Catherine Burns: Live from SXSW

"This job is one of the great loves of my life, so I feel so lucky to get to do it.” What an amazing thing to be able to say about your work. So much better than her previous career: "The thing I hated about it the most was just going to get worse the better I did.” She’s spent almost the last two decades as artist director at The Moth, helping storytellers shape their stories before they get up on stage. The moth has brought us over 20,000 stories through its live events around the world, as well as books, podcasts, and The Moth Radio Hour on NPR. We interviewed Catherine live on stage at SXSW as part of the Dropbox Podcast Studio, a daylong event featuring five podcasts: — — — — and, for the first time ever in Austin, Rebel Radio. News spread quickly about Catherine’s wisdom, and by the end of our interview, what had been a pretty empty Parish Theater was nearly full. Word-of-mouth travels fast at SXSW. Catherine shared her own stories from her journey from filmmaking into helping storytellers by constantly challenging them to raise the stakes of their stories. She says the first thing she does is find the thing that really matters to the storyteller, because that’s what will matter to the audience. She also talks about the challenges she’s faced along the way. Keeping a brand fresh for nearly 20 years is no easy task. She and her colleagues continue to do it for the love, and challenge each other to get better and better over time. Check out Catherine’s story right here... If you liked this episode, check out our interview with Dave Nadelberg: https://soundcloud.com/rebel_radio/1st-draft-dave-nadelberg-090815 EDM.com Track of the Week: https://soundcloud.com/ivoryoasis/chromak-collide-kalenah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices