Radio Docs & Other WRiting

Radio Documentary

My broadcast work grew out of my love of sound, story and my move back to Nova Scotia in 2002. I had been travelling and working at all sorts of jobs from being a cleaning lady, to teaching ESL in Korea, to waitressing, farm work, storytelling in Northern Ireland, and doing an MFA in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. When I came back to Nova Scotia, I was living alone in a cottage on an apple farm and listening to the radio constantly as a companion. (It’s why I love radio and podcasts so much now, the presence of voice and sound.) There was a show called OutFront on CBC Radio and I rather spontaneously pitched an idea. Over a period of time I fell into the inspirational hands of Dick Miller, Mary Lynk and Myfanwy Davies and Christina Harnett. It was Mary Lynk who connected me with a producer in Toronto named Kent Hoffman who worked on my first documentary with me. This began a wonderful collaboration where Kent taught me so much about telling stories with sound. I did radio docs for Information Morning, Maritime Noon, CBC Arts Tonight, Outfront. With the support of Christian Harnett, I ventually ended up working with Kent Hoffman again, co-creating and hosting CBC Fear Itself, a national summer show.

The Show

Fear Itself is a summer radio program that explores the whys, wherefores and whathaveyous of fear – why we are afraid, why we are both drawn to and repulsed by fear, the healthy role it plays in human life, and its pathological manifestation. We are built with the flight or fight instinct but what triggers which part of it in each of us? Why does he run screaming, and she with pounding heart, stands to face the monster?

Host

A self-described connoisseur of fear, Christy Ann Conlin eats terror for breakfast–that is, when she isn’t wrestling with her healthy fear of German attack dogs and lobsters, and, embarrassingly for an East Coaster, her fear of the ocean. Christy Ann is the author of Heave, which was a national bestseller, a Globe and Mail book of the year, shortlisted for the Amazon.com First Novel Award and long listed for the 2011 CBC Canada Reads Top 40 Books of the Decade, and the acclaimed novel, The Memento. Watermark, her first collection of short fiction, will be published by House of Anansi in August 2019. Christy Ann has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia where she wrote and studied fiction, stage and screenplay writing. Christy Ann lives and writes in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, an area renowned for brave sailors, fine wines, scary sea creatures and exotic ghosts.

1. Ocean Of Fear

2. OVERCOMING FEAR

3. GETTING CAUGHT

4. FIRST RESPONDERS

5. CREATING FEAR

6. REFLECTING FEAR

7. CHILDHOOD FEARS

8. FEAR OF DEATH

9. FEAR OF VIOLENCE

10. FEAR OF THE DARK

Producer

Kent Hoffman

Kent Hoffman is a broadcaster with a full skill set — for the past 20 or so years he’s been behind the board, behind the mic and behind the keyboard. He wants to understand fear as long as it doesn’t involve being left alone in a room full of rats. Through his work on Outfront and White Coat Black Art he’s come to understand that insight and digging below the surface are paramount to good storytelling. And through his work on As It Happens and Radio News and Current Affairs, he’s come to understand the fear of a deadline.

Selected Media

Interview at The Unexpected Twists and Turns, with Host of CBC’s Fear Itself, Christy Ann Conlin

Quill & Quire Interview with Christy Ann Conlin, Host of CBC

Murdy’s Musuem

Outfront

Murdy’s Museum, a short radio documentary, originally created for CBC Outfront (2008) with producer, Kent Hoffman.

‘Murdy’s Museum’ is a sound story about my father, Murdy Daniel Conlin, and his magnificent and bizarre barn on our family property. It’s a tribute to my father’s belief that anything is possible — you only have to try and see where it leads.

When I listened to ‘Murdy’s Museum’ the day after my father died, I was startled hearing his voice, his laughter and delight in the music. It was as though he hadn’t died. If you’ve ever lost someone, you mighta have experienced that strange feeling, the massive hole left behind, knowing that they have died but still looking for them none the less. It’s a part of the grief process, of course, a very bittersweet part, where they are everywhere and no where. But hearing his voice, it was like part of him would be alive forever. It was a poignant moment, where he was gone but he was not…we do live on in art and sound.

‘Murdy’s Museum’ is a tribute and celebration of my father’s deep creativity and originality, and how it has shaped his children,and anyone else who had the pleasurable and unforgettable experience of meeting him.