Transom→ A Tribute to Mary Gaffney
2023-11-28 September 25, 1950 – September 4, 2023 From Syd Lewis (Transom Editor) Losing Mary Hearing of sound engineer Mary Gaffney’s death staggered me. I’d spoken with her a couple of months earlier and knew she was having health struggles, but …›
Transom→ Floating
2023-11-23 Floating… Floating is an excerpt from my staged work CHRCH, A BLACK MUSIC STORY. CHRCH is a work of autofiction that follows my own lived experience, spiritual journey and love for house music. House music is a transcendent music genre and cult …›
Transom→ Mixing Fiction with Non-fiction
2023-11-21 One of the ways I discover new podcasts is by reading “best of” lists. While there can be a lot of dreck in those lists, I often encounter gems. Weirdly, given what I do for work and how many podcasts I listen to in the course of a year, I don’t …›
Transom→ Pineapple Head
2023-11-16 Sharif Youssef's "Pineapple Head" is a poetic little piece, written like a children's book, but exploring themes of depression and loneliness. The post Pineapple Head appeared first on Transom. …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 25, with Regina Barber
2023-11-14 Introduction Welcome back to Starting Out from me and Transom! In this issue I spoke with NPR’s scientist in residence and Short Wave co-host Regina Barber, who made the leap from academia to media. She has a PhD in physics and taught physics a …›
Transom→ Uncovered
2023-11-09 Would you mind turning on the light switch? When I moved to the U.S., I lived for a while in Borough Park, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, NYC, with a large Jewish ultra-orthodox community. One Saturday, during Shabbat with no cars around, a Jewish man wit …›
Transom→ Interview Strangers on the Street, Make a Podcast
2023-11-07 During nearly every workshop I teach, right at the beginning, I send students out to the street to record vox. Talking to strangers with recording gear a student has barely used can be a harrowing experience — especially, the talking to strangers …›
Transom→ All Hear, November 2023
2023-11-02 Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. I’m really excited about this month’s edition. It’s filled with so many opportunities open to audio makers — fellowships, grants, scholarships, fully funded uni …›
Transom→ Are You Listening?
2023-10-31 Parachuting In the early aughts I was getting my feet wet professionally as a radio reporter in Chicago and increasingly was interested in parts of the city, the South and West Sides, that were often underreported, or covered one-dimensionally, usually …›
Transom→ Every Library In My Life
2023-10-26 Welcome to my circus This piece embodies a personal journey of resilience. As a young, book-hungry reader in a family without means for books and a town devoid of child-friendly libraries, I manged not only to survive an evil librarian, but I also emer …›
Transom→ Revisiting: Remembering Studs
2023-10-24 Today, Sound School marks the 15th anniversary of the death of Studs Terkel — America’s interviewer. Who didn’t Studs interview?! He chronicled the life of 20th century America from the ground up in books like Working, …›
Transom→ The Collector
2023-10-19 The Plan There was none. I was winging it. Beginnings So where did I start? Maybe it was with the pugs. Their snuffles and grunts were their signature as much as those mournful eyes. I had recorded Max and Lola over the years. Their wheezes …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 24, with Claire Murashima
2023-10-17 Introduction Welcome back to Starting Out from me and Transom! I’ve got a fun issue for y’all this month, but first, I have one question and one favor to ask: The question: who do you want me to interview for the next season …›
Transom→ Pleasing to the Ear
2023-10-10 I was recently interviewed about audio storytelling by a couple of producers from ACB Stories in Germany. They asked all kinds of great questions, like “How do you determine the proper length of a story?” (Honestly, I wish I knew. It’s a mystery. …›
Transom→ All Hear, October 2023
2023-10-05 Hello! I’m Talia. Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. There are some great opportunities this month, including Arts Emergency’s mentorship scheme for disadvantaged young people in the U.K. looking to pursue …›
Transom→ Salt at 50!
2023-09-26 One day, a bunch of years ago, I was sitting in the kitchen of a women who lived in Phippsburg, Maine, over by Small Point if I remember correctly. As I was asking her questions about life on the Maine coast, I was startled to see on the bookshelf behi …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 23, with Mitra Kaboli
2023-09-19 Hi y’all! Lately I’ve been trying to make a habit of reaching out to people when I love their work. Not because I want a job from them or their co-sign on a new project or anything else. Just to say, this was great, it meant something to me.& …›
Transom→ Revisiting: Dead Mom Talking
2023-09-12 Some ideas are just so maddeningly simple. You think “Why didn’t I come up with that?!!” I felt like that when I first heard Rachel Matlow’s “Dead Mom Talking.” It was a forehead slap moment. On the face of it, Rachel took some tape she’d …›
Transom→ All Hear, September 2023
2023-09-07 Hello! I’m Talia. Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, in this column, you’ll find international audio opportunities with upcoming deadlines, as well as a couple of Spotlights for in …›
Transom→ So You STILL Want to Start a Podcast, Eh?
2023-08-29 Anytime I’ve spoken to friends and colleagues in the radio and podcast world this year, the conversation inevitably turns to all the layoffs and closures. One friend said “It’s a bloodbath out there.” It’s into this risky world for new podcas …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 22, with Kelsey McKinney and Alex Sujong Laughlin
2023-08-22 Introduction As you’re reading this, I’m on a plane to the Online News Association’s conference in Philadelphia. It’s my first ever fancy professional conference and as I write this I’m trying to source professional looking clothe …›
Transom→ A Legacy in Sound – Building an Archive
2023-08-17 A Time Capsule of Stories and Soundscapes Forty-five years ago, I began recording things that few others were paying attention to, like the sounds of a wine riddler, the slowed-down calls of a wood thrush, or an interview with a directory assistance op …›
Transom→ Going Behind the Mic on Climate Change Reporting
2023-08-15 You know how you go through your interview tape and you discover a lot of great moments, quotes and ideas that stand out and you say to yourself (or out loud) “Oh, I’ll put that in.” And, “Wow, that’s a good one. I’ll include that.” …›
Transom→ All Hear, August 2023
2023-08-03 Hello! I’m Talia. Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, All Hear is both a Transom post and a monthly Substack newsletter. Over on my newsletter, I list as many upcoming opportunities for i …›
Transom→ Revisiting: Sound Art Meets Poetry Meets Cicadas
2023-08-01 (This is a rebroadcast of an episode of The Sound School Podcast from 2020, back when it was called HowSound. These notes about the episode are from that time as well.) The other day, I dropped off some computer speakers at a friend’s house. She came …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 21, with Jonathan Menjivar
2023-07-25 Introduction Hey y’all! We’ve got a bunch of new subscribers, so I thought I’d do a little housekeeping! I’m Alice, a podcast producer in Durham, North Carolina. I write this newsletter in partnership with Transom, the best tr …›
Transom→ Next Level Scoring
2023-07-18 Music is emotional fascism. I often say that when I’m teaching. It’s a warning about scoring stories with music because music is incredibly dangerous — it commands an emotion. It’s almost as though we have no control over what we feel when …›
Transom→ All Hear, July 2023
2023-07-11 Hello! Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. In this news …›
Transom→ Lean In and Listen Like It’s Music
2023-07-05 Sometimes I yell at podcasts. I’ve grown weary of narrative series that use the same tropes again and again. Haven’t you? Surely, you’ve heard this too many times: “To understand, we need to go back in time.” What about this: “When I first …›
Transom→ Starting Out: Issue 20, With Priska Neely
2023-06-27 Introduction I try not to think too much about the day that I got laid off. It was during the early days of COVID. After I got the news I called my favorite union steward, who called the SAG-AFTRA lawyers. Then I logged off Slack, ignored texts or call …›
Transom→ Revisiting: Avoiding Pesky Recording Problems
2023-06-20 When I think back on it, I had a positively appalling approach to field recording when I first started out as a producer. A problem would present itself in the field and I would think “I’ll fix it later.” Wow. What a mistake. For instance …›
Transom→ All Hear, June 2023
2023-06-13 The first cohort of the CBC’s Indigenous Pathways programme. Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Goog …›
Transom→ The Best Audio Storytelling According to Pushkin
2023-06-06 “Driveway moment.” That’s a term used for a captivating audio story. The story is so good, so well told, a listener can’t get out of their car until they finish listening. A “driveway moment” is something all audio producers strive for. Bac …›
Hot Pod News→ Insider May 26, 2023 — How Kids Podcasts Compete with Screens
2023-05-30 Hi all, Happy Friday! I have a two-parter for you today. First off is a Q&A with Tinkercast — one of the leading publishers of kids podcasts — about the state of children’s audio and the challenges of adapting the medium for YouTube. How do y …›
Hot Pod News→ Insider May 25, 2023 — Is YouTube’s RSS plan a dealbreaker for podcasts?
2023-05-30 The week is almost over, and I hope it will end on a good note. Today, I dive into a YouTube pilot for RSS that likely will have a major impact on podcasters if it becomes adopted, and a…very wild night on Twitter Spaces! Will YouTube’s RSS lea …›
Hot Pod News→ Why YouTube is a tough place for kids podcasts
2023-05-27 Hope everyone at The Podcast Show is enjoying the conference (and ignoring their jet lag). While I’m still very much across the pond (like, way across) in LA, this issue of Hot Pod leads with some news from BBC Radio. I’m also digging int …›
Transom→ Happy 15th Sound School!
2023-05-23 We were digging into some numbers the other day. By “we,” I mean, Jay Allison and Jennifer Jerrett at Transom and Kerri Hoffman at PRX. And by numbers, I mean “How many episodes of Sound School have there been?” The answer is simple — 20. …›
Hot Pod News→ Insider May 18, 2023 — Why this former iHeartMedia exec is launching a podcast investment firm
2023-05-19 Hi all, Hope everyone is surviving the week. Today, I have an exclusive interview with one of the co-founders of DWNLOAD Media, a new investment firm focused on the audio industry. I’ll also take a look at the new audio app by The New York …›
Hot Pod News→ Why companies still shy away from podcast ads
2023-05-19 Hi all, Today we’re mixing it up a bit. First off, I have a post-Podcast Upfronts Q&A I conducted with SiriusXM’s Lizzie Widhelm and Scott Walker. Both Widhelm and Walker are a part of SXM Media, the massive ads operation that powers SiriusXM, …›
Transom→ All Hear, May 2023
2023-05-16 Welcome (back) to All Hear, the Everything List for Audio Opportunities. If you’re new here, my name is Talia, I’m an audio producer based in London. Last year, I created a Google Doc compiling international audio resources. In this newsletter, …›