The creative adult is the child who survived.
Ursula Le Guin
When Kristy Scott (Podcast Movement’s Head of Sales) starts her day, she’s joined by Brisket, her three-year-old Frenchie—and Podcast Movement sales co-pilot.
“Every morning I say ‘let's go to work’ and he races to my office and plops down here on ‘his’ chair or on the floor next to me,” says Kristy. “His sleeping skills crush, but any time I get up to leave the room, no matter how deep the sleep, he gets up and joins me…because surely I'm grabbing him a snack (his second best skill).”
Do you have a pet who’s also your podcast companion? Send an email to noisegate@podcastmovement.com with a photo and a bit about them (and your podcast) for a chance to be featured in a future issue.
Industry game changers and valiant minds from creative professions share their wisdom, adversities, and paths to innovation.
Industry game changers and valiant minds from creative professions share their wisdom, adversities, and paths to innovation.
Leila Day, co-host of The Stoop, editor, and EPLeila Day is an editor, host, and award-winning showrunner with a focus on narrative podcasts with soul. She’s worked as an Executive Producer and editor at Pineapple Street Studios and as a senior reporter and editor at NPR’s KALW public radio. She's edited podcasts for Marvel, CBS, NPR, and others. Her passion for finding unique ways to combine journalism and personal story has resulted in multiple journalism awards, with her projects recognized in the New York Times, CNN, Essence magazine, Oprah, and more. Leila’s podcast, The Stoop is now in its 11th season, and is part of The Radiotopia Network.
One memorable mistake I learned from was one of my first pieces as a producer. I was interviewing an older couple in their late 80s and my thesis at school was, are older folks still having intimate sexual relationships? When I interviewed them, they wouldn’t answer the questions about sex. But they answered all the questions about love. I had this story in my mind that I wanted to create, and then I met the people and realized…this wasn't their story. Their story was about love, but not sexual love.
The best line from that piece was, “My peachy doesn't flutter, but something in my heart does.”
You have these perceptions as a producer, these preconceived notions of what your story is going to be. And it becomes something completely different because you build these relationships with people.
I love the short form of radio. But when I got into podcasting, I really enjoyed the fact that I could extend these stories and work with people for longer periods of time and really get into building all sorts of emotional arcs over multiple episodes.
As an editor, I absolutely love working with producers to help them craft and shape their stories. As an executive producer, I love putting teams together. Because I'm an editor and an executive producer, I'm able to jump into scripts with people and say, “Okay, let's figure this out together.”
Having a celebrity host doesn’t guarantee a show’s success. It's about how that person engages with the story and how the listener can relate to the host. If you have this all-knowing host coming in, and they're not going through any sort of process of understanding or questioning themselves, that’s not good.
I really enjoy the process of being stuck. If we knew what we were making all the time, it would be the blandest listening. The more you're stuck, the deeper you're going to think about it. I've worked on so many shows that being stuck is just one step in the creative process and you have to be stuck in order to come out on the other end.
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Sometimes I have an idea for a story—and I know other producers that do as well—and they sit on that story for months or years. I have a story I've been sitting on for years and I know it will come out at some point, but I know part of that process is letting things marinate, doing your reading, talking to people, getting different perspectives, and slowly building up to that point where you're like, okay, I'm ready to make this.
One of my most memorable moments was crying with LeVar Burton after he told us a story about his experience working on Roots. I've just met some dynamic, prolific, incredible writers, thinkers, and creators, and it’s really opened up my world.
It's a huge gift to have time to work on a show where you can take your time and really think deeply. There aren’t that many outlets allowing that type of space. So it's a gift for me personally to have The Stoop as my outlet. It’s been my creative therapy.
I've noticed that how I work goes in waves, which is why I'm glad The Stoop is seasonal. Creatively, I need the break between seasons. Maybe it's traveling somewhere, maybe it's just having very long walks and very quiet spaces. It might be literally lying on the warm cement and staring at the sky and looking at hawks fly by. In a moment like that is the breath I need. And then I come back really refreshed.
It doesn't hurt that I have multiple, incredible people in the audio world that have a very similar experience with creativity. I'll get little texts from people saying, “How are you feeling about that story? Do you have anything you want me to read?” When I'm stuck, they say, “Let's get on the phone, I want you to talk this out with me.” And they'll become my “friend editor.” They're taking notes and trying to frame what I'm trying to say. And that's the gift of having such a tight audio community.
When I started working in audio, I felt like I had found my people. I’m grateful to have a community of people to bounce ideas off of, go on long walks with to talk about what's next, and challenge and push ourselves creatively. It's very collaborative. It’s caring. And it's kept me going.
Do you wonder why we do the things we do? Why conversations go wrong? Why marriage has become so challenging? Hidden Brain is the podcast for you.
Hidden Brain explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world. Every episode offers a tasty treat for the mind—paired with a dose of truth for better relationships with loved ones, strangers, and ourselves.
Pro Storytelling Tip: How to Cut the BS
Whether you’re editing a tense documentary or an informative investment podcast, correcting your story to rinse out each trace of dullness is a major step toward hooking your viewer on every word. Here are a few tips I’ve stumbled over while plowing the fields of editing.
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– Doug
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