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Shortlist of Shortlists
About "Shortlists"
A Short List is made from your experience or research or daily life.
You read it out loud for about 60 seconds and then tell us at the
end what the list WAS. It’s a story, with the title at the end. It
might be funny, poetic, political… you decide. The grace of these
bits is in the mystery.
A while back we initiated the Short List project with the WCAI, the
public radio service on the Cape & Islands, and NPR’s Day to Day.
We asked people to send in contributions. Radio producers made
elegant produced pieces with nice clear sound. Regular people just
called the WCAI listener line and started talking when they heard
the beep.
Our series was inspired by
Monika Mueller’s lists on Transom and by
this “Sonic ID” from Chelsea Merz for WCAI.
The lists are alphabetical below by the list-maker’s name. Unfortunately, we can’t attach titles because it gives it all away. Click on a name to hear a shortlist.
If you’re inspired to send in some of your own, it’s not too late.
The best way is to create a high quality audio file, post it on the
web, then email us (info@transom.org) the URL. To learn how to
create such audio and such files, look at the TOOLS section of
Transom. It’s all there. If you’re a radio producer-type, as are
many who visit Transom, feel free to produce your piece with music
or sounds. If none of this is possible for you, you can phone it
in. Call 1-866-TRANSOM (866-872-6766). Be sure to leave your name
and a call-back number or email. Or, you can mail us your list on
CD or other media at the address below.
Hans Anderson
is a Internet programmer and hobbyist audio producer.
He enjoys creating overly-produced, off-the-cuff short audio stories.
Krissy Clark
is currently a staff reporter and editor for the public
radio show Weekend America from American Public Media.
Sean Cole
is a reporter for Weekend America and Marketplace. He is also the author of this bio and many
others.
Beth Dunn
phoned her shortlist in to WCAI.
Dan Gartzke
practices law with his wife, Tracey Schwalbe, in Madison and New Glarus,
Wisconsin. They have three children – Julia, Mara and David.
Melissa Harold
phoned her shortlist in to WCAI.
Viki Merrick
is an independent producer/editor for Transom.org, Atlantic Public Media and WCAI: the Cape and Islands NPR station. She is currently the Senior Editor for This I Believe.
Chelsea Merz
is a producer for the new public radio show Open Source.
Prior to that she worked at Atlantic Public Media/ Transom.org for
nearly four years.
Monika Mueller
is an independent producer who lives in Berlin, Germany.
Sarah Peters
is a sculptor specializing in bronze public works,
Sarah Peters Sculpture.
She lives in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Marianne Rahn-Erickson
is a storyteller born in Brooklyn in
another century. She lives on her precious ramshackle farm in Very
Upstate New York. As a Mother-In-Pursuit-of-an-Honest-Living, she
does freelance writing and audio production.
Benjamen Walker
is the creator and host of the weekly radio
program/podcast called Theory of Everything, which has aired on
public radio stations around the country and was the first weekly
public radio program to start podcasting. The list is from Kitchen
Sister, Davia Nelson, of San Francisco.
Sarah Yahm
is a graduate student in the new Social Documentation
program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In addition
to making shortlists she’s working on a radio documentary about a
former insane asylum in rural New England.
Original Shortlists Call Out Page
Additional support for this work provided by
with funding from
10 Comments on “Shortlists”
Links to “Shortlists”
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[...] a story with the title at the end. These are endlessly interesting. We have a feature of this on Transom.org, so you can check there to listen, or submit your [...]
Use this board for questions or comments about the Day To Day/Transom "Short List" project
The instructions say "read it for about 60 seconds"…
if I’m going to produce a piece, what is the max length, including title, description at end?
thanks
jdeer
There’s no hard limit. It just needs to hold up. If it feels too long, it is.
Is this going to be an ongoing project, or is there an end date? I’ve submitted one, but may have more later. If submitting more than one, do they need to be together?
Once a web-posted submission is acknowledged, does it need to be left on the site or has it been downloaded?
Thanks.
Keep ‘em coming. We’re getting some good ones and forwarding to Day To Day now. They’ll make the call about what airs. You can email the Transom Team about your last question. editorial@transom.org.
Just to let you know, this project is bearing all sorts of good fruit. We’ve been passing the pieces on to Day To Day and they’ve aired a lot. You can audition them here at the NPR site.
We’re also putting them on our Cape & Islands station and have issued an on-air call for local listeners to phone up with their own lists, with lovely results.
Before too long, we’ll do a Transom SHOW feature with all the best ones. You’ll like it.
If you’ve been thinking about doing one, do.
short lists?
Remember “Short Lists”? It was a project we started a few years ago, described like this: A Short List is made from your experience or research or daily life. You read it out loud for about 60 seconds and then tell us at the end what the list WAS. It’s a story, with the title at the end. The grace is in the mystery.
Transom collaborated with our local public radio station WCAI and NPR’s Day To Day and put out a call. Radio producers made elegant produced pieces. Regular people just called our listener line and started talking when they heard the beep.
We’ve gathered a dozen of these Short Lists to feature on Transom. It’s not too late to submit one of your own. Check it out.
http://www.transom.org/shows/2007/200705_shortlists/
Thanks to those who were inspired enough by the Shortlist Show to send us a shortlist of their own. It’s still not too late to submit one. Keep them coming.
Also, when we first posted the show, we made a mistake and didn’t activate the TALK feature which meant people couldn’t post their thoughts/comments. We’ve fixed that now. So if you have anything to say about shortlists please, log on and post.
You can’t say much about a shortlist without giving away what they’re about. So, without further adieu…
Diane Bock
Kathy Dahlen
Maria Howe
Evan Johnston
Jenifer Johnson
Lisa Tharpe