Blunt Youth Radio Program Hosts the Great Northeast Radio Rally and Audio Slam

Jan. 3, 2011 - PRLog -- Blunt Youth Radio Project is pleased to announce the first-ever Great Northeast Radio Rally to be held on Sunday, January 16, 2011, in Portland, Maine. The Rally invites audio producers (and aspiring producers) of all ages and stripes to mingle and talk shop while getting new ideas and inspiration for their craft.

The Rally will feature workshops on a variety of audio-related topics, including oral history, telling stories through sound, covering elections for radio, pitching stories to NPR, and creating compelling multimedia.

“One of our goals is to get the youth in Blunt Youth Radio to take themselves seriously and see that the work they are doing can stand alongside the work done by professional adults,” says Claire Holman, director of Blunt Youth Radio Project. “The idea is for our members to host a significant regional event and to interact with other radio producers from range of levels of experience and age.”

Rally workshop presenter Colin Kelley, a former Blunt member and current Digital Media Specialist at Bates College says, “We're deluged with this idea that media-making is something that everyone can do. Buzz-words people in my field use include: citizen journalist, digital native, multimedia storyteller. Yet, access and training to the tools is limited. Small, radio-centric conferences like the Radio Rally open up the idea that radio really is for everyone.”

The Rally runs 9:00 am to 4:15 pm at the Wishcamper Center on the campus of the University of Southern Maine, and concludes in the evening with what may be the world's first Audio Slam, a friendly but serious competition at Space Gallery in downtown Portland. The Slam starts at 7:00 pm, and it is free and open to all ages.

The Audio Slam is similar to a poetry slam with a few twists: Audio producers enter 4 minutes of produced audio, and these entries are played and judged live at the Slam in a series of one-minute rounds. The winning prize is $500! Also, all entries will air on Blunt, the weekly show of Blunt Youth Radio on WMPG, Greater Portland Community Radio. Entries are being accepted until January 10th at 5:00 p.m.

More information, competition guidelines, and registration details for the Great Northeast Radio Rally may be found at http://bluntradio.org. This event is funded through the generosity of the Maine Arts Commission.

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Founded in 1994, Blunt Youth Radio Project produces a weekly call-in, public affairs talk show on WMPG, Greater Portland Community Radio. High school age youth from the Portland, Maine, area, both free and incarcerated, staff the show. Blunt Members learn all areas of radio production: interviewing, hosting, reporting, editing & engineering. Work by Blunt members has aired on NPR, the BBC & MPBN. http://bluntradio.org