Electroacoustical Poetical Society

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  • The author in suburban Detroit.
  • Cabaret at Brookside Playhouse
  • The terrors of stand-up comedy. With JD Davidson.
  • Larry Josephson, second from right, by Richard Avedon.
  • The pictures are better on the radio
    L to R, the author, Stan Free, Bob Elliot, Ray Goulding, Larry Josephson.
  • From the Tellus series in the 1980’s, the author appearing on the Sound of Radio collection with New York IPS.
  • NYTimes
    New York Times article on the The Radio Stage
  • MRTW
    The author with David Ossman of The Firesign Theatre at MRTW
  • The author, with Thomas Baumgartner of Radio France, for her podcast, That Tuesday.
  • with the author John Baxter in Paris for That Tuesday
  • Audio art for WDR in event with John Cage and others
  • Music From Otherminds, SF, Program 745

LISTENING Part One HERE

Perhaps my radio career began with a transistor radio hidden under my pillow after midnight on a school night. The DJ on WXYZ AM Detroit counted down the top ten for us guys and gals. Tracks of My Tears, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,It’s My Party, A Thousand Stars in the Sky.
I majored in theatre at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, but found more of a sense of belonging at WCBN, “in the basement of the student activities building,” where I learned to slip cue a record and work to a clock.
After college I spent a memorable three summers working in summer stock in Pennsylvania, where I made friends for life. My twenties in New York City meant countless headshots, dancing and singing lessons, a silent role on a soap opera, and waiting on tables. I even tasted the terrors of stand up comedy. I gave in to hunger and took a temp job at an advertising agency. In six months I was writing bank ads. Nearing 30 I asked myself the essential question, when had I been truly happy? My gut whispered on the radio. It seemed there was something called public radio. I answered an ad for the Radio Foundation, met Larry Josephson, went to work with Bob and Ray, Isaiah Sheffer at Symphony Space (Selected Shorts), and WNYC on Small Things Considered and THE RADIO STAGE. There were also years directing at the Midwest Radio Theatre Workshop in Missouri, which was one-a-week stock meets the excitement of live on air.
Somewhere along the way I had a nervous breakdown (of course), which, with Jay Allison and Lou Giansante, I chronicled for radio (of course), and for which we won a Peabody Award.
My love affair with radio is a lifelong theme. I made pieces for BBC Radio 3 and 4, created many AUDIO ESSAYS, and my first audio art piece, Roadtrip, for Klaus Schöning at WDR Cologne.
Listen to the story of how I ended up in France, commissioned by Radiophrenia Glasgow in 2019 here.