Over the Transom | 05.02.25
New workshops and a Catalina student takeover
ANNOUNCEMENT: We’re thrilled to tell you about not one but two upcoming training opportunities, both led by Transom’s lead teacher, David Weinberg.
We’re excited to say that we’re headed to Germany! We’ve been invited to teach a unique workshop at The Berlin School of Podcasting focused on crafting powerful audio stories about freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Over the course of the week (July 20-27), participants in the workshop will learn every stage of audio documentary production — from story development and reporting to editing and mixing. The workshop will be held at Publix, a vibrant new institution dedicated to supporting journalism and press freedom in Europe and around the world.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to explore Berlin and connect with some of the incredible international journalists in residence at Publix. In addition to instruction from David, special guest Sarah Koenig of Serial will join to provide a masterclass on narrative journalism.
For more information and to apply, visit The Berlin School of Podcasting.
But that’s not all! After a hiatus of many years, we’ll be returning to the beautiful Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan for a Transom Traveling Workshop this August. We have spots for ten beginning and early-career students. If you want to take the next step in your audio journey, come join us for a week of intensive training from David and a producer from Interlochen Public Radio's award-winning Points North podcast. Applications are due on May 30. Scholarships are available.
Transom Workshop alumni have gone on to work at NPR, public radio member stations across the country, nearly every major podcast company, and as award-winning independent producers. This is the perfect opportunity for those who want to learn more about field recording, interviewing, digital editing, script writing, and narration. You'll go from zero to finished story in just one week, meet a cohort of like-minded peers, and get to explore an absolutely beautiful place.
What’s new on Transom
The Return of the Traveling Workshop
When the world went on lockdown during the COVID pandemic, we had to cancel the Traveling workshops for the foreseeable future. The intensive, in-person workshops have always been one of the most rewarding things we've done at Transom and we missed them terribly. After five long years, we were finally in a place to bring them back, so we reached out to David Weinberg to see if he would be interested teaching. Since 2014, David had been the teaching assistant to Transom's long-time superstar instructor Rob Rosenthal at Traveling Workshops in Boston, Catalina Island, and the Virgin Islands. David wrote back with an enthusiastic ‘Yes!’ The Traveling Workshop on Catalina Island was our inaugural workshop "reboot," and we couldn't be happier about how it all went. Something special happens at these audio storytelling immersions and we wanted to bring you a behind-the-scenes look at how magical these week-long workshops can be.
David is also spearheading a campaign to save the small, mighty, and beloved KISL 88.7 FM, the community radio station on Catalina Island that hosted Transom for many years. To read more and donate to the GoFundMe, click the link below:
Catalina student takeover!
For the rest of this week’s edition of Over the Transom, we’re handing things over to a few students from our recent workshop on Catalina Island. Olivia Hewitt, Loane Bouguennec and Lusen Mendel give a peek into the beauty of what happens during these workshops and what they took with them.
Olivia Hewitt: “There is magic to be found in an intentional moment of confusion.”
On the upper level of a yellow house tucked between Catalina Island’s rolling hills, twelve of us gathered eagerly around the kitchen table. Coffees, notebooks and pastries dotted the table as our instructor, David, talked to us about writing stories in a way that makes sense for audio. He said something that I scribbled down in my notebook and has stuck with me since: most stories are loops that repeat, mini mysteries that keep getting resolved, and then new questions emerge. David talked about how as storytellers, we may have the desire to explain things in our story right away, but that actually there is magic to be found in an intentional moment of confusion or tension left unresolved for a moment in the story. There’s intrigue in not knowing exactly where you’re going but trusting your narrator to guide you to somewhere meaningful.
I decided to give this approach a try, and started the story I produced over the course of the week with a mini mystery.
It was fun to create some intentional confusion about why I was in Traci’s kitchen and what we were doing. It made the simple sounds in her kitchen–jars clinking, the spray bottle spraying–feel less like noise and more like clues.
I think one of the reasons this idea of mini mysteries stuck out to me was because that’s what the week on Catalina Island with Transom felt like, too. Dotted with mini mysteries that, by the end of the week, had all somehow satisfyingly resolved themselves. What was this island all about? What would the people we were interviewing be like? Each of us went off to conduct our interviews — in barbershops and paddling out to boats and in people’s homes — in search of answers to our own mini mysteries.
And then, there was the big question: What was the point of this week? Why did we all care so much about audio storytelling? We all chose to lean into the unknown and follow this question to a small island with a group of strangers.
There is one more key element to using mini mysteries effectively. As I jotted down in my notebook: “there needs to be a payoff!” If the listener is going to endure the unknown and confusion that you’re putting them through, they should be rewarded. The answer should feel satisfying or surprising.
On the last night of the workshop, after a listening party and a group dinner, none of us wanted to go to bed. We piled onto the couches, the chairs, and the floor of the upper living room, all eager to be in the room together one last time. We laughed and debated would-you-rather questions, gave each other advice and talked about the characters in our stories like they were old friends. The time crept past midnight, but even the early-to-bedders didn’t want to leave the living room. As I looked around the room, the answer to the mystery of the week was clear: it mattered so deeply because of the people I shared it with. The strangers I boarded a ferry with were now friends I hope to know forever. I hope we find ourselves in more living rooms over the years, diving into stories and braving the unknown together.
Loane Bouguennec: “How do you tell the story of a messy, human life with kindness?”
The inside of Smitty’s boat was shocking. He called it his “sixty foot yacht” but the inside told a different story. There was dog food on the ground, the beds were sheet-less, and the kitchen was hidden under piles of dishes. I nervously followed him with a microphone. I had met Smitty on a bench outside of the liquor store on Catalina. He seemed very kind and open—and since he was in his seventies, I assumed him to be wise. Not having yet found a subject for my audio story, I asked if I could interview him. Things started out great as we explored the island through his eyes. I appreciated his eagerness to show me his favorite taco restaurant and take me on walks with his beautiful golden retriever. But, as I interacted more with Smitty, I came to see him as someone different than who I thought he was. I appreciated his openness as he shared his greatest feats (like launching a successful company) but also expressed frustration and loneliness. But as he shared his story I realized that his narrative didn't always match the perspectives of those in his life—his family or the Catalina community. Our conversations increasingly centered on a worldview to which I was unsympathetic and I started to sense a lack of openness in listening to each other. In three days, I had collected hours of tape to produce a story in which I no longer liked the main character. I had no idea how to approach the story with both kindness and authenticity – to create an accurate portrayal while also respecting him and the trust he had placed in me.
The rest of the workshop had already heard a lot about Smitty—so when it came time to write the script their questions and ideas helped guide my story. How do you tell the story of a messy, human life with kindness? Is it unethical to share details of his intimate space? How do you embed the initial excitement for a story that you no longer possess? For a week, we dove into questions like these, in addition to our stories, through class, writing time, and informal conversations. By the end of the week-long workshop, I produced a short audio story that unpacked one side of Smitty—a story I felt was genuine but not mean. I learned many technical and narrative skills but my main take-away was how to find compassion for a person and story once you’ve lost it. The Transom Traveling Workshop is the audio fanatic’s dream but its lessons extend beyond the audio medium. The biggest joy of the workshop for me was finding such genuine connection with David, Ariella, and my peers. We spent a week obsessively working on our stories and gushing over each other's. We shared about our lives and laughed morning until night. I went into the workshop feeling incredibly burnt out but walked out invigorated by my story and my new friends (ones I admired and actually liked a lot).
Lusen Mendel: “Reflections on an aqua-audio experience.”
It was 7 in the morning, and my audio gear was already soaking wet.
I’d watched the sun rise above Avalon Harbor on a beautiful clear morning, and then pulled my hydrophone out of my backpack. A hydrophone can record sounds underwater… unlike the rest of my audio gear, which not only works best with air-based sound transmission, but stubbornly refuses to work after taking a dip.
The scene of the recorder dunking was Dive Park. The park sits at the end of a rocky pier stretching around the harbor. It’s the perfect place for open water swimming and scuba diving – and recording audio of those activities. I’d decided to make a radio story about Suzy Degazon, a scuba diving instructor who brings an infectious joy to her morning swims, and now it was time to collect some of that sweet underwater ambi. Recorder in hand and headphones on head, I walked down the concrete steps that led into the ocean and dropped my hydrophone into the sea like I was fishing for tunes.
The waves lapping the stairs seemed gentle, but through the mic, the rush and crash of water overshadowed the sound of anyone swimming or diving nearby. I fiddled and strained, walking down another step, and then another, my pants getting wetter and wetter, and my recorder held higher and higher in the air… until suddenly it wasn’t high enough for that one wave I didn’t see coming.
I learned two important lessons at the Transom Traveling Workshop that day:
First, if you whisper sweet ASMR nothings into your field recorder while it air dries, and then feed it fresh batteries and tasty SD cards to distract it from error-filled grumblings, it may decide to forgive you.
Second, living with audio makers is not only fun for discussing ideas and edits, but also useful when you need a pair of dry hands to hold a field recorder safely above the water line (thank you Malya!). Our intrepid TA, Ariella, even jumped into the ocean to hold the hydrophone underwater out beyond the breaking waves.
Ocean recording is a two person game – at minimum! And so is making audio documentaries. The Transom Traveling Workshop was an empowering experience. I left the week with a complete feature, and confidence from working through each obstacle along the way with both guidance and celebration. Most of all, I left with a network of audio pals. Our late night career conversations have evolved into phone calls to share support and pitch ideas. After the workshop, my pals gave me feedback on a monstrous piece I’d been working on for months before I finally pitched it to a local radio station. The piece aired on Crosscurrents on KALW on April 24th. It’s my first KALW feature. And my Transom workshop piece is scheduled to air on The California Report Magazine on KQED later this Spring, as is another piece from workshop pal Steven Rascón.
Community corner
This week’s question: are you a Transom Story Workshop alum? Keep the application inspiration rolling and tell us what your favorite part of the experience was in the comments!
I needed this. Thank you DW.