona and worked part time as Producer in Residence for KNAU in Flagstaff, helping local producers make stories for national air. She also worked part time for Morning Edition , and is still doing so these days in Palo Alto, CA. (GenNext— Youth Producers Share Their Work)

Peter Clowney joined Marketplace as a domestic editor in 2004. Before that, for three years, he was the editor of the arts program Studio 360. He was an original staffer with This American Life and worked with Fresh Air at WHYY, where he was also the arts reporter for four years. Over the years, Clowney has reported from such diverse locations as South Africa, Macedonia, Slovakia and...New Jersey. (Audio Doctor)

Allan Coukell is a producer with Here and Now, a nationally syndicated midday news program produced in Boston by WBUR. He was the founding host and producer of Radio New Zealand's weekly program Eureka!, and has contributed reports and documentaries to various US and international programs. Coukell’s documentary Grey Ghost was among the Third Coast Festival winners in 2002. (Deadline Radio)

Sherre DeLys' radio features have been commissioned, broadcast internationally and awarded prizes including the Silver Award at the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2002. DeLys was a producer for The Listening Room, the acoustic art program of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, from 1996 until 2003, and is currently a producer for The Next Big Thing , from WNYC. She teaches media studies and sound design, and her collaborative sound installations and sound sculptures have been represented in major exhibitions including, most recently, the Biennale of Sydney, 2004. (Image as Metaphor)

Gianofer Fields has worked as a producer for Chicago Public Radio's morning magazine Eight Forty-Eight since November 1998, and travels throughout the Chicago region covering stories about the natural sciences and local culture. Fields has also worked in construction, and as an organic pastry chef. In 1999 she was recognized by the Public Radio News Directors Association, and also received the Chicago Headline Club Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism, for the two-part radio play If You Only Knew . (Two Towns of Jasper)

Jude Fletcher began her radio career as a deejay and Assistant Music Director at KUSF 90.7 FM, an alternative music station in San Francisco. She also produced and moderated a weekly call-in show featuring nationally known artists, musicians and writers. Fletcher is currently an environmental reporter with KPFA 94.1 FM. She produces independent features, and was recently a finalist for a 2004 NFCB Golden Reel Award. (Into The Darkness: Presenting the 2004 Third Coast Festival ShortDocs)

Joe Frank's radio work spans more than 20 years. He began in 1977 at WBAI, Pacifica's New York station, and later served as co-anchor of NPR's All Things Considered. Frank produced and developed four radio program series for KCRW and NPR: Work in Progress, In the Dark, Somewhere Out There, and The Other Side. He has published two plays, and is also the author of The Queen of Puerto Rico and Other Stories , a collection that’s based on his radio work. In 2003, Frank was the recipient of the Third Coast Festival's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Joe Frank participated in the 2004 Conference by presenting a sold-out live show in The Art Institute of Chicago’s Fullerton Hall: Third Coast Festival Presents: Joe Frank in Performance.

Deb George is an award-winning producer, editor, and reporter. Most recently, George was Senior Editor of American RadioWorks, producing documentaries and investigative reports for national broadcast. Previously she spent 15 years with NPR, where she worked as a producer on Weekend Edition Sunday and then as an editor and producer on the National, Foreign, and Cultural Desks. George has received numerous awards for her work, including the duPont Columbia Gold Baton, the Robert F. Kennedy and the Edward R. Murrow (RTNDA) awards. (Trust Me, I'm An Editor)

Ira Glass started working in public radio in 1978 when he was 19, as an intern at NPR's Washington Headquarters. Over the course of the next 17 years, he worked on nearly every NPR news show, and did nearly every production job they had, including tape cutting, newscast writing, editing, producing, reporting and substitute hosting. After moving to Chicago in 1989, he produced several documentary series about public schools and race relations for NPR. He currently hosts and produces the Peabody Award-winning show This American Life, and was named the 2001 "America's Best Radio Host" by Time Magazine. (Audio Doctor)

Matt Hulse is an artist whose work crosses boundaries between film, animation, performance and audio art. His films have screened worldwide and been recognized with several awards, including the Best Short Film at the Transmediale Festival in Berlin.

The Audible Picture Show is his second outing as a curator of collections of audio works - the first being the bizarre Sound of Loozak, audio works destined for public lavatories. He is director of the Deaf Focus Film Festival, DJ at the HOBOKLUB and a part-time teacher at the Edinburgh College of Art. For complete immersion: www.idlevice.com. (Audible Picture Show)

Dave Isay is the founder of Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past 13 years his radio documentary and feature work has won almost every award in broadcasting including four Peabody Awards and two Robert F. Kennedy Awards. Isay has also received the Prix Italia, a Guggenheim Fellowship and most recently a MacArthur Fellowship. He is the author (or co-author) of three books based on Sound Portraits radio stories: Holding On, Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago and Flophouse . (Everyday Voices)

Author and radio producer Alex Kotlowitz has contributed to The New Yorker, Chicago Public Radio's This American Life and the Chicago Matters series, All Things Considered and Morning Edition. He was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal from 1984 to 1993, and has received a Peabody, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a George Polk Award. Kotlowitz is the author of the best-selling book There are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America , which received numerous awards and was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the century. (Everyday Voices)

Hugh Levinson is a senior producer with BBC Current Affairs Radio. He has produced many editions of BBC Radio 4's international current affairs series Crossing Continents , as well as documentaries on subjects as diverse as anthropology, homeopathy and sleight-of-hand. Levinson’s work has been featured on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and the BBC World Service. He won the UK Amnesty International Radio Award in 2002 and the London Jewish Cultural Centre Media Award in 2004. (Into The Darkness: Presenting the 2004 Third Coast Festival ShortDocs)

Tom Lopez has written and produced more than 150 hours of radio fiction. His most well-known work, Ruby, has aired on more than 600 stations in the US and in 23 foreign countries. He has worked as the Director of Public Affairs for WUHY (now WHYY), has produced over 30 half-hour documentaries, and is president of ZBS Foundation, a nonprofit audio/radio production company. (Truth On Stage)

Jacki Lyden is a senior correspondent and substitute program host for NPR. She joined NPR in Chicago in 1979, on the first day the bureau there opened its doors. Throughout her career Lyden has reported from many of the world's war zones in such countries as Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq. Her work has earned her the industry's major awards including a George Foster Peabody Award for coverage of 9/11. Currently she's writing her second book, a nonfiction travelogue set in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. (These Are a Few of My Favorite Things)

Gwen Macsai is an award-winning writer and producer whose radio essays were heard on All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Saturday throughout the 1990s. Macsai is also the creator of the television sitcom, What About Joan and author of Lipshtick, a book of humorous first-person essays. Macsai began her career at Chicago Public Radio in 1984 before moving to Radio Smithsonian in 1987 and then to NPR in 1990. She is currently hosting Re:sound , the Third Coast International Audio Festival’s weekly documentary program on Chicago Public Radio. (Trust Me, I'm An Editor)

Karen Michel is a New York-based independent radio producer with a deep rural background. She's lived and worked in Alaska, Japan, Greenland, India, Kenya, Madagascar and other geographies real and imagined. Her academic training is in visual arts and cross-cultural education; she's also been an exhibiting artist and a teacher. Michel has received many awards and fellowships as both an artist and journalist, from organizations including the NEA, CPB, Fulbright and Peabody. (Audio Doctor)

Rick Moody is the author of several critically-acclaimed novels and collections of short fiction, including Garden State, and The Ice Storm, as well as The Black Veil: A Memoir With Digressions. Moody has earned various literary awards and was presented with a Guggenheim fellowship in 2000. He has taught at several educational institutions, including the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Since 2001, Moody has been a regular contributor to PRI's The Next Big Thing , from WNYC, collaborating on audio versions of his short stories, produced with sound and music. (Into The Darkness: Presenting the 2004 Third Coast Festival ShortDocs)

Ben Shapiro is a radio and television producer whose documentary work has aired on many NPR programs, CBC and other outlets over the past 20 years. Shapiro is editor of Joe Richman's Radio Diaries and was editor of WNYC’s The Next Big Thing during 2002-2004. His programs have won many awards including Third Coast, NFCB Gold and Silver Reels, and three Emmys. Shapiro produced the 2003 and 2004 Third Coast Festival Broadcasts. (Trust Me, I'm An Editor)

Sandy Tolan has been producing public radio programs ever since he drove off from a coal mine on the Navajo Reservation in 1981 with his Marantz on the top of his beat-up old Datsun. Since then he has traveled to lots of places - on the Mexican border, in Panama and Peru, in the Balkans and on the Gaza Strip, just to name a few. He's now working on a book called The Lemon Tree , which he hopes will be published by May, 2005. Tolan also teaches young journalists at the Grad School of Journalism in Berkeley. (Image As Metaphor)

Two Tone Productions is a collaborative effort between Whitney Dow, a white filmmaker, and Marco Williams, a black filmmaker, who have come together to create a unique documentary production partnership designed to address issues of race in America.

In addition to other collaborations, Williams and Dow co-directed the feature length documentary Two Towns of Jasper, which traced, with segregated crews, the aftermath of the 1998 racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Two Towns of Jasper premiered in competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and has won numerous awards, including the Alfred I. duPont Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism and the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Electronic Media.

Dow and Williams recently finished production on I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, a one-hour documentary that follows a racially diverse group of high school students in Buffalo, NY as they attempt to integrate their lunchroom. (Two Towns of Jasper)

Contact | Search the site | Terms & Conditions | Site Map