I Survived Transom StoryLab
Perri Lynch Howard and Ulfat Shaikh - vox poppin’.
“What if history wasn’t taught in lecture halls, but was actually, physically beaten into you?” Thus begins my conversation with Stephen Weber, The Smith of Avalon, a modern day knight who graciously served as my subject for the Transom StoryLab radio journalism workshop last April on Catalina Island.
Five days. Nine aspiring audio nerds. Total radio bootcamp. Under the expert ears of industry pros David Weinberg and Ariella Markowitz, we learned everything from "Vox Popping" (aka politely accosting strangers on the street) to scripting, voice-over, and editing. It was intense, exhausting, and an absolute blast.
Our assignment was to contact a subject, conduct a sit-down interview, and edit a short form piece for radio. My interviewee, Stephen, is a self-proclaimed "history nerd" who also happens to practice Medieval Martial Arts (and no, I didn't have the guts to call him a nerd to his face). In 90 minutes, we discussed the failings of history academia, how to run a road race in a full suit of armor, and what makes a sword truly lethal. Needless to say, I learned a lot.
The hardest part was distilling all of that epic energy into a 7-minute radio feature. I couldn’t have done it without our incredible 9-person cohort—we lived, worked, and supported each other, deep in the trenches of audio, and all came out smiling! Voila, here it is. Stephen the Bold:
Stephen Weber, the Smith of Avalon (right) with opponent.