Reality Radio
Telling True Stories in Sound
by John Biewen, editor / Alexa Dilworth, coeditor

Published by the University of North Carolina Press and CDS Books at the Center for Documentary Studies in March 2010





Description

A Conversation with John Biewen

Hearing the Documentaries

Ordering Information

Events

Videos

Press Coverage





Description

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

“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

“The producers who wrote these essays prove that there’s nothing more moving than real, truthful radio. I read a lot of the book in bed and soon heard the voices whispering in my ear: ‘Get up. Go record something. Now.’ You will feel the same.”—Neenah Ellis, independent radio producer and author of If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians

“Reality Radio is a collection of masterful essays by radio’s best producers; I feel as though I’ve had a personal, one-on-one conversation with many of the medium’s contemporary heroes. This book will stoke the ‘radio fire’ in the bellies of its readers.”—Rob Rosenthal, independent radio producer and director of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies radio program

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.

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.

With essays by 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

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. Alexa Dilworth is publishing director at the Center for Documentary Studies.






A Conversation with John Biewen

Read the transcript (248 kb PDF)

Hearing the Documentaries

The essayists in Reality Radio were asked to do a hard thing: describe a sonic craft for the mute page. It’s an enterprise that could bring to mind the line, probably first uttered by Elvis Costello, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. It’s a really stupid thing to want to do.” Clearly, I don’t think it’s stupid to write about documentary radio. (For that matter, a dance about architecture is something I’d like to see.) But throughout the book our contributors describe and explicate radio pieces, and those pieces ought to be heard. Rather than include with the book a CD that could hold only short audio slices from nineteen producers, we’ve posted samples of our essayists’ works on a website. There you can hear substantial excerpts and complete works by the Reality Radio contributors, including, of course, the pieces described in these pages. The site also offers links to more audio documentary work, by our essayists and other producers—including podcasts.”

—John Biewen, from his Editor’s Note

Listen to the documentaries






Ordering Information

In the series Documentary Arts and Culture
Published by the University of North Carolina Press
and CDS Books of the Center for Documentary Studies
224 pages
$45.00 paperback / ISBN 078-0-8078-3357-5
$22.95 paperback / ISBN 078-0-8078-7102-7

Available at bookstores or from the University of North Carolina Press

Publication date: March 2010








Events

Saturday, May 15, 6 p.m.
Reality Radio: Talk and Book Signing
John Biewen with contributors Katie Davis and Joe Richman, and special guest Bob Edwards
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008


Friday, April 28, 9 a.m.
"Where We Live" radio broadcast | Connecticut Public Radio
Interview with editor John Biewen


Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 6 p.m.
Reality Radio: Talk and Book Signing
John Biewen with contributors Jad Abumrad (RadioLab), Emily Botein (independent producer), Ira Glass (This American Life), Karen Michel (independent producer), Joe Richman (Radio Diaries)
In a conversation about audio documentary work
Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
New York University
20 Cooper Square, 7th Floor Commons



Saturday, March 6, 2010, 7:30 p.m.
Words on Sound: Book Launch and Signing
With contributors Ira Glass, the Kitchen Sisters, and Joe Richman
Third Coast Filmless Festival
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E. Chicago Avenue

“A book launch at a radio festival?! You got it. The TCF is thrilled to celebrate the launch of Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound, a brand-new / first-of-its-kind collection of essays written by some of the most accomplished radio producers working today. Re:sound's Gwen Macsai will join Reality Radio contributors Ira Glass (This American Life), Joe Richman (Radio Diaries) and the Kitchen Sisters (Hidden Kitchens, Lost & Found Sound) for a lively discussion—including lots of audio, of course—about what makes radio stories so damn special. Copies of Reality Radio will be available for purchase at a book signing following the event.”







Videos


Reality Radio: Origin Story from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.







Reality Radio: Learning to Make Radio Documentaries from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.







Reality Radio: Choosing the Essayists for the Book from Center for Documentary Studies on Vimeo.






Press Coverage

"Reality Radio an 18-Piece Collection." Herald-Sun. February 26, 2010.






banner image:

Photograph by Harlan Campbell



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