Station Showcase with PRX

“Wagner was such a colossal egomaniac, he probably expected this much notoriety, if not more!”
-Executive producer the WNYC series “The Tristan Mysteries,” Limor Tomer

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your curator and host for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. This weekly podcast highlights the outstanding work being produced at different public radio stations across the country, and this week we tune in to WNYC in New York City. With the help of a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WNYC recently produced a remarkable five-part series called “The Tristan Mysteries.” The series explores Richard Wagner’s opera, “Tristan and Isolde,” from a number of different angles, including an extensive examination of Wagner’s legendary “Tristan Chord.” The series’ executive producer, Limor Timor, says the chord is just three simple notes, but it’s changed the course of musical history ever since. Here’s a Q & A with Limor about “The Tristan Mysteries” and the lingering musical specter of Wagner’s uncanny Tristan Chord…

This story about the famous “Tristan Chord” is just one piece in a larger, five-part radio series about Wagner’s opera “Tristan and Isolde.” Tell us a bit about the genesis of this project and what some of the territory is that you cover in the other installments in the series…

The Tristan Mysteries began with a routine information meeting with Lincoln center. This was back in December, and when they told us that the Viola/Salonen/Sellars Tristan Project was coming to Lincoln Center, we looked at each other and said, Let’s Do Tristan! There are so many entry points with this project: there’s Bill Viola and the whole visual art world who will be paying attention; there’s the Wagner crowd, there’s the idea of doing opera in a non-opera house, and of course, there’s the opera itself. We imagined these programs as being sophisticated and complex, yet at “eye-level”, meaning not academic or “educational”, and we imagined our audience to be culturally curious but not necessarily knowledgeable or tuned into 19th century opera (meaning, they listen to Bjork and read Ian McEwan and see Almadovar films and follow Richard Serra’s career, but they don’t have a subscription to the philharmonic).

We were very lucky to engage the brilliant producer Amy O’Leary. Together over many hours, we crafted a list of topics we wanted to undertake, and the approach we would adopt. We knew from the first that the Tristan Chord was going to get its own segment. We also knew we had to deal with the sexual aspects of this piece (OK at the early stages we didn’t realize how GRAPHIC this segment was going to get!) We also wanted to delve more deeply into the video artist Bill Viola’s work, so we included a segment about his unprecedented and stunning video interpretation. One segment we wanted to include deals with the effect this piece has had and still has on audiences, how it works on your body, your heart, your imagination, your subconscious, your libido…from the fainting 19th century matrons to the heavy metal-ists. The final segment was to be an overview, a kind of virtual roundtable of experts and lay persons, giving various takes on the opera.

I was blown away by what a wide range of audio you guys collected for this piece… what kind of research must it have taken to discover all these manifestations of the Tristan Chord, from classical composers to Radiohead and The Matrix movie? Is there some sort of a registry that musicians have to sign when they use that chord?

All Kudos go to Amy. I think the secret was that we worked with someone who is “the dumbest one in the room”, meaning, Amy’s greatest strength as a producer was that she is not a music expert, so she chased down some pretty unlikely leads. She is also fresh to this material (she only knew the opera from a college course) so she was bold enough to chase down lots of different types of leads, not your usual “expert” suspects.

Then again, it IS, after all, the most celebrated chord in all of western music. it’s pretty darn hard not to trip on references to it!

You know how they say if you buy a red car, you all of a sudden notice red cars all over the road, wherever you’re driving? Has it been that way for you guys with the Tristan Chord? Have you been noticing it more often in songs and movies since you put together this radio series?

It’s crazy. I hear it everywhere now. TV, jingles, film scores…

What do you think Wagner would make of the legacy of his famous chord? Do you suppose he’d think it’s been well used, or abused?

Wagner was such a colossal egomaniac, he probably expected this much notoriety, if not more!

Now that your “Tristan Mysteries” series is completed, are there any other big radio plans on the horizon for you guys? Maybe an exploration of another opera?

We’re taking a break from opera, but our next venture is Berlin: We are working on an aural “topographical map” of the city, which will look at it from many different angles: music, culture, demographics, economy, immigration, and more. Stay tuned, as they say…

…Limor Timor is the executive producer of WNYC’s series “The Tristan Mysteries.” You can hear the other four parts in this radio series online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“When they tour around here and see frowning faces, they really see how grasping at (and clinging to) material existence is a great cause of suffering.”
-Julie Adler, producer for “The Tibet Connection”

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Welcome to the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. I’m Aaron Henkin. Every day, producers at the hundreds of different public radio stations across the country are working to create high-quality, original broadcasts for their local listening audiences, and each week on this podcast we give a little extra attention to the best and brightest of these local productions. This week, our travels take us to the West Coast where KPFK – Pacifica Radio – broadcasts to the greater Los Angeles area. Once a month, KPFK treats its listeners to a production called “The Tibet Connection.” The show’s been on the air for about a year now, thanks in part to the work of producer Julie Adler. This week on the podcast, we’re taking a listen to a story Julie put together after attending a slumber party… with fourteen Gyuto monks. Here’s a conversation with Julie about her work on “The Tibet Connection,” and her unusual sleep-over…

Tell us a bit about “The Tibet Connection”… What was the genesis for this program, and what kind of stories and issues do you guys try to focus on?

The genesis for this program lies with my good friend, the very talented and endlessly inspired Rebecca Novick, who remains the Executive Producer even though she is far away in India at the moment. She has been a Tibet activist and former president of our local Tibet support group here in LA for years (LOS ANGELES FRIENDS OF TIBET) as well as devoted Buddhist practitioner and documentary filmmaker; she had in the back of her mind the idea of a radio program geared towards ‘Ingis’ (the Tibetan name for Westerners) on all things to do with Tibet – the politics, its history and current news on the country, its religion and philosophy, the people and their culture both there and in exile. Despite a few feature films (notably Martin Scorcese’s “Kundun”) and documentaries, along with celebrity friends of Tibet and the popularity of teachers like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, that have helped to bring the story of Tibet and its way of life to public attention, there is surprisingly little in the way of objective journalism – and almost no radio sources for stories.

Guests are as varied as the subjects covered, ranging from authors with insights about the CIA’s secret war in Tibet (Mikel Dunham), to musicians who discuss the evolution and meaning of Tibetan music, to some of the leading minds in Tibetan Buddhism (Robert Thurman, B. Alan Wallace). We want to provide the listener with insight into the complexities of what the word ‘Tibet’ means. Most people aren’t really aware of how China took over this independent nation almost 50 years ago, or what the current state of affairs is on the highest plateau on Earth, or this rich culture and its tradition of preserving one of the world’s religions. There are ways in which Tibet has infiltrated Western culture and thinking, and so all of it can come together to give the growing listening audience of The Tibet Connection a sense of this unique endangered culture, its features and challenges, and its potential contribution to our present global condition.

How often does “The Tibet Connection” air, and on what station?

It airs the last Friday of every month, on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, from 2-3 pm as part of the Pacifica network. But all past programs including individual segments are available 24 hours a day on our website, www.thetibetconnection.org, for streaming or podcasting.

Is there a large Tibetan immigrant population in your area?

It’s actually quite small here in Southern California, numbering around 200 people. There are many more Tibetans living up in Northern California and on the East Coast.

What about your own interest in Tibetan culture? What was it that got you into this niche?

My own initial encounter with Tibet happened actually in Woodstock, NY in the early 90s. I was looking to go to a yoga ashram for a weekend away from Manhattan but decided finally upon a Buddhist temple (Karma Triyana Dharmachakra). Up until that point I was unfamiliar with the culture and the religion. Throughout my short stay there, I was both awestruck but very uncomfortable sitting inside this quite elaborate temple of worship, with bright colors, large statues and a throne. I saw Westerners praying and mumbling words in a foreign language and actually thought it seemed quite ridiculous. Why not pray in English, I thought? Or Latin or Hebrew, at least? We’re here in the US, not Asia, I continued in my head. I saw people in robes, Westerners and Asians alike, bowing to each other, serving each other. It all seemed odd. But I was stunned by a book I purchased for the bus ride back to the city called ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’ by Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan teacher who was one of the pioneers of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. Every single word in that book rang true for me. From that point I started exploring how to meditate, and dabbling in all kinds of spiritual seminars and dialogues while continuing to amass books and read a few of them.

I actually began to practice Buddhism from within the Thai and Burmese traditions for a number of years. So in the beginning, I didn’t make a connection to the outer culture of Tibet but rather the inner culture of Buddhism. It wasn’t until I went to China about seven years later, on a travel grant, alone, that I stopped in a Tibetan village called Xiahe. Here something really extraordinary transpired. I found myself invited into a Tibetan home for butter tea (which I still haven’t acquired a taste for) and bread and feeling really happy to be there. I also spent some time with Tibetan nuns and traveled back to Beijing with an American woman who had become an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun in the late 60s and she became a good friend, kind of a mentor. I came back to the States with a deeper feeling of being connected to the Tibetan religion but also the culture, so even the prostrating to statues or chanting didn’t feel as awkward but part of something I was more at home with. By the following year, I became a Dalai Lama ‘groupie’, following him around to receive various teachings when he came to California and, by 2002, I headed to India for more teachings and experiences. My interest in the politics and culture of Tibet itself came more recently. Realizing that what I’m studying or practicing came from Tibet, it feels like my responsibility to help preserve what remains of the culture and religion. It breaks my heart to know that so much of it has been destroyed already and that the rest is in jeopardy of disappearing forever.

Hearing recordings of the Gyuto Monks is incredible in itself, but it must have been something else entirely to be sitting in a living room and hearing them doing their polyphonic singing live and in person… what was that like for you?

Well actually I’ve been in a room before, I have to admit, with about 3,000 monks chanting inside and 7,000 more outside; albeit that particular room was the size of a small football field – it is actually the temple hall of one of the bigger monasteries in one of the Tibetan settlements in South India. Some 60,000 Tibetan refugees now live down there. That time, while attending a teaching of the Dalai Lama, I was sandwiched into a sitting position relieved only by a humid breeze and some Nescafe in my cup! And across the sea of bald heads, I’d hear this chant master’s voice gliding up and down and across the hall. I just felt protected even as I was slumped over in a haze. Every time he’d begin and the others would join in, I’d get goose pimples, and when I’d go to bed at night, I’d still hear it in my ears and skull, the roar of the chanting. And about 5:30 am every morning, while I was there, I would again start hearing the rumble of voices and the blast of horns. Even on the airplanes, as the engines get going, I always hear the chanting, strange but true. I feel like I’m home when I hear it somehow. So when I went to Sarah Wilkinson’s house (she’s a member of our Tibet Connection team) to record this segment on the Gyuto monks, I got that same goose pimply feeling when they chanted in her living room but I also felt deeply affected physically. They’re all ‘chant masters’, these Gyuto monks. And being so so close to them all – it was much more in your face, as well as intimate. My ordinary thinking mind just fizzled out for a few minutes and my body felt hollow and energized. It’s surround ‘body’ sound and it’s meant to penetrate and I don’t think you’re meant to analyze it too much. Again this feeling of ‘it’s all going to be okay because I’m home’ came over me and I drove around the rest of the day in LA quite happy and unbothered.

In your story, the monks make some interesting (and diplomatic) cultural observations about our own American way of life… what kinds of insights did you gather from what they had to say?

Yes, they are diplomatic, and genuinely so! I think they really enjoy being in America and sharing their way of life with whomever they meet, but they are also surprised by the high level of anxiety and depression that people experience here. It’s really true that in India (and Tibet), people acknowledge each other as they pass by just for being human beings. Smiling at each other isn’t a special occurrence or elicited because it deserved to be so. So when they tour around here and see frowning faces, they really see how grasping at (and clinging to) material existence is a great cause of suffering – to actually see this principle in action in such a tremendous way in a country that has everything from running water to the most advanced technologies and still it doesn’t lead to happiness… that’s the shock – the shock of the truth. Because of their training, their mind training, to become more generous, more disciplined, more compassionate, seeing the frowns doesn’t affect them the way it would us. For example, if someone frowns at me as I walk by, I might take that to mean that person has a certain disdain for me and doesn’t like the way I look, doesn’t like me. I might get upset myself and start frowning back. What I’ve noticed with the monks is that when someone frowns, it sometimes makes them laugh…because the appearance of such a face with all those wrinkles is quite funny. So it’s not personal at all and they never or rarely take these things into themselves. What is in them is a deep feeling of interconnectedness.

I also think they don’t get what it means to be ‘busy’ in the Western sense. They use the term ‘running around’ frequently to describe us. They run around, too, with lots to do but they never get stressed out. It’s a completely different perspective on running around. And they aren’t sure why we’re so stressed out busy. What’s the point? When material advantages are fleeting and life is so precious, why run around and frown so much? I think that is what they see, and probably they feel happy not to be affected and so influenced by our way of life. Life is much simpler in India, in the monasteries, for them – at least for now.

I was fascinated by the monks’ explanation of their performances as being ‘tributes to ascendant beings’… It seems like there’s almost a missionary aspect to their tour and the message they’re bringing with them. Do you think people are moved spiritually by these monks and their music?

Actually it’s interesting that you use the word ‘missionary’ because that is discouraged in most schools of Buddhism. Yes it’s a virtue to teach the dharma (the Buddha’s teachings) when requested, but you can only ‘receive the message’ from experiencing the teachings yourself. So in a way, what these monks are taught from such a young age, to develop compassion for all beings and understand the wisdom of the mind, is what they know – it’s not something they’ve suddenly discovered and have to share with the world. It’s like the color robes they wear…it’s just been that way for a long time. They are so deeply steeped in those teachings that it imbues every act they do. So when they come here and share their music or even their insights into connecting to ‘ascendant beings’, you have to understand that Tibet is unique this way. For over 1,000 years, it was a country committed to the principles of enlightenment through Buddhism, imbedded with such devotion and belief in ‘other beings’ that it isn’t that they feel they have to bring a message to others about this. It’s just their mode of being in the world. In Tibet, it was perfectly normal to bow and to descend to their knees in the face of an elder or teacher or to pray to beings you can’t physically see. Here, we feel hard pressed to kneel to pick up the trash.

So there is no separation between their spiritual and musical pursuits. Music is the expression of themselves and their aspirations, and I think it does move people, but there is never a guarantee. Sometimes it’s just a curiosity. I recall being at a concert with the Gyuto monks a few years back at UCLA. Afterwards they spoke about what they had been chanting, describing the deities, etc. But during the Q & A, the audience mostly wanted to know more about how they got that particular sound, the harmonics, and the pitches. They didn’t seem as interested in the roots or origins of this music. At first I thought it was quite disrespectful but now I realize you start where you are. People start by being curious about a lot of things. Maybe how the music is made is the first query. Maybe later it’s ‘Who is Yama, the Lord of Death? Why chant to him?’ But as far as pitches and tones go, Tibetans really haven’t had the chance to analyze such things at this level. Their education up until this past century has been mainly monastic or none at all.

Before you got to meet them in person, what did you think the monks were going to be like? Did anything about them surprise you? (Like the fact that they love French fries?)

Oddly enough, I felt and continue to feel quite at home with them. I’ve been ‘hanging’ out with monks since I went to India in 2002 and spent time in a handful of monasteries and I helped with a tour that came here in 2004. Perhaps I was a monk or nun in a recent previous life! So when I went to Sarah’s house, it was like seeing old friends, plopping down right beside them. But when I first met some of them a few years back, what surprised me was that they also like to do the same things we do. I thought they’d be quite serious and stoic in discipline and removed from the banalities of daily life. But they like to hang out, watch TV, listen to popular music, get on the internet. The main difference is we go to work – they go to study or practice or help in the monastery. That’s their job. We spend 40 hours a week worrying about how to pay the bills. They spend 40 hours plus a week studying ancient texts and worrying about the welfare of other beings. And they definitely have more discipline than we do to just turn inward and regain some quietude. And they can be comfortable just sitting with you and not making conversation. Just being there. As for the cuisine, I’m definitely NOT surprised by the fact that they love French fries. The penchant for fried food comes from things like fried bread and cookies they have in their own country. And potatoes are a more common vegetable to them than say broccoli – green vegetables aren’t high on their list of favorites, by the way. They also love hamburgers and pizza. But despite all that we have to offer cuisine-wise, whenever they have to choose between our offerings and momos (Tibetan dumplings), they’ll always choose the momos.

…Julie Adler is a producer for “The Tibet Connection,” which airs on KPFK in Los Angeles. You can find out more about the program online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers form around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org. For the NPR Station Showcase with PRX, I’m Aaron Henkin. Thanks for listening.

“I would love to see what he saw while sitting in his living room on a gorgeous autumn day or right after a blinding snowstorm.”
-WNPR producer/reporter Lucy Nalpathanchil

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Hi, Aaron Henkin here, your host and curator for the NPR Station Showcase with PRX. This weekly podcast highlights the outstanding local stories that are being produced around the clock at the hundreds of different public radio stations across the country. One of those stations is WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio, and this week we tune in to WNPR for a story from producer / reporter Lucy Nalpathanchil. Lucy recently traveled to the town of New Canaan to tour the home of modernist architect Philip Johnson, a house whose walls are made of glass… and she found it to be a surprisingly private place. Here’s a brief Q & A with Lucy about her experience visiting the iconic ‘Glass House’:

I wonder, are you an art and architecture buff? What was it that drew you to this story?

I wouldn’t call myself an architecture buff but I’m definitely a fan of old buildings. My interest in architecture grew from the time I spent in Buffalo, NY. That city has an amazing collection of old Victorian homes, an art deco train station, and one of my favorites: (this may sound weird) the former State Asylum that was designed by architect, H.H Richardson. When I moved to Hartford, an old office building turned microbrewery quickly became a regular haunt of mine because I loved how the owners used this great space for their business. It turned out that H.H Richardson designed this place, too! I was drawn to producing the Glass House story because I was intrigued with the idea of a house made of glass. After touring Philip Johnson’s property, I was amazed at how it wasn’t all about the fact Johnson built a ‘glass house’ but how he designed the landscape around it to compliment the house. It really was a private oasis for Johnson tucked inside the beautiful woods of New England.

Let me compliment you on your writing and scene-setting in this piece… is it particularly hard, do you think, to write a radio piece about architecture? (There are obviously no photos for your listeners to refer to, like in a comparable magazine article!)

Thanks! I enjoyed writing the piece but to be honest with you, I didn’t think about how hard it would be to produce the feature until I sat down after my tour and interviews! While there, I focused on recording as much ambient sound as I could so listeners would feel like they were on the tour with me. When it came time to write my script, I tried to focus on my initial reactions as I walked around Johnson’s property and that’s how I described it in my story. After the story aired, we not only posted the audio on WNPR’s website but we included a link to pictures that a staff member took while on the tour because we knew listeners would be just as curious to see what we saw.

After seeing Mr. Johnson’s place, do you think you’d ever want to live in a glass house?

I would love to live inside Philip Johnson’s Glass House! The landscaping and vast acreage around the house gave him privacy and the most amazing view. I would love to see what he saw while sitting in his living room on a gorgeous autumn day or right after a blinding snowstorm.

Was it hard to avoid the ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ proverb when you were writing this piece?

No… But I can’t even count how many people said that proverb or some variation to me when I was working on the story!

Could you tell us a bit about your radio background and the kind of work you do for WNPR?

I’ve been a public radio reporter since college where I got my start working at WDUQ. I spent 3 years at an NPR station in Buffalo where I covered everything from high profile terrorism trials to the reunion of WW2 veterans aboard a restored B-17 bomber. From there I worked at another member station in Florida for a couple of years until I realized how much I missed living in the Northeast! I’d met WNPR’s News Director John Dankosky a few years back and because I was familiar with the kind of work the station produced, I applied and happily got the job! I’m a Reporter/Producer so much of my time is spent producing spots for daily newscasts. I also work on features and serve as the newsroom’s Assignment Editor.

What other sorts of stories have you got in the works over at WNPR these days?

One of the beats I follow is immigration. I recently produced a feature for NPR on a program by the city of New Haven that would issue ID cards to its residents, including illegal immigrants. This idea has been fairly controversial because there are so many different views on how the US should deal with illegal immigration. New Haven is one of several cities that are trying to come up with ways to either welcome or prohibit undocumented immigrants in their communities since the federal government has yet to enact immigration reform. I’ll be following New Haven’s program this summer to see if the ID cards have the impact city officials were looking for.

Lucy Nalpathanchil is a producer / reporter at WNPR, Connecticut Public Radio. You can hear more stories from WNPR online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.

“At this level (14- and 15- year-olds) a lot of these kids have their eyes on possibly playing baseball in college and even in the pros.”
-producer Jeremy Shere

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Welcome to the NPR Station Showcase with PRX, a weekly podcast that highlights the excellent work being produced at the hundreds of different public radio stations around the country. I’m your host and curator Aaron Henkin, and this week our travels take us to Indianapolis, Indiana, where WFYI broadcasts a number of local news and cultural programs, including a health show called Sound Medicine. One of Sound Medicine’s associate producers and reporters is Jeremy Shere. Jeremy recently took his microphone to little league baseball diamond in Bloomington, and he put together a story about the unbelievable competitive pressure facing today’s young athletes…

I really like this story because beyond its immediate interest to baseball fans, it’s a sports story that speaks to a much larger cultural question – the idea that the competitiveness of kids’ athletics might be a detriment to the health of the young players. How did this story end up on your radar, and what got you interested in pursuing it?

Well, as a producer for a weekly radio program about health and medicine, I’m constantly scouring the wires for interesting stories. This one caught my eye for a few reasons. First, I’m a sports fan, so anything about sports is likely to peak my interest. And, like so many American kids, once upon a time I played little league baseball, so I felt some personal connection to the topic. Finally, it struck me as a topic that would make for a good radio piece. There were lots of possibilities for ambient sound (crowd chatter, bats hitting balls, etc.), and it was a story that I could cover locally by attending a few little league games in Bloomington, IN (where I live) but still produce as a piece with national appeal.

I wonder, did putting this story together give you the impression that little league teams have arrived at a balance between the ‘winning at all costs’ mentality versus making the game a healthy experience for the young athletes?

It’s hard to say, given that I mainly spoke with local coaches and players. My guess is that, on balance, youth sports are probably getting more competitive. But the rules put in place limiting pitch counts and innings pitched are, at the very least, a step in the right direction. Then again, it’s hard to know how well or strictly those rules are enforced. But at least the people running the Babe Ruth League are aware of the health issues and have taken steps to protect the players.

When I listen to your story, I can’t help but think about other stories I’ve heard about the terrible behavior of over-competitive parents at children’s sports games… how much do you think parents (and even peer pressure among the kids themselves) adds to the players’ feeling that they have to risk their own well-being in order to win games?

I’m sure that parents play a big role in stoking their kids’ competitiveness and desire to win. Coaches play an equally important role, though, and the coaches I spoke with came across as pretty reasonable and sane people. They were certainly competitive and took the games seriously, but they were well aware of the rules and the health problems the rules are meant to address. Plus, as I note in the story, the little leaguers themselves are very sophisticated when it comes to taking care of their bodies. At this level (14- and 15- year-olds) a lot of these kids have their eyes on possibly playing baseball in college and even in the pros. So I think a lot of young pitchers are pretty savvy when it comes to taking care of their arms. There’s still a large problem with arm injuries, obviously, but it’s not because the kids are ignorant or so driven to win that they don’t care.

At the end of your piece, you sign off “for Sound Medicine…” Can you tell us a bit about Sound Medicine and the idea behind it?

Sound Medicine is a public radio program produced in Indianapolis and broadcast throughout Indiana on NPR member stations. We cover a wide range of stories related to health and medicine, including in-depth interviews, feature stories, a monthly take on medical ethics, and several other regular segments. In my humble opinion, we’re the best radio show dealing with health and medicine on public radio. It’s a great show, and I’m proud to be part of the production team. (For anyone who wants to learn more about Sound Medicine, go to our website at www.soundmedicine.iu.edu.)

What about your own radio background? What brought you to WFYI, and what kind of work do you generally do for the station?

I’ve been writing and producing for radio for ten years. I got my start writing for another public radio program, A Moment of Science (produced in Bloomington and syndicated internationally), while working toward a Ph.D. in English at Indiana University. The more I wrote about science for the radio, the more I liked it, and found that I was pretty good at that kind of writing. I started working for Sound Medicine and WFYI toward the end of my time as a graduate student. With a few years of radio writing under my belt, I felt confident enough to contact Sound Medicine and offer my services as a writer. They not only took me on but, almost immediately, gave me a chance to voice my own scripts (despite that fact that I had almost no on-air vocal experience). It was a real challenge and a thrill to take a crack at being a radio “voice,” and I’ve really grown to like it. I guess I’m also pretty good at reading my own scripts, or Sound Medicine wouldn’t keep me on the air. For the past year and a half I’ve worked for Sound Medicine as an associate producer. Besides writing and voicing my scripts, I also do a lot of research on topics we plan to cover and prepare background scripts for the show’s host, Barbara Lewis. The bulk of my time is taken up with Sound Medicine, but I’m still writing for A Moment of Science as well as yet another public radio science show called Earth & Sky, which is produced in Austin, TX. So I’m pretty busy.

Have you got any other interesting stories, sports-related or otherwise, that you’re working on these days?

I’m always working on something. One of the weekly segments I do is called the “Sound Medicine Checkup.” It’s basically me taking a look at some research or story from the worlds of health and medicine, including clips from interviews with doctors and researchers–anything that peaks my interest. I’ve done pieces on the health detriments of commuting to and from work, a neurological explanation for out of body experiences, and a bunch of other interesting topics. At the moment I’m working on a piece about how college students tend to be much less healthy than they believe themselves to be.

Jeremy Shere is an associate producer at Sound Medicine, which airs on WFYI in Bloomington, Indiana. You can hear more stories from WFYI online at The Public Radio Exchange. That’s Where producers from around the world share their work. Log on, write your own reviews, and have a say in what ends up on the radio at www.prx.org.