Hello!

I’m an audio producer, artist and storyteller in San Francisco.

I’ve been recording and listening since I was 9 -years-old.

Below is my very first interview with my neighbor Kristin:

When I’m not working on a creative project, you can find me watering my 125+ houseplants, walking the hills of San Francisco or playing with my handsome bulldog.

I thrive in collaborative partnerships and love solving creative problems. Let’s brainstorm!

I’d love to find a personality test that combines all the tests I’ve taken into one:

Top 5 Clinton Strengths: Restorative, Context, Ideation, Empathy and Futuristic

Myers-Briggs: INFP

Astrology: Virgo Sun, Sagitarrius Moon, Sagitarrius Rising

Enneagram: 4

Human Design Type: Generator

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A smattering of posts on Don’t Be Precious, Darling

CURRENT WORK

I help people make podcasts and tell important stories. I’m currently producing podcasts for The New York Times.
Organizing the inaugural MERYLTHON as a benefit for Queer LifeSpace here in San Francisco - September 29, 30 & October 1.
I am working on a story with Adam Sussman about the Dissident ACT UP/SF chapter in the 1990s. We were 2023 Fellows in the Orchard Project Audio Lab.
I occasionally post stories on my personal podcast, Recollector, a place for intimate stories and found sound. The first episode showcases interviews from a cassette I recorded three days after 9/11 on the streets of Portland, Maine.
I’m documenting 50 friends via audio messages they leave every December once a year every year for ten years with my project Message to the Future 2020-2030. You can join this ten-year project for $2 a month at Patreon.
The Library of Compliments is open and accepting your submissions! Collaboration with Phoebe McIndoe.

PREVIOUS WORK

I’ve produced podcast and audio content for IDEO, Salesforce, Pandora, The Dodo, The Mission, OZY, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
I reported a story about lesbian icon Phyllis Lyon that aired on KALW in June of 2020.
With my friend and journalist Tina Antonlini, we produced stories of the COVID-19 pandemic with Corona Voicemails that aired on KQED.
I am the founder of Audio Heirlooms, an oral history production company that preserves family stories with custom, intimate audio portraits. I was inspired to start Audio Heirlooms after I interviewed my grandmother back in 2000. I compiled her interviews into a book that I gifted to my mother for Christmas. When she cried reading it, I thought: “I wanna do this for everyone.” I recently produced audio pieces for my parent’s 50th anniversary and a friends father’s 80th birthday.

CREATIVE & Documentary PRACTICE

Ever since I was young, I’ve been making stuff. I wrote mystery stories and haikus. I illustrated holiday and birthday cards. I designed movie posters for fake movies starring my grade school crushes. On snow days, my neighbor Kristin and I would write and film a fake news show, Channel 13 News, with the family video camera. My first film was a mystery called “Murder in the Snow.” Every girl on my street played a role and wore their very best snowsuit.

Here’s a selection of creative projects:

In 2005, I pulled together all the old family audio I could find, from cassettes my parents had made in the 70’s to interviews with my young nephews. This montage below was given to my parents as a gift for Christmas.

In 2006, I sent a package with disposable cameras to my family members. The instructions were to photograph the people, places, and things that were meaningful to them. Each photographer captioned their photos and were given a book that displayed everyone’s photographs. This project was repeated in 2021.

I like to write lyrics and sing short sad songs with friends. “Table for One” was written one holiday when I couldn’t afford to fly home for Christmas. “I Can’t Wait” is inspired by a break-up grief that wouldn’t go away.

Here is a short observational documentary of my family during one day in August, 2013.

The ARCHIVe

My grandfather passed away when I was nine years old. My parents bought me a cloth-bound journal with a photo of a lighthouse on the cover, thinking I could constructively express my grief. “Grandpa died and I got to ride in a limo” was the first line.

Since then, I have accounts of nearly every month of my life. And this branched out to include all kinds of audio, photo and videos of my friends and family. I have therapy sessions, astrology sessions. I used to leave a cassette recorder in my car and would often record my friends. And if you ever leave a voicemail on my phone, I will save it and archive it like this voicemail from my mother about Downton Abbey’s Series Finale.

Teaching

From 2014-2016, I was an adjunct lecturer in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. I taught a screenwriting class called Adapting Life Stories where students would interview a member of their community and record their stories. Then they would focus on one event in that person’s life and fictionalize it in a short film script.

FILM WORK

My short documentary ARVIND was a semi-finalist for a Student Academy Award. ARVIND premiered on PBS/KLRU in June of 2016. I was a co-producer on SKUNK, directed by my talented friend Annie Silverstein. SKUNK won First Prize in the Cannes Cinefondation Selection in 2014, among numerous other awards. My other short films include 33 Teeth, Yeah, Kowalski!, and Rush, all of which have screened in festivals around the world - including Slamdance, SXSW, and Frameline. My films have been broadcast on Comcast and Alaska Airlines and were even pirated by Ukrainians! I was a fellow at the Storytelling Institute at Skidmore College and a recipient of an Austin Film Society grant for ARVIND.

STUDY

I studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and studied abroad in Europe and the Middle East. I co-taught a photography workshop in Palestine to refugees in Bethlehem. It was a life changing experience that shifted me towards oral histories and radio storytelling. I later studied Radio Documentary at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies with Rob Rosenthal. I received my MFA in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin.

Have an idea for a story? I’d love to hear from you.

WORK Photos throughout the years