Writers and Podcasters Among Us
With a number of Writing, Literature and Publishing alumni on staff, it’s no surprise that many colleagues pursue writing and podcasting outside of the office. Read on about some of these staff members (as well as others who are not alumni).
Tim Douglas (Academic Advising) co-hosts a podcast called Record Time. Its premise is based on two friends taking apart some of the most iconic albums of all time and, at the end of each episode, covering a track off the album for fun. They usually publish a new episode biweekly.
Douglas has been podcasting since 2004; his first podcast was called The Boston Sports Massacre. He doesn’t have any professional education in podcasting, but he does have a master’s degree in Communication Management from Emerson.
He said, “I love preparing for each episode; questioning my own opinions; and learning about the artistry behind these records from my friend, a very accomplished musician.” While podcasting doesn’t directly inform his work at Emerson, he credits it with helping him consider how to speak to a wide audience and keep it engaged.
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David Ertischek (Communications) is the “owner/publisher/writer/editor/sports editor/school reporter/pet correspondent/advertising department/marketing department/ and everything else for JamaicaPlainNews.com.” JamaicaPlainNews.com is a daily hyperlocal news website for the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. It reports on everything JP-related, including development, restaurants, and politics. The site also publishes submitted contributions from the community.
He started writing for the site in September 2015 and shortly took it over from his friend. He is a proud alumnus of Emerson, having graduated in 2001 with a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing. After graduation, he worked as a journalist for national organizations.
At Emerson, he writes for Emerson Today. He said that JamaicaPlainNews.com and Emerson Today satisfy different parts of his desire to write. He does a lot of “quick hit stuff” for JamaicaPlainNews.com because he’s doing the work after hours when his daughter has gone to sleep. And he often gets to write longer pieces for Emerson Today, which he doesn’t do as often with JamaicaPlainNews.com.
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Angela Siew (WLP) writes poetry and has been published in the online literary journal Dialogist. She started writing at six years old. She took a few creative writing workshops during college but didn’t focus on poetry until she enrolled in Emerson’s MFA in Creative Writing program, from which she graduated in 2017.
She tries to write on a weekly basis during the academic year and writes more frequently during the summer. She said, “I love playing with words and reaching the point where I feel like I have a successful poem that communicates a feeling from my world to the reader.” As an alumna of the department in which she works, she enjoys being able to bring her perspective as a former student and as a writer.
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Paul Spears (Financial Aid) writes in the genres of fantasy, horror, and alternate-history fiction. He’s published a few short stories and recently independently published the novels Creecherland and Spirits of the Charles. For his podcast, Spearing the Classics, he discusses classic works of literature and how to understand them from a modern context.
Spears has been writing “since he can remember” and writes whenever he can find the time. He tries to wrap at least two podcast episodes a month. He is another alumnus of the WLP Department, having obtained a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing in 2012. He enjoys connecting with fans and fellow creators and receiving feedback on his work. Although writing is not one of his current job responsibilities, his coworkers are aware of his writing and he is grateful for their encouragement.
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Ryan Walsh (Office of the Arts) has written for Boston Magazine, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and most recently for the Boston Globe Ideas section about what constitutes musical plagiarism. His first book was published by Penguin Press last March. Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 is a story about counterculture in Boston in the late 1960s, with a focus on Van Morrison living in Cambridge, on the run from the mob and working on his to-be masterpiece.
Walsh also writes songs with his long-running band, Hallelujah The Hills. He studied screenwriting at BU and then dove deep into songwriting; but in the last 10 years, he’s combined all these interests into stories about music, songwriting, and the music industry.
His favorite part of the writing process is interviewing people and trying to figure what the story is actually about. A big part of his job at ArtsEmerson entails writing effective copy for its programming, so he is able to strengthen that muscle at work. He noted, “While I was working on my book, we presented a show called How to Be a Rock Critic, which itself was somewhat about the album Astral Weeks. So that was a perfect, quite literal example of my outside writing colliding with my work at ArtsEmerson.”
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Tori Weston (Professional Studies) has had her flash nonfiction essays published in Sleet Magazine and Under the Gum Tree. She’s also been on two episodes of the podcast Risk!, which is hosted by Kevin Allison. Risk! is an uncensored, no-holds-barred version of The Moth. One of her essays also appears in the book Risk!, which was published in July 2018. She has also recorded a podcast episode for More to the Story, which is hosted by Under the Gum Tree editor Janna Maron.
She wrote her first poem in fifth grade and her first story in sixth grade, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She said, “Since I am both a writer and an artist, pretty much my whole day is dictated by writing, art, or both…. At this point, my creative life is just my life in general.” She has two degrees from Emerson: a BFA in Writing and Literature (1998) and an MFA in fiction (2004). Her creative work led her to create the Pre-College program at Emerson, “from what I wish I had when I was a teenager.” Weston is currently working on a personal essay collection, which is both flash nonfiction and longer essays about dealing with loss.
Nancy Howell (Marketing) (also a WLP alumna, MA ’03)