Radio & other audio projects

I first worked in audio at a professional level in 1991 when I published and produced Verb: An Audioquarterly. A literary journal of original fiction published exclusively in audio, it led to some fun opportunities. I went on to produce programming for public radio for fifteen years, on and off. A few clips are below.

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In 2005, I relaunched Verb.  I published some fantastic writers, including Robert Olen Butler, Ha Jin, Tom Lux, Peter Case, Stuart Dybek, and Tom Franklin. It predated the wash of podcasts, but the content is perfect for that format.

Here’s Tom Lux reading his poem, My Malaria

One of the unique things Verb was able to do that other literary journals could not was to explore the way certain forms of expression played against each other. Stuart Dybek, a friend of Tom Lux, wrote and performed a song in response to Lux’s poem

In the early 2000’s, I produced a public radio series called The Spoken Word  which was distributed nationally. This one features Ann Beatty, David Kirby, and Barbara Hamby.

In the late 90’s, I produced and hosted Porches: The South and Her Writers, a 13-part series for public radio featuring some of the more important literary voices in the south. I researched, interviewed, wrote, and engineered these programs. They were financed by Amazon.com, a contract I negotiated while the company was preparing for their IPO.

This episode featured the last interview with James Dickey, made just a few months before his death in 1997.

Another episode from the same series, featuring Larry Brown. This was recorded in the manager’s office at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi during the festivities around the unveiling of William Faulkner’s statue.

In 1992, I produced, Circle of Friends, for National Public Radio based on Remar Sutton’s book “Common Ground”. It was hosted by Oscar-winner Cliff Robertson, featuring George Plimpton, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others. The only known recording of Southern chef extraordinaire, Princess Pamela is here too.