New year, new you, new podcast! Join UnionDocs and Neena Pathak (The Daily) for a six-day intensive to close out the year and kickstart or revitalize your own audio adventure. Over the course of the all-virtual workshop, Neena will lead the 15 Zoom participants through both practical and theoretical aspects of podcasting, combining guest presentations, listening sessions, discussions, daily group/individual exercises, case studies, and work-in-progress critiques.

A top-notch group of seasoned podcast practitioners will be on hand to provide useful prompts and insight into their own experiences and processes. Ike Sriskandarajah (Reveal) will talk about how he finds the story in each of his pieces and defines their scope. Mitra Kaboli (30 for 30, The Heart) will discuss her varied approaches to sound design. Julia Furlan (Go for Broke) will elaborate on the art of hosting, and Diane Wu (This American Life) will explain the nuts and bolts of producing. Chloe Prasinos (The 11th, Wolverine) will introduce participants to the expanded world of sound, including formats beyond the podcast, while Kelly Prime (Radiolab) will dive into the art of the edit. Aisha Turner (Into America) will tackle the interview in all of its forms, and Ariana Martinez (Say You’re Sorry, Short Cuts) will wrap things up by discussing sound art and pushing one’s sound practice forward.

Throughout the engagement with this all-star roster, participants will also be given the (virtual) space to do warm-ups collectively and individually; present their projects; have their own projects critiqued in groups and individually; and generally work with each other and with leads to engage actively with what podcasting means today and what it could be in the days, weeks, and years to come. Close out the year by putting your project first!

10:30a

First Workshop Session

12:30p

Lunch

1:30p

Second Workshop Session

4:00p

Wrap Up

Neena Pathak is an award-winning producer on The New York Times’ Audio team.  She currently produces “The Daily” podcast, where her work was part of the Times pandemic coverage that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.  She also produced Still Processing, Another Round, and various public radio podcasts.

Julia Furlan is an independent podcasting consultant, podcast host and a professor at The New School. Most recently, she hosted a series of podcasts for NPR and before that she was the head of the BuzzFeed News PodSquad. She has a M.A. from NYU in Journalism and Latin American Studies and has written and produced audio for places like WNYC, Latino USA and Slate. All of her work is rooted in a belief in uplifting underrepresented voices.

Mitra Kaboli is an audio producer, sound designer, and multimedia artist who has been working professionally in radio and podcasting since 2012. Her award-winning work has been featured on ESPN’s Dunkumentaries, NPR’s Latino USA, Making Contact, WNYC’s Death, Sex & Money, and Audible Productions. Much of her work focuses on the experiences of women, the queer community, and people of color living in America and Canada with a signature emphasis on intimacy and emotion. She was the senior producer of the award-winning podcast, The Heart, which was the primary outlet for most of her work. Kaboli’s work also lives beyond our earbuds. She has produced and directed live performances and audio-based installations. In 2016, The Heart took home the Gold Award for Best Documentary at the 2016 International Third Coast Awards. In 2017, The Heart was a Peabody Finalist. Currently, Kaboli is expanding her documentary repertoire as a producer and sound designer for ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast.

Ariana Martinez is a multimedia artist making images, objects, and audio documentary. Their practice investigates the impact of geography, space, and place on individual and collective experience. Ariana is interested in sensations of placeless-ness, disorientation, and the inventive place-making that emerges from spatial and cultural fragmentation. Their practice incorporates responsive processes like life drawing, field recording, mapping, replication and reenactment as ways of world-building. Attuned to the ecological, cultural, and historical facets of natural landscapes and built environments, Ariana works toward a collaborative dialog that responds to each place’s existing qualities, systems, memory, and imagination.

Chloe Prasinos is a shape-shifter — she works across genres and all aspects of audio production. Sometimes that means: Making a brick-and mortar museum about New York City’s queer history and spending a summer zigzagging across the city to find people’s stories to fill it with. Blending genres to better tell a true story — drawing on the techniques of audio drama to  create a way for unrepresented voices to speak out and remain safely in the shadows. Reporting intricate and highly crafted, long-form audio documentaries. Listening closely to producers and guiding them towards the story they dream of making. Directing actors to help discover their best performances and running a room with space for experimentation and play — all while staying on schedule. Developing new shows from inception and compassionately leading a team across the finish-line…and so on.

Kelly Prime is a Brooklyn-based story editor with deep experience making both short-form and narrative audio work for outlets including More Perfect, Radiolab, The New York Times, The Cut, The Experiment, Invisibilia and Dustlight, among others. She is obsessed with story structure and her dog —both to a fault— and enjoys surfing in Queens, NY (doesn’t love the floating trash.) She seeks to help reflect small bits of the world in all its contradictory, strange & lambent reality.

Ike Sriskandarajah is a senior reporter, producer, and fill-in host for Reveal. He has worked on projects that have won an Emmy, two medals from Investigative Reporters and Editors, and awards from Third Coast, the Education Writers Association, and the New York Associated Press Association. He was a narrative audio producer at The New York Times, making investigative episodes for “The Daily.” Sriskandarajah is from Wisconsin and reports from New York City.

Aisha Turner is a producer and writer from the Baltimore area. She is currently the Executive Producer on the NBC News/MSNBC podcast Into America. Previously, Aisha was a producer with StoryCorps. She was also the first Race and Ethnicity Reporter for WUWM – Milwaukee Public Radio and had worked in the city as a radio producer on Precious Lives – an award-winning series about gun violence in Milwaukee. Her work seeks to encourage empathy, create connection, and put events into context so that this world can seem a little less baffling. Aisha cut her teeth in broadcasting while based in Washington, DC as a Reporter-Producer at the PBS NewsHour. She’s also done stints at Al Jazeera America and local news. Aisha has covered a range of national and international affairs stories and has a special interest in social justice issues.

Diane Wu is the Deputy Managing Editor at This American Life. She started at the show as a fellow in 2017. She’s also worked at Science Vs from Gimlet Media. Before that, she was a scientist.