GREENROOM SPOTLIGHT: JOCELYN ROBINSON

Could you tell us who you are and what it is you do?

I’m Jocelyn Robinson, and I’m a producer, educator, and radio preservationist based in Yellow Springs, Ohio. When I’m not producing independent projects, I work part-time out of the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at 91.3 FM WYSO. It’s the primary public radio station in the Dayton area. My title is Producer for Emerging Initiatives, Education, and Archives, so that kinda says it all.

Through training and relationship-building, we support the production of myriad audio stories that often center and amplify voices of communities not typically heard on public radio. I’m also interested in preserving and using archival audio to contextualize history, that we might interrogate and learn from it and maybe not repeat it. And I’m an adjunct instructor who teaches multidisciplinary college literature courses through a Black feminist/womanist lens.

What drives your work? What drives you to make it?

I’m very conscious of whose voice gets heard and why. The public radio sphere has been mostly white, male, and upper middle class for far too long. I’m driven to disrupt that narrative by amplifying other voices. And then moving past that to construct community-based platforms for telling and preserving those stories. Also, I just love the craft of making audio. There’s nothing like being in the flow and making that magic happen.

What are you currently working on that we should be aware of?

As an independent producer, this year I’ve had two half-hour episodes drop for a German-produced podcast called The Big Ponder; one being “The Flag” and the other about home and identity that just posted. Different storytelling conventions, different paces, different vibes, but both personally meaningful. I have an amazing creative team and we’ve honed our technical and creative chops through this recent work.

Then I’ve got two other projects I’m excited about. At the Center for Community Voices, I’m directing a community-based storytelling project on Dayton’s west side, primarily African American neighborhoods. I’ve been mentoring a small group of community producers who’ve weathered the pandemic and are about to get back out there and tell audio stories. They’ve been doing series of commentaries in the interim that are just amazing. They are so ready!

Also through the Center and my work with the WYSO Archives, I’m heading a preservation project for Historically Black College/University radio stations, in collaboration with the Northeast Document Conservation Center out of Andover, MA. We’ll know about major funding for the project in early summer. We’re hoping that will propel us into a pilot phase, working with four of the twenty-nine HBCU stations and the institutional archives on their campuses. If all goes well with the pilot, we’ll go back to the supporting foundation for full implementation funding. It’s a pretty big deal.

Who else is doing great work that we should know about?

All my colleagues at WYSO do great work! You’ll hear fantastic stories from Dayton Youth Radio producer Basim Blunt’s work with teens, from Mary Evans’s ReEntry Stories series with formerly incarcerated citizens, and from all the other Community Voices producers, AKA Com Voxers. There are dozens of us who have been trained at WYSO over the past decade; it’s an amazing program. My creative team members Juliet Fromholt (also on staff at WYSO) and indy Tom Amrhein do stellar work, too.

Then there’s my friend and colleague Will Davis in Chattanooga, TN. Listen for his name! He’s in conversation with a major audio streaming service right now on a true crime project that may soon take the podcasting world by storm.

And Andi Murphy in Albuquerque, NM and her Toasted Sister podcast—she’s not just a producer for Native America Calling, but a brilliant indigenous foodie and artist who has the best self-designed graphics of any audio maker I’ve ever seen.

What do you think a great piece of audio accomplishes?

There’s something magical about being invited into a virtual fire ring by the human voice and perhaps some well curated ambience. Close your eyes and open your ears. You’re there where the story is unfolding, right in the midst of it. Transported. You not only hear it, but see it, taste it, smell it, feel it--yep, magic. They call ‘em “driveway moments,” but you don’t need to be sitting in a car to experience them.

If this were your last hour on earth, what piece of music would you like to hear?

I’d fill that hour with an eclectic playlist that includes Rhiannon Giddens, Kate Bush, Brittany Howard, Dolly Parton, and Nina Simone. Probably end with Sandy Denny, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes.”

Who's your favorite storyteller?

There are so many! And coming to us in all sorts of forms. I think Richard Thompson can tell more story in a 3-minute song than most can in a feature length film. He’s a master!