A collaboration with the Prelinger Library - a very special collection of books, documents and other cultural bits — from the concrete & tangible to the abstract & etherized.

The Third Coast Festival's 2008 audio challenge invites producers, artists, writers and radio fans of all stripes (newbies to veterans) to submit finished audio works (aka Radio Ephemera) inspired by two books from the Prelinger Library, including the voice of a stranger, and lasting 2:30 – 3:00 minutes.

Subsmission incentive!
What can we say? We're curious...and getting impatient. The first five people to submit to Radio Ephemera will receive a Third Coast Festival t-shirt.

Read more about RE guidelines.
Hear more about RE and how it originated, including vivid descriptions of the books from the PL co-founders.

Pictured below are the books you can choose from. Pick two and connect them somehow, in your story.
Click on each cover to see a gloriously enlarged photo. Click on the link underneath each cover to browse through each book for further inspiration.

                                               
"Trees as Good Citizens"                    "Control of Body and Mind"                             "The Big Strike"
Charles Lathrop Park, 1922                         Frances Gulick Jewett, 1908                                Mike Quin, 1949          
  browse through this book                          browse through this book                            browse through this book
                                    

                                                            
                                            "Trailer Ahoy! "                                "The Stork Didn't Bring You!"
                                    Charles Edgar Nash, 1937                      [The Facts of Life for Teenagers]
                                     browse through this book                                Lois Pemberton, 1948
                                                                                                           browse through this book


Submission guidelines
How to submit your finished audio story
More about the Prelinger Library
Radio Ephemera FAQ page.
Radio Ephemera myspace page.

Guidelines:

Radio Ephemerizing is easy as pie!

> Each Radio Ephemera (RE) submission must clearly reference two of the five selections displayed above. We leave it to you to find a connection that’s literal, metaphorical, or somewhere in between. You'll get a general sense of each book through the cover and title, and can also browse through each one (digitally) for text, details and further ideas for your production.

> Each submission must fall between 2:30 and 3:00 minutes in length.

> "Include the voice of a stranger" means just that. This can be a random street interview or an excerpt from film or tv, or any other manifestation of someone else's voice. Songs/music technically count, but seem the far too easy/obvious route, to us. Instead, we recommend that you actively seek out conversations, exclamations, declarations, etc.

> RE submissions may be documentary, fictional, or a hybrid of both.
> RE submissions will be accepted April 1 – midnight, August 3rd, 2008.
> Producers are limited to three RE submissions.

And an important one:

> Submissions that include the use of sound (beyond voices) are especially welcome. After all, it IS a radio project. Let the sounds help.

Questions? Check out the RE FAQ or just ask us directly.

How to submit to Radio Ephemera:

Email an mp3 of your audio submission to thirdcoastfestival@gmail.com.
Or mail it on CD to:

Radio Ephemera
Third Coast Festival
Chicago Public Radio
848 E. Grand Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611

Please include the following information:

- Producer name
- Mailing address and phone number (won't be publicized)
- Affiliated website (will be publicized)
- One-sentence summary of your submission
- List the two books from the Prelinger Library relevant to submission
- Note the stranger whose voice you've included

Questions? Check out the RE FAQ or just ask us directly.

About our collaborator - the Prelinger Library


Brought to life in 2004 by "radical traditionalists" Rick and Megan Shaw Prelinger, the Prelinger Library (San Francisco, CA) is an appropriation- friendly, browsable collection of approximately 40,000 books, periodicals, printed ephemera, government documents and other cultural bits. Unlike at most libraries, visitors to the Prelinger Library are encouraged to browse to their hearts’ content and make copies of any materials they choose. Appropriation is encouraged and re-use of all harvested content is perfectly acceptable.

Material in the Prelinger Library collection ranges from thousands of maps, to radical labor histories, to social hygeine periodicals, to candy journals. It’s a veritable goldmine of information just waiting to be researched. If you're in the Bay area, check first for hours of operation before dropping by.


Along the same lines, here's more:

> The Internet Archive is is a non-profit organization dedicated to maintaining an on-line library and archive of Web and multimedia resources, including moving images, texts, audio and educational resources.

> Much of the Prelinger Library has been scanned and exists online as part of the Internet Archive.

> The Prelinger Archives - a collection of 4000+ films and videos of cultural and historical significance - are also available for your browsing, auditioning and downloading pleasure. You'll find everything from corporate training movies from the 50s to vintage cartoons to old-school sex ed filmstrips. You'll find things you didn't even know you were looking for.