What makes a great story, and what makes a story sing in audio? Pushkin Industries senior producer and host Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey takes students through the process of building an audio story — from story-hunting, sourcing, reporting, and researching to drafting and editing. Drawing on his experience making chart-topping narrative shows Revisionist History and The Last Archive and working with authors such as Jill Lepore and Malcolm Gladwell, Naddaff-Hafrey teaches students how to look for stories and build them into full podcast episodes. Students should bring ideas for their own podcast episodes, as they learn to hone and build audio stories from the ground up.
At the end of the workshop, students will have made a short audio story.
Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey is a senior producer at Pushkin Industries, where he writes and hosts on Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History and The Last Archive, a podcast about the history of evidence. He has been a producer at NPR, and his writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Smithsonian, the Yale Review, and Aeon among other publications. He is also a musician and has composed scores for BBC Radio.
Eligibility
UC Berkeley undergraduate students who are able to attend all sessions of the workshop. Space is limited to 15 students per workshop.
Grant Provision
This workshop will meet virtually from 2pm to 4pm on March 21, April 11, April 18, and April 25.
It will meet in person on April 4 (2pm to 4pm) and April 5 (10 am to 2 pm) in the Geballe Room of Townsend Center for the Humanities (220 Stephens Hall). Refreshments will be provided at the in-person sessions. Students must commit to participating in the entire workshop.
The workshop schedule can be found at the link here.
Deadline
March 9, 2025, at 11:59 pm
Application Materials
Complete your “Sound Stories” application on the Submittable website.
Please note that you need to create a Submittable account to access the application. For technical assistance, please visit submittable.com/contact.
For inquiries about the workshop, please contact Jane Liaw at janeliaw@berkeley.edu.