Days and Times: We 6:00-8:50pm
Room: 325 Thackeray Hall
Instructor: Erin Anderson
This course is a pre-approved elective for Spring Term 2019.

In recent years, we’ve seen podcasting move from a niche medium to a widespread cultural phenomenon—and a booming industry. In this context, narrative audio is now arguably the most fertile ground for writers looking to take their work off of the page to connect with new audiences. In this workshop, we’ll seize the opportunity that this moment affords, coming together across genres to explore our craft in this burgeoning medium.

In this course, you should expect to dedicate yourself to a single, substantive work of narrative audio—either nonfiction/documentary or fiction/drama—which you’ll carry from concept to completion with support and insight from your fellow students. While your ideas may evolve over the course of the semester, you should plan to come to the workshop with a solid concept for a project that you’d like to pursue, which you’ll then pitch, record, script, edit, mix, and polish, aiming to leave the class with a roughly 20-minute broadcast-quality story. 

In keeping with the workshop format, you’ll be asked to provide detailed feedback on your peers’ work at various stages throughout the process—and to offer up your own work-in-progress for written and oral critique. While our primary texts in the course will be your own stories, we’ll also learn from focused discussions on the craft of established audio producers, which each of you will be responsible for selecting and presenting to the class.

This course does not presume prior experience with audio editing or production. It’s designed for writers from all backgrounds. However, please note that we will not devote significant time in class to step-by-step technical instruction. Instead, you’re expected to take a proactive role in your own learning, drawing on video tutorials, lab assistant hours, and hands-on in-class editing sessions to develop and sharpen your skills. I’m a firm believer that the best way to learn this stuff is to dive into it—with a supportive community and a project you’re excited to work on. This is your chance!