radio commentaries

Editor's note: Rebecca recorded this piece for Vermont Public Radio in the summer of 2007 as part of the YWP/VPR "My Life" series. Do you have a story about your life? Do you want to be on radio? For more, click here.

My Teacher
By Rebecca Landell
I can still see her there, on the front steps, standing by her son. She wasn't beautiful. No, she wasn't beautiful, but she was lovely. Her arms would be crossed, her carrot-red hair brushing her shoulders, and she would be saying - as she always did when I thanked her at the end of a lesson - "It's a pleasure."

This piece, recorded in studio by Colin Doherty, was aired on Vermont Public Radio in the summer of 2007 as part of an ongoing series with YWP students entitled, "My Life." For guidelines and other examples of student work, click here.

By Colin Doherty
Champlain Valley Union High School, Grade 12

It is cold in this empty hallway. There is too much white here. The walls, the sheets, the ceiling, all white. After a while, I start to forget that other colors exist at all. Then I see blood, and yellow tubing, and syringes full of every color imaginable. All I can smell is cleaning chemicals and the faintest lingering scent of whatever they cleaned up. I don't want to know what that might be. The hall stretches endlessly. I know that I am only feet from the door I'm looking for, but time stretches by as though I'm miles away, because I know she is dying."

Caleb Daniloff is a writer and radio commentator. To read his blogs or listen to his commentaries, go to www.calebdaniloff.com The YWP is partnering with Vermont Public Radio to help you produce radio commentaries for a series called "My Life." For more, click on "Radio Commentaries" in the left sidebar.

By Caleb Daniloff

Forget what you know about writing. Forget computer screens and words on the page. Forget about your eyes. Radio is all about the ears. You’re writing not to be read but to be heard.

Radio is a means of mass communication, but you want to write as if you’re talking to one person — your dad at breakfast or a friend over lunch. That’s what Betty Smith, longtime producer at Vermont Public Radio, tells her commentators.

“At its best, radio is intimate,” she says. “Don’t write a speech, a lecture or a press release. Write a personal narrative that sounds like your half of an informal conversation.”

Molly read her piece on Vermont Public Radio earlier this year. For other examples of pieces aired on Vermont Public Radio, click here.

Trust
By Molly Ziegler
Hartford High School, Grade 11

Winter was never my favorite season. All of the inconveniences that come with the season make it hard for me to truly enjoy it, like icy roads and frostbite. Don't get me wrong, I never thought that snow was ugly. I just don't like the consequences of its beauty.

This piece was recorded and aired on Vermont Public Radio on Dec. 11, 2006. Interested in participating and recording your essay for broadcast? Click here and read Prompt #17 -- "My Life" for more. But don't wait! Submit your essays now! Click here for guidelines

By Danielle Reigle
Middlebury Union High School

Two years away
I can see it now . . .
Saturday morning. Nine fifty.
My mind is clouded over.
The man with the gray mustache says,
“Upstairs
third door on the right
number 117.”