Homework: The Nocturnists
Love The Moth? You'll love The Nocturnists. Hosted by an award-winning physician-storyteller, this lyrical podcast is soul-nourishing.
Somehow, years ago, I stumbled on The Nocturnists. Host Emily Silverman is a physician who grew up in love with the theater. Early in her career, she discovered that the life of a full-time doctor didn’t match what she’d dreamt of. So, she did the logical thing: She started a live storytelling community of health-care professionals. Today, her team at The Nocturnists holds wildly popular live storytelling events. They also offer storytelling training, produce their long-running podcast, and successfully call on their community of listeners to contribute recorded stories from the world of medicine.
The podcast racks up award upon award, for good reason: Emily and her team make it safe for hundreds of health care providers to open up about the things that matter — things we never expect our doctors and nurses to say. For example, its 10-Part Shame in Medicine documentary is breathtaking in its honesty, the kind of storytelling that makes you think about your own life and those of the people you love.
Next week on Sound Judgment, Emily and I dissect “Pass/Fail,” an episode of Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest. We also pull apart her gorgeous conversation with Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of the historical novel Take My Hand. I heard this episode a year ago and immediately inhaled the book.
At its core, The Nocturnists is at least as much about being human as it is about medicine. To get ready for next week’s Sound Judgment episode, listen to “Pass/Fail” and “Conversations: Dolen Perkins-Valdez.”
New Workshops
The other day my new LinkedIn friend Andrew Monaghan dropped me a line. He wanted to know whether I offer any interview training.
“I need help with conducting better interviews,” he wrote. “I feel like my interviews could be a lot tighter. I'm not good at interview planning to make sure we get to meaty topics and I tend to let my interviewees ramble on too much. I often feel like my episodes are good but not great,” he said.
Maybe you struggle with some of the same things?
On February 29, join me for our online workshop, “Mastering the Art of the Interview.” I taught this class for New Hampshire’s Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications last week, and it broke the school’s 25-year record for registration.
Get a full session description and register here.
While you’re there, check out our upcoming workshops on hooking your audience and story pitching.
Each workshop is only $47, but if you need some help attending, email us at allies@podcastallies.com. We have a handful of scholarships available.
(Can’t make it on February 29? We’ll share the recording.)
As always,
Elaine