Sophie Townsend

Sophie Townsend (@sophietown) (she/her) is a senior producer and editor at ABC Audio Studio. She also works internationally as an audio features maker and writer. Her podcast for the BBC, Goodbye To All This, made with Falling Tree Productions, was one of the New York Times's best podcasts for 2020. In 2015 she won the HearSay International Audio competition with her piece “Mr Fix-it.” Her works “Stories and Driving” and “The Updates” were featured at Third Coast in 2015, and she was a speaker at Third Coast in 2019. Through her personal stories for radio, she explores relationships, loss and family, and her work has been played on the BBC's Short Cuts, Radiotopia's The Heart and the CBC's Love Me.

producer

The Updates

When Sophie Townsend’s husband was diagnosed with lung cancer, she started the Russell Updates, a weekly email that laid it all bare for friends and family.

At what point did you decide to adapt your emails for the radio? What changes did you make to the writing so it would work for an audience of listeners versus loved ones?

presenter

We make stories for the ear, but there’s no escaping the highly visual nature of the work we produce...

judge