UnFictional call for submissions

Call for pitches from KCRW's Unfictional. I've heard good things about them – drop a line if you want the inside scoop. -Mia
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Hello past and future UnFictional contributors!

We’re coming up on the 4 year anniversary of this radio program/podcast! Our audience is slowly building, we’ve won some awards, stories from the show have been featured on other radio programs both here in the US and around the English-speaking world. All in all it’s been an exciting and rewarding run, and it’s due in no small part to the contributions of fantastic audio producers like yourself. We hope we’ve made a fun place to make interesting and unusual stories. We want to do more!

We’re looking for great story ideas to produce over the next few months. We’re open to anything as long as it fits the show tone as laid out in submissions guidelines:

Strong sense of story, a little weird, emotional, funny, strange twists and surprises… First-person non-narrated stories are always great. If the story has good sound components that’s a big plus.

We pay decently for a local show!

If you have any friends or colleagues who produce great work, feel free to forward this message to them as well. You can send your pitches to me at this address or to unfictional@kcrw.org

Look forward to hearing from you!

Bob Carlson
UnFictional producer



UnFictional is a program of storytellers and documentaries that cover the ground between the sophisticated and the profane. Audiences will hear captivating stories of real life told by writers and performers with a talent for tales that will suck you in. The program also features documentaries created by the most talented producers from around the country.UnFictional is one part of the Independent Producer Project, an initiative to cultivate and support the work of independent radio producers and other writers and artists. The idea is to create a clearinghouse of creativity both online and on the air.

The program is hosted and curated by KCRW producer, Bob Carlson. He has an ear for compelling radio stories that are funny, sad, sincere and often dark. Listen for stories of hometowns and family secrets, as well as tales of drugs, sex, and aliens (both extraterrestrial and earthbound.) The stories on UnFictional will stick in your head like a memory.

pdf icon UnFictional-submission-guidelines.pdf

Latino USA call for pitches – special projects

Some great projects in the works from Latino USA. Details below. Pitch deadline May 16.

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Latino USA has several special projects coming up that we’d love to have pitches for.


The pay rate is $125 a minute, and pitch meetings take place on Friday mornings, eastern time.

Please send all pitches directly to: pitches@futuromediagroup.org.


If you’re pitching for the first time, please include some information about yourself and a couple of audio samples.

Thanks!

Leda

 

Leda Hartman

NPR’s Latino USA

919-542-0008

ledahart@mindspring.com

 

Outdoor Adventure and more

These stories are part of an ongoing series on outdoor adventure involving Latinos.

If the stories have an environmental angle to them, all the better. For example, LUSA recently ran a piece on an ice fisherman in Colorado who has had to seek out lakes at higher elevations because climate change is shortening the ice fishing season down below.

 

In-state tuition vox pops             

Florida just became the latest state to allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition for college.

LUSA would like to put together a montage of vox pops from students who can now afford to go.

We’re especially interested in hearing from Oklahoma, Utah, Minnesota, and Kansas – or other states that aren’t the “usual suspects” like Texas or California.

 

Stories from the heartland

LUSA is doing a special program on changing demographics in the heartland.

We’re especially interested in ideas from the Midwest and the West, but are open to hearing about what’s happening anywhere between the country’s urban coasts.

Possibilities include:

First-hand stories of Latinos living in rural areas or small towns – for example, a meatpacker or a cowboy;

A tour of a town that now has a Latino majority – including the back story of how and why immigrants came, and how the flavor of the town has changed;

Fresh angles on immigration in the heartland;

Lighthearted or positive stories;

Under-reported stories.


Please send all pitches for heartland ideas to LUSA before May 16.

60×60 Surround Sound Presentation at Harvestworks, this FRIDAY 5/16, 7pm, FREE

Cool (FREE) sound event this Friday at Harvestworks in NYC. Details HERE and below.

[May 16] VoxNovus 60×60 Surround Sound Works

Curated by Hans Tammen
Friday, May 16, 7pm
Admission: FREE

Location:
Harvestworks
596 Broadway, #602 | New York, NY 10012 | Phone: 212-431-1130
Subway: F/M/D/B Broadway/Lafayette, R Prince, 6 Bleeker

60×60 is a one-hour-long show made by sequencing 60 pre-recorded pieces by 60 different composers, each piece a minute in length or shorter. A unique collaboration between VoxNovus / Robert Voisey and Harvestworks in New York City to create a 5.1 surround sound mix, this 60×60 presentation will be premiered at Harvestworks’ multichannel TEAMLab listening room.

Every one-minute piece will be played continuously without pause. Each of the 60 pieces  will begin precisely at the beginning of the minute, this will mark the end of one piece and the beginning of another.

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Next City Announces Urban Economics Reporting Fellowship for Journalists of Color, deadline May 12

Hurry up to meet the deadline for this Next City economics reporting fellowship – MAY 12. Details HERE and below.

Call for Applications
Next City Urban Economics Reporting Fellowship 

Next City Urban Economics Reporting Fellowship
Deadline May 12, 2014

Next City is seeking a talented journalist of color for a one-year, full-time reporting fellowship. The fellowship, which includes a $40,000 salary and health benefits, offers the opportunity to work closely with experienced writers and editors to create compelling, idea-driven journalism about cities, with a particular focus on economic development.

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National Recording Registry is Open to Nominations

An unusual post for FC but I find this fascinating. Every year, the National Recording Registry (part of the Library of Congress), seeks nominations for recorded sounds (that are at least 10 years old) to add to their archive. This is an amazing resource, and, I think, something to strive for in your own work. You can browse the entire registry HERE.

And here's the call for nominations, along with a blog post by Steve Leggett, program coordinator for the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. (I've highlighted my favorite bit below.)

In the weeks since announcing the annual 25 additions to the National Recording Registry the Library has been asked a few questions about rap and hip-hop and its representation on the list. These questions are valid and important to explore.

The 2013 list of 25 additions announced earlier this month did not include a recording in the rap and hip-hop genre. However, the genre has been represented on the registry since the registry’s very first list of 50 recordings was announced in January 2003. In that year, “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was among recordings including Orson Welles’ radio drama “War of the Worlds” (1938), President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s D-Day radio address (1944) and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963).

The fact that those important and diverse sound recordings stand shoulder to shoulder on the same list is indicative of what the registry is about, and indeed illustrates the very important role sound recordings have played in our collective memory and consciousness since the very first recordings were captured in 1853.

With respect to rap and hip-hop, in addition to “The Message”, the registry also includes Sugar Hill’s 1979 “Rapper’s Delight” – widely credited with launching the genre – plus three others for a total of five. That means of the 17 music recordings in the Registry that date from 1979 or later, about 30 percent represent the rap genre, including the most contemporary recording in the entire registry, Tupac Shakur’s 1995 “Dear Mama.”

It is important to understand that the National Recording Registry is not a “best of music” list. Although much attention each year tends to focus on popular music, the registry is about sound recordings of all kinds – from political speeches to historic firsts, all deserving recognition and preservation.

Of course the registry includes music, but it also showcases Thomas Edison’s recording of 1888 for a talking doll prototype; 1890 recordings of Passamaquoddy Indians – considered the first field recordings; Booker T. Washington’s 1895 Atlanta Exposition Speech (1906 recreation); 1917′s the Bubble Book – the first book/record recorded especially for children; the first transatlantic radio broadcast (1925); the first official transatlantic telephone conversation (1927); Charles Lindbergh’s arrival in Washington, DC (1927); FDR’s fireside chats (1933-44); Neil Armstrong’s broadcast from the moon; and many other historic recordings.

You can view the entire list here.

The process for selecting new additions includes review of public nominations, and active discussions and review by the advisory National Recording Preservation Board, featuring representatives from the recorded sound, preservation and music industries.  The Board advises the Librarian of Congress on national preservation policy as well as the National Recording Registry.

Of course, selecting the recordings each year involves a lot of discourse and argument about current representation of various genres, time periods, artists and key cultural and historical themes.

Keep in mind, the National Recording Registry represents a very small slice of the Library’s collection of more than 3.5 million sound recordings or the 46 million recordings held in U.S. public institutions according to a 2005 survey.  Many of these recordings are in dire need of preservation, an alarming fact highlighted in the 2013 landmark national recorded sound plan published by the Library.  The good news is that virtually any published recording of a song registered for copyright with deposited copies is in the Library’s permanent collections: so much, however, yet remains to be preserved and made available

But the registry, in essence, represents a special category of recordings the Library would seek out and ensure are in our collections in the most pristine form available.  So we do like to think of it as an “honor” or recognition of the best of the best in addition to spotlighting countless other worthy recordings.  From that standpoint we welcome the fact that critics are looking, well, critically at what is on the list and what is not. Keep that dialogue going!

With only 25 additions each year, the selection process is mighty challenging. And there is no doubt the number of recordings that should be on the registry far exceeds the number of recordings already on the registry.

Along with rap songs that have been mentioned in recent blogs and the public – works by artists such as Lauryn Hill, Run-DMC, 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Eminem and Kanye West — this vast treasure trove of cultural importance awaiting recognition consists of radio broadcasts, technological breakthroughs, advertisements, ambient sounds and well-known standards by a stunning litany of music legends.

If you believe rap or hip-hop – or any other genre – is under-represented on the list, please nominate a recording…or several. We are accepting nominations for the next list here.

Remember the recordings must be at least 10 years old. We look forward to hearing from you!

Knight Center Announces Free Online Investigative Journalism Class, May 12-June 14

Starting May 12, the latest massive open online course (MOOC) from the Knight Center – this one on investigative journalism in the digital age. I took their last course on social media for journos and was pleasantly surprised by the content, the teachers, and the process overall.

From Media Bistro:

If you’ve ever wanted to learn the nuts and bolts of investigative reporting, here’s your chance, courtesy of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

 A five-week, massive open online course (MOOC) on “Investigative Journalism for the Digital Age,” will begin on May 12 and end on June 14, 2014. 

From Knight:

Investigative journalism is the most highly-regarded branch of the profession, often helping reveal corruption, shining a light on social plights, influencing public policy and triggering change. It takes time and effort, but also an understanding of the basic concepts and tools used to carry out investigations.

To help people interested in learning about the newest resources and techniques in the field, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americaswill offer the free Massive Open Online Course (or MOOC) “Investigative Journalism for the Digital Age” with the support of the Knight Foundation.

The course will take place from May 12 to June 15, 2014. Click here to register.

2014 NEWvember New Plays Festival: submissions now open!

Are any of you journo types also budding playwrights? This is a great little theater. Take advantage of this opportunity in my part of the world! -Mia

 

 

 

 

In partnership with AboutFACE Ireland, Tangent is pleased to announce the call for submissions for the 2014 NEWvember festival!

 

Plays are being accepted from May 1 – June 30. For more information, and to learn how to submit your play, please visit our sister website at newvemberfestival.com.  

 

The selected plays will be announced in October.

 

NEWvember 2014

@ the Carpenter Shop Theater

60 Broadway, Tivoli, New York

November 6 – 9, 2014

 

 

      

 

NEWvember 2014 is a project made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a re-grant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.

 

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Ann Osmond, Audrey Rapoport, Jacob Horstmeier and Michael Rhodes read Body Awareness by Annie Baker, Oct. 2013

Stay tuned for our next pub-reading! 

We'll be hosting our popular, free pub-readings throughout the summer

at Traghaven Whiskey Pub in Tivoli. 

Grab a pint and a play! 

 

Keep an eye out for details ahead.

 

 

 

 

To make a contribution to Tangent Theatre Company

please click here to make your donation online. 

Or please make a check payable to FRACTURED ATLAS*, and send to:

Tangent Theatre Company, PO Box 185, Tivoli, NY  12583.  Thank you!

 

 

tangent-arts.org

 

 

* Tangent Theatre Company is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas in New York, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Tangent Theatre are kindly made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.