UnionDocs is happy to welcome award-winning radio producer and presenter Cathy FitzGerald from the UK. Named as “One of radio’s most original voices” by The Radio Times, Fitzgerald will share two of her radio documentaries that explore memory and the passage of time to open up a conversation about audio storytelling, memory, and identity.  Mirrored and White Stiletto Dreams both have FitzGerald presenting confrontations between her subjects and the past, whether it be through facing ourselves and our reflections in the mirror as children, teens, or late in life or through British playwright David Eldridge’s journey back to his old life running a Romford Market shoe stall.

Cathy Fitzgerald will be joined by UnionDocs advisor and Host of CBC’s LOVE ME podcast, Lu Olkowski.

From childhood to old age, a journey through life reflected in the mirror – via a series of interviews recorded with people as they confront their reflection in the mirror. What do they see? How has their face changed? What stories lie behind the wrinkles and scars? We hear the initial wonder of the small child give way to the embarrassment of the teenager and the acceptance of later-life. Created by multi-award-winning documentary-maker, Cathy FitzGerald, this moving programme hops from home to home in contemporary Britain, catching its subjects in bedrooms and bathrooms and lounges, in order to hold up a mirror to the ageing process itself. A White Stiletto production for the BBC World Service.

Romford Market was vibrant in the 1980s. Now it is dying, a victim of supermarkets and cut-price stores. Presenter Cathy FitzGerald bought her first – and last – pair of white stilettos in the market as a teenager. David Eldridge worked on the shoe stall. He’s now one of Britain’s leading playwrights, with credits that include In Basildon at the Royal Court and a play about Romford that premiered at the National Theatre: Market Boy. Selling espadrilles isn’t obvious training for a playwright, but in the 1980s the market was a stage. There were the characters: the Fruit and Veg Man, the Leather Boys, and the Lampshade Man. And the dialogue – bantering with the customers was rude, funny, and definitely an art. Cathy and David return to Romford to see if the stiletto still fits.A Rockethouse production for BBC Radio 4.

Dr. Cathy FitzGerald is a British radio producer and presenter. She made her first documentary – The Magic Carpet Flight Manual – in 2010 and has since won Third Coast Festival, Whicker’s World Foundation, Audio Production, and Prix Marulic awards for documentaries on topics including angry Vietnamese ghosts, reindeer-racing in Finland, and a museum of broken hearts. She’s the founder and caretaker of Strange & Charmed, a school for audio storytellers and has a DPhil in the work of Charles Dickens. The Radio Times calls her ”one of radio’s most original voices.”

Lu Olkowski is an award-winning radio producer based in Brooklyn. She is drawn to stories that evolve through multiple generations: how pride or shame in one’s racial identity, poverty, and artistic impulse can be passed down in families. At present, she is working on three secret radio projects. At least one of them will be a podcast.