Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 17 May
7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Location
The Edge, Fed Square
The Atrium Flinders Street Federation Square Melbourne Victoria 3000
Get directions
PJ Vogt (Reply All) shot to podcasting fame last year. But behind his recent success, Vogt has been deeply involved with the craft of storytelling – and some of its most celebrated institutions.
Reply All is a show about people, technology and the internet, produced by Vogt and co-host Alex Goldman, with whom he also made the podcast TLDR (for WNYC’s On The Media). Since its November 2014 debut, the show has covered internet shaming, One Direction relationship truthers, time-travelling hitmen and the inventor of the pop-up ad. Vogt’s work has also appeared on This American Life and NPR’s All Things Considered.
The show is produced in New York at Gimlet Media – a for-profit podcast network founded by former This American Life and Planet Money producer Alex Blumberg. Joined by Ben Birchall (Ingredipedia podcast), he'll talk about the new wave of American audio storytelling as he sees it – from the dark corners of the internet to the shadowy truths of the world.
Presented in partnership with Sydney Writers Festival.
(Note: We're sorry to tell you that Starlee Kine, originally billed as part of this event, has been delayed in America – and is thus unable to attend.)
So You Think You Can Pod
So, you think you can podcast? Got perfect pitch? Here’s your chance to put our money where your mouth is – and gather some pro tips along the way.
Pitch us your podcast idea for a chance to have it workshopped by a panel including Gimlet Media's PJ Vogt, RN Soundproof's Miyuki Jokiranta and the Wheeler Centre’s digital manager (and Paper Radio producer) Jon Tjhia – with the standout entry given the chance to have their podcast produced by the Wheeler Centre. Find all the details here.
Featuring
PJ Vogt
PJ Vogt hosts the podcast Reply All from Gimlet. Reply All is a thrice-a-month podcast that mixes narrative journalism with an editorial sensibility that favours weirdness, humour, and surprise. Every month, the show is downloaded over 2.5 million times. He won a Third Coast award for his hard-hitting look at a prolific songwriter who has written eight albums about toilets.
Ben Birchall
Ben Birchall is a writer, broadcaster and creative director who has worked in radio, advertising and digital publishing. He hosted 3RRR FM’s Breakfasters from 2009-2012 and is currently the host of Ingredipedia – a factual food fight podcast that consistently tops the iTunes Australia food charts. His writing has appeared in the Age, Smith Journal and Frankie and his advertising work for clients like NAB, Mars, CUB and the Wheeler Centre has won awards internationally.
Miyuki Jokiranta
Miyuki Jokiranta is a radio maker and writer who currently produces for Earshot at ABC RN. Previously, she produced and presented Soundproof, RN’s playground for the sonically curious; within her own radio arts practice, she crafts a space between music and words. She has also produced for RN’s Books and Arts, Poetica and Off Track, and – while living and studying in the US – for a range of National Public Radio programmes including Radiolab, Radio Rookies and Radio Diaries.
Jon Tjhia
Jon Tjhia was the Wheeler Centre’s Senior Digital Editor.
He worked on the Wheeler Centre's multimedia, editorial and digital projects from 2010–2020, including #discuss, the short-form multimedia series Housekeeping, and long-form podcast series Better Off Dead and The Messenger, which won several awards. He's a co-editor and co-founder of the Australian Audio Guide, and has been a member of Audiocraft's programming committee, the Walkley Awards' Radio/Audio Feature judging panel, the New York Festivals Radio Awards Grand Jury and ABC RN's Ian Reed Foundation committee for audio fiction/drama.
Elsewhere, Jon produces the Paper Radio literary fiction and creative non-fiction podcast, makes the occasional radio thing, writes essays and plays music with Speed Painters. In 2016, he was a top-ten finalist in Radiotopia's Podquest competition.
Better Off Dead was named Finalist at New York Festivals Radio Awards 2016. The Messenger was awarded the Grand Trophy and two Gold Medals at New York Festivals Radio Awards 2017; the 2017 UNAA Media Award for Best Radio Documentary; the 2017 Walkley Award for Radio/Audio Feature; and (with Behind the Wire's They Cannot Take the Sky), the 2017 Australian Human Rights Commission Media Award. It was also a finalist at the 2017 Quill Awards, and runner-up for the 2018 Whicker's Documentary Audio Recognition Award.
Previously, as a digital producer at ABC Radio Australia, Jon developed websites in seven languages, interviewed musicians from around the Pacific Islands, and provided multi-platform coverage of that region’s largest music festival, Fest'napuan. He’s occasionally involved in art and sound projects (including a collaborative residency in Wiluna, Western Australia, Eavesdropping at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and the Soundhouse programme at London's Barbican Centre) and has presented, suggested and advised on sound design and audio storytelling at an armful of festivals, conferences and email threads.
He holds a BA (Cultural Studies) and MMm. The latter is an actual postnominal, although your cooking is indeed good.