radio pieces

the big girls/dr. louise forest (0:59)
Produced for: PRI/WNC's Studio 360
Airdate: May 26, 2007
Susanna Moore's new novel, "The Big Girls," is set in a federal women's prison. Dr. Louise forest is chief Prison Psychiatrist, a single mother who is highly intelligent and educated at the best schools. Rebellion from this elite background, coupled with guilt over a past patient's suicide has brougth her to Sloatsburg Correctional Facility, where she counsels a woman who killed her own two children. Excerpt read by mallory Kasdan.

spam poetry (7:10)
Produced for: PRI/WNC's Studio 360
Airdate: March 16, 2006
We're all too familiar with junk mail that offers to enlarge body parts or reduce mortgages. Most of us delete these messages right away, but Mallory Kasdan finds unexpected art in her pile of unsolicited emails.

high-stakes/high-kicks (:57)
Produced for: American Public Media's Marketplace Morning Report
Airdate: October 18, 2005
The Radio City Rockettes are getting ready for their popular Christmas season, but a labor dispute threatens to hamstring the dance troupe during it's busiest time of the year. Mallory Kasdan reports from New York.

encyclopedia of an ordinary life (8:03)
Produced for: NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday
Airdate: March 26, 2005
How do you chronicle a typical life in the 21st century?  Do you blog?  Rap?  One man show -- it?  Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal decided to alphabatize and categorize her life in a series of everyday observations.  Her memoir is called Encyclopedia of and Ordinary Life, and it even has a theme song!  Check out the book's website at www.encyclopediaofanordinarylife.com.

sensation novel (2:49)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC's Studio 360
Airdate: June 19, 2004
In the middle of the 19th century, cheap wild & sexy commercial fiction became a form all its own -- and boomed. These books were called "sensation novels." George Lippard published several sensation novels including one in 1848 called the Bel of Prairie Eden. In this excerpt set in Texas in the years just before the Mexican war, which lasted from 1846 to 1848, the house of a rich Texan is invaded by his Scottish overseer who's in league with the Mexican army. Excerpt read by Mallory Kasdan.

ethan lipton (6:50)
Produced for: NPR's Weekend Edition
Airdate: January 24, 2004
If Andy Kaufman wrote jazz standards and Norah Jones sang them, they might sound like the tunes of love, loss and hostility that come from post-modern crooner Ethan Lipton.  With utter sincerity in his lemon-drop voice, Ethan sings about going to work, about breaking up with all his friends, about Peeping Toms and deli salads.  He asks age-old questions such as "Why do lovers take taxis? " and of Whitney Houston, "What did you do to that sweet, sweet Bobby Brown?"  Link to Ethan's website at www.ethanlipton.com where you can buy his CD, "A New Low."

landfill artist (7:45)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Airdate: October 4, 2003
In 1969, artist and struggling young mother, Mierle Laderman Ukeles decided that the repetitive tasks of taking care of children and a household were art.  Her “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” asked presciently, “when the revolution is over, who’s going to pick up the garbage?  Ukeles has spent her career trying to answer that question, beginning in the late 70’s when she set out to shake the hand of every single New York City Sanitation worker -- all 8500 of them.

voiceover actors(7:39)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Airdate: July 12, 2003
The power of the voice can be used to create phenomenal works of art, and it can be used to sell stuff. The folks in this story have coaxed you to buy toothpaste, to join a gym or to trust the news you watch. What are they thinking about when they whisper in your ear?

ken butler (4:12)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Airdate: May 31, 2003
Ken Butler is an artist/musician/diabolical genius who builds gorgeous sculptural musical instruments from found objects and performs music with them. This is his story.
Check out Ken's website so you can see what some of his instruments looks like: http://www.mindspring.com/~kbhybrid

church of craft (5:31)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Airdate: April 5, 2003 on PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Also aired on December 22, 2002 on The Night Air, ABC Radio National Australia.
The Church of Craft (www.churchofcraft.org) involves a group of spiritually minded creative people who have formed their own church devoted to acts of crafting and making. There are currently chapters of the church in NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where people gather together to share crafting techniques and creative inspiration.

get your wig on
Get Your Wig On is my first audio documentary, which I wrote and produced in 2001 to enter in the Third Coast International Audio Festival (www.thirdcoastfestival.org). It deals with an artist’s idea about how one constant, in this case, a huge brown curly wig, can be interpreted and visually expressed by an assortment of strangers. The piece was aired in its longer form on Radio Eye on Australia’s ABC Radio National. I then edited it down to to a shorter version for air on PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360 (www.studio360.org), where it aired February 9, 2002 and again on August 3, 2002 as a show closer to, "Opium, Rave, Styron."
short version (5:36)
Produced for: PRI/WNYC’s Studio 360
Airdate: February 9, 2002
long version (20:38)
Produced for: Radio Eye, ABC Radio National, Australia
Airdate: January 6, 2002

three months in new york (27:31)
Produced with Natalie Kestecher for Radio Eye, ABC Radio National, Australia
Airdate: February 16, 2002
This piece is intensely personal but ironically came out of a collaboration with a virtual stranger. I met Natalie Kestecher, the co-producer of the piece, at a radio conference I attended in the fall of 2001. Since the conference took place just after Sept. 11th, it was a bizarre and soul searching time for all of the people who traveled to Chicago to attend, whether they were veteran radio reporters/producers or total newcomers like myself. Natalie and I spent a lot of time that weekend talking about what had happened in New York and D.C. and ended up recording some of our conversations. She encouraged me to keep writing and recording when I returned home, and we kept in close touch over the next few months. Natalie and I worked over e-mail, snail mail, and an ISDN line between NYC and Australia to develop a story appropriate for an Australian audience. What we ended up with is an audio documentary of sorts about patriotism, the media and personal relationships being put under a microscope after September 11th.

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