Transom Podcast

“Blind Parenting” on PRX

About Blind Parenting

In my previous, and now current podcast, I spend a lot of time satirizing this and that aspect of other people’s lives. So I found the task of doing an actual story about my own life daunting. But only once I tried to do it.

When we started, I figured Maura and I would just crap out something in a few days, and then I’d get back to my other less interesting projects. I was so excited at the chance to do something for Transom, and felt lucky to have the topic I was producing a story about be personal, as opposed to factual or journalistic. Talking about ourselves will be a piece of cake! Nope. It turns out to be a lot harder to tell a compelling story than to just make fun of everything. I’m not sure we accomplished that, but we at least got to turn our sarcastic ray gun on ourselves for a change. By the time we finished, the breezy feeling I had about the process was gone. The whole thing was humbling, and a total departure from my normal projects. I do think we came up with something worth listening to though, which certainly makes sense in this medium.

“My normal projects”, include talkies for various “helpful white people” centers here in Buffalo. Those folks while very helpful, typically have no idea what they want in their videos. So, my partner and I just interview all the directors of whosits and assistant liaisons to the whatever, and then hunker down with lots of coffee to put together the jigsaw. When we present the final cut, the client is usually so amazed to see themselves on a screen that context and consistency don’t really matter. Even worse is the fact that the praise we receive leaves us feeling all arrogant. “Man, we totally floored those non-profit outreach consultants. We must be awesome!” So this story, as one of the first things I’ve ever done with any professional scrutiny attached, forced me to think very closely about what I was trying to say. That’s great for the end result of course, but also a bit like hanging out with a drunk version of yourself who keeps telling you exactly why you totally suck.

The other thing that I kept having to tell myself was to stop rambling and get to the point! We had so many ideas of how to go about it that we both found it hard to keep the narrative at times. It’s hard to remember that your listeners may not know anything about your topic, so you need to stay clear and concise. This of course constantly led me to editing down our crazy stream of consciousness to something more closely resembling sentences. It really could’ve been an hour-long without much effort. It has made me rethink the way I record. Better outlines are in my future. It also really made me want to try my hand at producing other people’s stories, because I had things pointed out to me that I think would’ve been obvious were I not both writing and recording the story myself. And this was just a silly little story about ourselves. I now have a much deeper respect for those radio producers who interview people as they’re strapped into the electric chair, or file reports live from directly under a mushroom cloud. It makes what I do seem easy.

What we came up with is basically a snapshot of some of our thoughts and fears about raising children as blind people. Part audio diary, and part self reassurance session. I’m proud of the fact that our story is just the type of radio I enjoy most. I could care less about ultra-serious radio like political shouting matches and other miseries, so I’m glad our piece stayed light and conversational.

About the Gear

Technically speaking, I used an Audio Technica 2021 with a Zoom R16 for the recordings at our Mom’s house, and talked to my Dad on the phone while he rec...

[“Portrait of the Bully as a Young Man” on PRX](%20http://www.prx.org/pieces/75197-being-a-bully "PRX Piece")

About Portrait of the Bully as a Young Man

Sometime in the fall of 2010, after I had seen or heard or read another bullying story about terrible things happening to young people, I realized that the coverage of these terrible things was totally devoid of young people’s voices.

I started thinking that Generation PRX – the youth radio project I direct for PRX – could do something to change this. The 60 or so youth radio groups in the network encompass hundreds of teen producers or, put another way, a huge pool of actual experts on bullying. How could we give their stories more of an audience?

But sometimes, fields lay fallow a while. It took nearly a year before a grant came in to officially move the project forward (that project became Bullied: Teen Stories from Generation PRX, an hour-long special produced by Catie Talarski and Connecticut Public Radio). In the meanwhile, I put a call out to the GPRX network, I edited a story on bullying for Under the Sun in Miami, and I brought the idea of bullying to my students at the Long Creek Youth Development Center here in Maine. Which is when Jeff offered this: I’ve BEEN a bully. And not only have I been a bully, I’ve been a TERRIBLE bully. And the guy who expelled me? Works here now. I’ll talk about it.

And so it began.

Some Background or, Why this was all Terribly Uncomfortable

For the past 5 years, I’ve been Blunt Youth Radio Project’s Senior Producer for their Incarcerated Youth Speak Out Program. Along with Founder and Director (and unstoppable force of nature) Claire Holman, we teach radio broadcasting twice a week to 16-20 year-olds locked up at the Long Creek Youth Development Center. We use iMacs (remember those?) and MiniDisc recorders (and those?), and the kids spend six weeks producing features, which are then broadcast during Blunt’s regular weekly slot on WMPG. Students who have earned facility clearance come to the station to live host the show. Watching the kids on air – proud, nervous and getting through it all – ranks as some of the most exhilarating and rewarding teaching I’ve done. For many of the students, it’s the first time they are performing in public as well as the first time they experience the power of being listened to. They own that show, in every sense.

Long Creek Youth Development Center

So when Jeff offered to do a story on being a bully, we always assumed that the students in the class would produce it. They took turns interviewing Jeff, the principal, and local bullying authorities. They started to write and record tracking. But then the story started to get more complicated. It took longer. One by one, each of the other students was released from the jail. And finally, it was up to me, Claire and Jeff to see it through. Transom provided just the right motivation.

I should say off the bat: I’ve never tried this kind of collaboration before. I’ve been teaching radio to teens for nearly 10 years, but the roles have always been clear. The students produce, voice, imagine, create; I facilitate, guide, help where needed. Part of what I love about teaching radio is staying behind the scenes and witnessing my students arrive in themselves as storytellers.

With this piece, I found myself acting as both reporter and teacher, and what I discovered was…palpable inner conflict. As a teacher, if there’s tension or danger, I step in right away. I take seriously my obligation to keep the environment sa...

“Bucky’s Dome” on PRX

About “Bucky’s Dome”

One of the biggest challenges I faced was condensing all of the information I had into a manageable story that makes sense. Buckminster Fuller was a philosopher, architect, inventor, author, dreamer – he was multi-faceted in a way that is rare these days. I needed to convey that without giving a long lecture. Jay Baldwin’s pithy quotes were immensely helpful for that section.

Also, pardon the gory radio term, but I had to shoot some puppies.* The two men who worked at The Dome Restaurant for many years had a surprisingly sweet friendship that I expected would be a bigger part of the story. My classmates gave me many gentle nudges to cut this section, which I stubbornly ignored. Rob even said something like “maybe you don’t have time to talk a whole lot about these two guys in your story.” I thought: of course not. I talk about them exactly the right amount. There also used to be a section of the story where Bucky contemplated suicide. He was 32 and considered himself a failure and a disgrace to his family. I thought this made his accomplishments more interesting and weighty. I even had archival tape of him talking about this part of his life. Ultimately, I realized these tangents caused narrative whiplash. Suicide! Norwegian exchange student! Disco music! What?! You can’t cover 4,000 topics in a ten minute story. It’s too confusing, and the goal is clarity.

*To shoot your puppies means to cut moments you love out of your story. It’s tough, but if something’s really not part of the story it often has to go.

Listen to More Pieces from this Story Workshop Class

“The D-Word” on PRX

About The D-Word

What is the D-Word? – It’s a 30-minute documentary that attempts to explore our rather neurotic relationship with that five-letter word: death.

It was produced as part of my thesis project for an MSc in Science Media Production at Imperial College London and so is my first try at producing a feature length documentary piece. It explores the subject through the voices of those who deal with death on a regular basis and is my attempt at making sense of a particularly complex human issue.

Why Death?

It’s a subject that resonates with me personally – just under two years ago a close friend of mine decided to take his own life. Being 23 at the time, death wasn’t really something I’d had much ‘experience’ with and I found it particularly difficult to make sense out of what had happened. I realized that I’d gone through most of my life not having to confront or even think about death. It was through this event that I was forced to finally pay attention.

At the time there was a huge degree of emotional confusion and I often felt many different, conflicting things at the same time. Grief, anger, guilt and apathy were all things that I experienced and I never knew what it was that I was meant to be feeling. I had no point of reference.

I also discovered that experiencing death in this way was quite isolating – people don’t like talking about death (it makes them nervous I think) and they treat you differently as a result – I believe that this stems from the fact that most people don’t really know how to talk about death anymore.

Delving into Death

Following all this, I really wanted to create something that delved into the subject of death and attempted to address some of the issues, which I myself had experienced. As such it became a very personal project, but I was keen to avoid focusing upon my own experiences. Instead I used them more as a guide to allow me to ask the right questions.

A hospital mortuary

Travelling to the north of England, I went to visit pathologist Dr Stuart Hamilton at the mortuary of the Sunderland Royal Infirmary. This was one of the most interesting interviews I recorded for the piece, but one I entered into with the greatest trepidation.

I simply didn’t know what I was going to encounter, I’d never been to a hospital mortuary before. It obviously brought thoughts of my friend’s death to the forefront of my mind, but at the same time, there was no denying that I felt a sense of excitement. As a Biology graduate it’s hard to gross me out, so there was a real sense of fascination accompanying my visit to the mortuary. It felt like I was getting a rare opportunity to peer into a world which most people would not ordinarily see.

There was some apprehension as I first entered the central refrigeration room. The temperature drops immediately as you step into it, causing the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up in the most cliché of ways. The mortuary was also a sonically rich environment, with the mechanical hum of the refrigeration units becoming one of the dominant characteristics of the room.

When Stuart later came to open up the doors of the refrigeration units, it was as if he purposefully intended to ramp up the suspense, opening several of the doors before we eventually came to one with a body lying inside. It was strange looking in at that body, once belonging to a conscious being, but now covered by a white sheet. But it was strange not because of any fear or repulsion. It was because I didn’t really have any reaction to it. I think that surprised me.

Death is what it is…

What was obvious from this interview, and in fact all of the subsequent interviews, was that death was a very normal part of life. Those I interviewed demonstrated that death shouldn’t be something that we fe...

“Splash” on PRX

Who did What to WHOM!?

My memory’s not what it once was. But hearing a certain name made an instant connection with the past.

A prominent Tampa lawyer was murdered by his ex-wife. She snapped, drove to his new home and shot him six times. I got a cold chill when the victim was ID’d. I’d known him as a neighborhood kid decades ago when we played kid games.

But the part of the story I couldn’t shake was what his ex did after emptying her revolver. She drove to the nearby Sunshine Skyway Bridge and jumped nearly 200 feet into Tampa Bay. The cosmic joke was on her. Instead of evading an ugly trial and lifetime lockup, she survived.

Now I’d heard about plenty of jumpers who’d used the Sunshine Skyway to exit life. But somebody who actually lived to tell about it?

I’m no fan of gruesome movies or TV, but morbid curiosity took over. What thoughts do bridge jumpers have a second after their feet leave the wall? How does it feel to hit choppy water at 75 miles per hour? How do their broken bodies stay afloat until rescued?

And would this make a good radio story?

Thank goodness for a certain four-letter word.

Luck. I had none of it while trying to set up an interview with the ex-wife in her new home at the state pen. We got a little correspondence going, but it ended abruptly when a letter bounced back “Return to Sender.” Either she decided not to participate or the prison system wouldn’t allow it.

Hanns Jones

I was hitting dead ends trying to contact a few other surviving jumpers.

Then luck struck. A survivor named Hanns Jones actually returned my email. After a few phone calls convincing him I wasn’t out to exploit his story for ill-gotten gain (I explained it was for public radio), he agreed to an interview.

Magic. I couldn’t have asked for a better storyteller. Or a jumper so willing to volunteer all the painful and emotional details of his ordeal. Or a voice that could paint the picture like a colorful character in a movie.

Driving away from that first interview with Hanns, holding the tiny speaker on my flash recorder up to my ear, the cartoon light bulb flashed on overhead: “Holy crap! This guy can carry the piece. Who needs a detached narrator when you’ve got the glue to hold it all together, a strong story arc and a commanding voice, all in one.”

All I had to do was take a zillion bits and pieces, assemble them into a coherent story, and orchestrate with other sonic ingredients.

After I found Hanns (a gift from the radio gods?) everything fell into place like few things in life ever do. Even when I hit the occasional speed bump, a solution presented itself that made the piece better.

You’ve heard that luck is some combination of preparation, perspiration and inspiration. I agree — up to a point. But there’s another kind that you can’t account for or prep for. The kind that comes out of the blue like lightning. You don’t need it to make great radio. But it’s a game changer when it happens.

What’s with all the sound design you ask?

Ever notice that the soundtracks of most film and video docs are more complex and better crafted than radio documentaries? Why be self-limiting, unless the piece is pure journalism? Why not use every tool available, including music, atmospheres and SFX?

Strong sound design was always part of my plan, but it also served a practical purpose. I needed it to cover wind-damaged portions of Hanns’ dialogue (micro editing also helped). I wasn’t prepared for the 15-25 mph gusts off the bay in our first interview. My bad. We recorded in calmer locations after that.

I might’ve gone lighter on sound design if the piece had traditional narration. But Hanns’ unflinching willingness to tell his personal story made it a good fit. Really, a perfect fit to elevate “Splash” to impressionist...

“The Memory Palace” on PRX

A Favorite Episode of Nate DiMeo’s: Nee Weinberg

I recently asked my, um, my Facebook group, to suggest which episode I should post for this thing. I guessed that opinion would coalesce around a few of the crowd pleasing-est. I was wrong. The suggestions were all over the place (even citing a couple that I can’t really even listen to anymore). It was nice. People like what they like. So, here’s one I like. One of the toughest things about doing a biography piece like this one is that people’s lives, even interesting lives, aren’t stories just because they naturally have a beginning and an end and some exciting incidents in between. Ethan Weinberg lived a hell of a life but it still took me a hair shy of forever to find the story. Felt like an accomplishment when it was done. Then there are a couple of writing things I like in there. A couple of music things that I doubt anyone would ever notice, but I enjoy. Not too many things that make me cringe. So: here you go. This one’ll do. Sounds like The Memory Palace.

What it is.

When I posted my first episode of The Memory Palace, the description on iTunes read like this:

“From award winning public radio producer, Nate DiMeo, comes The Memory Palace. Short, surprising stories of the past, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, always super-great. For history buffs, fans of public radio shows like This American Life, RadioLab, and whatnot, and for all admirers of things that are super-great.”

Two years later, it says pretty much the same thing (except I noticed that Radiolab doesn’t have a gratuitous second capital, however, note: my last name does). Though the awards that make “award-winning” technically true are further in the past, the description is still essentially accurate. The Memory Palace is a pretty simple thing: short history stories put to music. They’ve gotten a little longer since then but most still float around the 6-minute range. They’re much more often heartbreaking than hysterical (though “bittersweet” is a decent blanket descriptor). But it’s still the same, small show.

Its audience has gotten pretty big, as podcasts go. Pieces from the series have aired on public radio shows like Here and Now, KUOW Presents, BackStory, (of the gratuitous second capital), REMIX (of the gratuitous four capitals), KCRW’s Unfictional, KUT’s O’ Dark 30, and others, largely thanks to PRX. In March it was a “guest podcast” on Slate.com. The folks at boingboing.net seem to post about nearly every new episode when it comes out (which may drive the most traffic and new subscribers of any of them). And it’s opened the door for other, weird things that I’ll get into in a bit.

Each episode seems to take forever. I will often become queasy when an ending isn’t working as well as I think it should. I will sometimes lose sleep trying to find a piece of music that fits the description “the sound of a life-time of drudgery with moments of false hope that builds to defiant—edging toward transcendent—resolve.” But when the pieces are done I usually feel kind of elated for a good 11 to 27 hours. And then a gnawing dread sets in as I start thinking about the next one.

It has earned me hundreds of dollars.

“How did he achieve such incredible success?” you ask.

A few years ago (no: several, now) I was working at Marketplace as an editor/producer and wanted out. Not that Marketplace wasn’t/isn’t great, it was/is, but I wanted to make something of my own. I was a good editor but I wanted to be a reporter. I was a good producer but wanted to produce my own show. So I left.

On my way out the door, I pitched a concept for a weekly,

A Favorite Episode of Roman’s: 99% Symbolic

Although I have a hard time pulling out one episode to represent all of 99% Invisible, I chose this one about the design of city flags because I had the most fun making it. During production, I found I couldn’t say “vexillology” very well (that’s the proper name for the study of flags), and rather than practice it until I got it right, I incorporated that into the show. I even set up my wife (who provides the voice of the NAVA guidebook) to say it for the first time on tape, knowing she’d screw up, too. It was all a devious plan. This show also explored a topic that I had been wondering about for years and I think you can detect the excitement in my voice.

About 99% Invisible

I’m terrible at pitching stories and I’ve never felt particularly skilled at producing radio pieces for other people. I like making my own shows. Shows, not pieces. There’s something about the way a collection of stories in a show answers “the question” over time (usually over an hour), which makes it a more satisfying product than a single radio piece. However, I can’t produce a standard length, weekly radio show all by myself anymore. That’s why I love producing a thematic, ongoing series like 99% Invisible.

It’s a tiny radio show (averaging 5 minutes) about all the thought that goes into things most people don’t even bother thinking about. I lucked into the job when KALW and the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects decided to collaborate on an “architecture minute” series of modules to run during their local presentation of Morning Edition. I signed on to produce the pilot and found that this world of design and architecture was the perfect lens to view all kinds of stories that I loved.

Because the show is short, it’s relatively cheap and manageable. With the help of AIA-SF and KALW, 99% Invisible got connected with a local design company called LUNAR that generously underwrites half of this year’s budget (we’re still figuring out how to get the rest). Because it’s ongoing, I get to produce stories about all kinds of things, creating a scatter diagram of sorts, and the resulting regression line is the thesis of the program. Week to week, I add one data point and the central idea of the show adjusts slightly. In this way, I get to actually finish and lock a story, but the narrative continues on as the program explores all aspects of design:

big things

little things

things abstract

things concrete

The stories come to me in a variety of ways. The AIA-SF has assembled a couple of meetings with local architects, engineers and designers who serve as the show’s brain trust. Picking the right story is a lot about picking something I know I can address adequately in four minutes. The subject has to be a little surprising and open your eyes to something you may not have noticed before.

The big pitfall of other design related journalism is that it tends to focus on glorifying objects. That doesn’t interest me. I’m only interested in the story of objects. Occasionally, I’ll violate this mandate and gush about the greatness of maps, but I try to keep that at a minimum. It’s story over glory. I usually only start a piece when I have some kind of hook that makes it fun to produce. This could be an audio sample I want to use, or a joke I think will be funny, or some clever use of music I envision. The need to scratch that itch moves that idea to the ...

“Scene of the Crime” on PRX

About Scene of the Crime

This summer I traveled to Colombia on a 10-day fact finding mission organized by Witness for Peace, a Washington-based social justice organization. Witness for Peace had scheduled ten long days of interviews with human rights activists, union leaders, displaced farmers, and witnesses and victims of paramilitary violence. I’m a private investigator and working on a graduate degree in Legal Studies focusing on human rights investigations, so the delegation to the Magdalena and Cesar regions of Colombia was right up my alley. The focus of the trip was Human Rights violations, corporate abuse, and internally displaced persons, specifically in relation to lawsuits against Dole, Chiquita and Drummond Mine Company. As a law student I was interested in the legal issues of bringing allegations of human rights abuses in U.S. courts. As an investigator I was interested in the difficulties of gathering evidence of crimes that occurred years ago and in another country.

I’m also an avid NPR listener and I’ve always been interested in radio documentaries. At least once a week I come across a subject and think, “this would be a great radio piece”. It seemed like the Colombia trip had all the makings for a compelling radio documentary. So about a month before my trip I sent an email to Transom.org to see if they could suggest someone to produce a radio piece regarding the ties between these multi-national corporations operating in Colombia and paramilitary terrorists. The next thing I knew, recording equipment was arriving by FedEx. My intention was to produce an investigative piece, not a reflection on my experiences. But as Jay Allison told me, “You know you have a good story when it’s not the one you intended to tell.”

I had read about similar lawsuits, where the plaintiff’s are trying to prove in U.S. courts that crimes were committed in another country, crimes that occurred years ago. As an investigator I’ve been involved in death-scene investigations, but the body was usually still warm…or at least there was a body. In the Chiquita lawsuit there are nearly 250 victims, and in the Dole lawsuit there are over 50 more. That’s 300 crime scenes, 300 bodies. Of course, in reality, there aren’t any crimes scenes; the crime scenes have been gone for years. And there aren’t any bodies, unless they’re dug up. How were the plaintiffs going to prove any of this? And I have seen cases were people that were thought to be dead were found to be very much alive. Could that be happening here? I was fascinated. I still am.

The challenges in Colombia began right away. As an investigator I’m used to working on my own. But in Colombia I was in a group with nine others and two group leaders. The leaders of the group were terrific and had done a great job scheduling meetings and interviews, but working in a group is always difficult, especially when it comes to conducting interviews. The group interviews were less focused than I would have liked, and the background noise made effective recording impossible. So I ended up sitting through the incredibly long group meetings, and then asking for a private interview in a quiet environment where I could more intently probe. Because we were on a tight schedule I missed some good interview opportunities and the chance to record background noise and ambiance that would have come in handy during production.

One of the first people we met was Edguardo Cabrara, a human rights activist. He became our guide to the plaintiffs and their stories. Edguardo took us to speak with a group of fishermen and their families who had been displaced by paramilitary violence and now lived in Boca de Aracataca, a mudflat next to the Magdalena River. As rain poured down on us,

“Inside the Adoption Circle” on PRX

About Inside the Adoption Circle

Adoption reveals some profound but basic aspects of the human story. It’s an act of caring, love and bravery. An emphatic and ancient statement about human nature, it is also rife with questions about identity. We wanted to get to the stories that live inside those questions.

In the fall of 2007 Sam had been having long conversations with her friend Kira who had recently gone through the process of adopting a child. That experience got Kira wondering about the stories rarely heard outside the world of adoption – particularly those of birth parents.

Kira’s adoption coordinator, Miriam Rand, introduced us (Sam and Viki) to the concept of the “silent triad” that exists in every adoption – birth parents, adoptee, and adoptive families. Suddenly adoption stories began cropping up everywhere. At the mention of the word, everyone around us seemed to have some connection to adoption – it was almost uncanny, like supressed memory resurfacing. A long-time friend revealed his aunt was actually his birth mother. Another suddenly recalled a family member who had been placed for adoption. Even we began to remember connections to adoption in our own lives. For some adoption still carried a stigma which made the subject even more compelling.

Kira and Miriam, helped connect us to people willing to talk about their stories, and we began interviewing in the spring of 2008. Our objective was to speak with every possible player in adoption: birth parents, adoptive families, and adoptees including every configuration we could find: domestic, international, cross cultural, open and closed adoptions. We spoke to gay and heterosexual adoptive parents. We spoke with people who had reunited with their birth families, some who were still searching and others who were undecided.

From the start of our interviews we were stunned by how eager everyone was to talk to us, as if they had been waiting for the chance to speak. We offered anonymity to encourage everyone to speak freely, yet in the end, many agreed to give their names. Some closed their eyes when they spoke, some started off with defensive body language but grew closer and closer to the mic, some got so quiet, and some couldn’t say enough. There were plenty of long pauses. Our time spent in each interview, even in production, was awash in vulnerability, doubt and denial, the conviction, the fantasies, the quiet revealment and for all of us, the unanswerable questions.

Interviews in hand, logged and cut, we searched for an organizing principle. We wanted to avoid narration and rely on the voices and stories to shepherd the listener. At first we tried a collage of random voices speaking from all sides of adoption leading to a specific theme with a deeper story, but it was too confusing.

Jay Allison suggested we keep voices together by role like orchestras do separating reeds from brass from strings. We sectioned adoptees, from birth families from adoptive families. Jay also felt some minimal narration would provide listeners with “signposts” along the way and help move the piece forward. Thanks, Jay and thanks to Kira Jones and Miriam Rand for help making it happen. Most especially, our thanks to all those who opened up and let us in.

Additional Support for this work provided by

“Finding Miles” on PRX

About Finding Miles from Sarah Reynolds

I first knew Miles as Megan back in college. When he decided to transition from female to male, he gave me a call. He was slowly coming out to his friends as transgender — testing them, really — to see who he could still count on. The radio producer in me kicked in and I thought, this is quite a story about to unravel. I pitched him the idea and he agreed to do it: we would document his transition for radio.

We began in November of 2008. I taught Miles how to use the gear and he used it for just over a year. In the beginning, he would mostly sit in his room and record at the end of the day very quietly. Miles is shy (as he’ll tell you himself) and when he took the recorder with him, he would often walk around with the mic under his arm or in his bag. But slowly he grew comfortable and more willing to take the gear with him.

As he went, he would send me audio files through an FTP site. I downloaded them and listened along the way, jotting down questions and suggestions about what else I wanted to hear. We met up in person and checked in on the phone every few weeks and each time we did, I recorded him.

One of the most challenging things for me was producing through his voice change. Miles began taking testosterone about five months after we began our recording. If I didn’t keep right up with the tape each week and get everything I thought I needed, I wouldn’t be able to get it again. But as we know, the story always shifts as you go along and it’s hard to get everything you need – especially when you’re not doing all the interviewing yourself. Miles’ voice deepened quickly and at a certain point, I only had a deeper voiced Miles to reflect on what had already happened.

By the end of 2009, Miles had gone through surgery, was further into testosterone treatment, out at work, in life, at home and this chapter of his life came to a natural conclusion – always a good place to end a radio piece. I listened to every minute of tape and pulled together a story – only part of a story, really – but one that captures Megan to Miles and how he found a better space to fit into this crazy world of binaries. It was an amazing process to witness and one that still continues beyond this piece of radio. Miles is courageous for sharing it.

About Finding Miles from Miles Taylor

I can honestly say that today I am not the same person I was when I began recording my story during the winter of 2008. So much has happened over the past 18 months, I’m caught between feeling like it’s flown by in an incredibly profound blur and thinking it’s also been the longest, most hectic &#$% year and a half of my life!

This piece was made from probably over a hundred hours of tape (a tip of the hat to my producer, though that’s probably the last time she’ll ever tell anyone “More is better than less!”). Frankly, I think I got the easy end of this deal; all I had to do was carry around a microphone.

Transitioning is a once in a lifetime experience very few people get to have–although one which I would never want to go through again. As I got closer to starting hormones, I knew I wanted to document it in some way: journals, photos, videos. And it was right around that time when Sarah approached me about making an audio documentary. I’ve never been one for the spotlight so I surprised myself when I barely hesitated before saying yes; I also knew I would be putting myself into very trust worthy hands. One thing led to the next and we got the tape rolling.

The more I recorded the easier it got. People generally wouldn’t describe me as a ‘talker’ so having to talk and talk and talk (and then talk some more, especially all about myself) was a learning experience all together. But once I got into it,