Sound Women

In this month's Sound Women podcast, there is a VERY EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT: the new patrons of Sound Women! Not only that, there is also a VERY EXCITING PERSON: the magnificent Fi Glover. A founder member of Sound Women, Radio 4 starlet and all-round smart lady, Fi tells me about: • Working hard and for free (but not, in her case, as a lawyer or recruitment consultant), while you’re still young enough to recover physically, and can still be arsed; • The jammiest job in the world; • Hosting the GLR breakfast show, then moving to the prescient 5 Live; • Fanny Trollope; • Cabecou cheese. You can hear Fi on (and submit your own audio to) The Listening Project as well as Generations Apart; check out her book Travels With My Radio; and follow her on Twitter @fifiglover. To find out more about Sound Women - events in your area, training, and membership - visit soundwomen.co.uk or tweet @soundwomen. Thanks to Martin Austwick for the music, and to you for listening! Back in July. Helen Zaltzman • CLICK HERE TO

PAY ATTENTION, CLASS! This month's Sound Women podcast is all about getting a radio education. There are oodles of tips from the great and good of radio; and to make the case for more formal training, we also hear from: • Cheeka Eyers, producer at Podium.me, which trains under-20s in broadcasting and journalism and releases their audio daily (they've done more than 400 podcasts in less than two years! Blimey…). The organisation is doing terrific work and, on a selfish note, I really wish such a thing had been around when I was a teenager, because back then the only equivalent was making terrible cassette tapes in my bedroom. • Kate Murphy, senior lecturer and course coordinator for the Radio BA at Bournemouth University, which sounds very interesting and fun, although "It’s not three years of mucking around!" Kate also warns against becoming stuck in a job, and discusses the women who worked at the surprisingly liberated BBC of the 1920s. Please share your own radio lessons in the comments or email them to

For International Women's Day, Radio 1 ran an all-female line-up for 39 hours. I don't know about you, but I was relieved to note that despite all these women on air, radio sets around the country did not explode in protest, listeners did not howl in agony, the industry did not crumble, and the Earth did not tremble on its axis. Instead, Radio 1 and 1Xtra's raft of talented presenters just went about their usual business of being great at what they do, and happily, three of them chatted to us before going on air. Hence in this special edition of the Sound Women podcast, we have: • Annie Mac on getting all the girls at gigs, starting out in internet radio, and DJing whilst pregnant; • B.Traits on her love of bass, getting a foothold in British radio thanks to snowboarders in Whistler, and practicing as hard as you can but not taking it TOO seriously; • Monki on being launched by Annie Mac, getting nervous, and enjoying work so much it doesn't feel like work. What an incredible bunch! And I defy your icicle

This month's edition of the Sound Women podcast is an absolute humdinger! In it: • Natalie B, cohost of the Breakfast Show on Heart Four Counties, provides her Survival Guide for doing a breakfast show (spoiler alert! Get a thermos flask, choose your outfits the night before, don't pull sickies, and stay off the booze in the week but GO FOR IT on a Friday night). • Danielle Perry, presenter of Xfm's Evening Show, tells Ruth Barnes about persistence, her dreams of being on a show played in London cabs, and talking to dogs. • Eleanor McDowall from Falling Tree Productions teaches me how she concocts Radio 4's Short Cuts: eavesdropping, embarrassment, not broadcasting anything rude during the school run, and telling stories through toilets. There's also bonus Danielle Perry, discussing music and her own genre 'Topshop indie', for fully paid up Sound Women members in their special Members' Only Clubhouse on the Sound Women website. Want in? Join at soundwomen.co.uk/joinus. Since International Women's Day is

It's February, the shortest but arguably most interminable month of the year; but at least a few laughs hasten its progress a little. So in this month's edition of the Sound Women podcast, I find out how the radio comedy sausage is made from: 1. Isy Suttie, winner of the 2013 Sony Radio Academy Award for comedy for her Radio 4 show Pearl and Dave. As she gears up for the imminent second series of Isy Suttie's Love Letters, she tells me about song-writing, skiing, stealing, and harvesting material from her own love life as well as those of the inhabitants of her home town of Matlock in Derbyshire. Pearl and Dave is available to buy here, and series 1 of Love Letters here; Isy herself is available on Twitter here. 2. Caroline Raphael, BBC Radio 4 comedy commissioner. She describes how ballet and theatre led her into radio comedy, bathing babies in BBC basins (try saying that phrase ten times in quick succession) and making the radio industry more welcoming to women, particularly once they've had children. Fin

In this month's Sound Women podcast: • Mary Anne Hobbs sits down with her BBC 6 Music Kate Cocker to mull over their working relationship, just as Kate leaves for a new job at Key 103. They discuss dubstep, women's magazines, being saved by John Peel, looking like Nikki Sixx, poached eggs, and why it's alright to admit you don't know what you're doing. Incidentally, if you've never heard Mary Anne talking about her childhood's illicit music-listening and running away with a band, this interview is well worth your reading-time. • Lorna Skingley and Sarah Louie Harrison of Smooth Operations talk about their 50-part Radio 2 series The People's Songs, a social history of post-war Britain via fifty popular songs. The series is still available to listen to on the BBC website, so get stuck in. • Karen Pearson talks to Ruth Barnes about setting up her indie Folded Wing, creating new platforms, getting commissions, nurturing presenters and becoming a Big Deal despite (or thanks to?) not having a plan. On the memb

In this month's Sound Women podcast: • The Voice of An Angel has grown into the Voice of Feminism in the Music Industry: Charlotte Church spoke to me at the Radio Festival, fresh off the stage after she delivered the BBC 6 Music John Peel Lecture (the whole of which is available for download here). She doesn't mess about in urging young female artists not to play submissive, and if the radio industry thinks it plays no part in modern pop's tide of scantily clad music videos, THINK AGAIN. • Louisa Compton thrives on stress, which is lucky since she's the uber-busy editor of 5 Live's daytime content including Victoria Derbyshire, Shelagh Fogarty and Richard Bacon (as well as, ahem, my own Saturday job, Saturday Edition). • Andrea Day, formerly of INRIX, explains how one of the Four Cornerstones of Radio gets made: traffic reports. When you're swamped with real-time information, which is more important, accuracy or speed? And how do you make traffic jams sound interesting? There's a lot more in those bulleti

In this month's podcast, I hear from both sides of one of British radio's finest mixed doubles: Annabel Port and Geoff Lloyd of Absolute Radio. Annabel reveals her Damascene conversion to radio, how she lost her social inhibitions, why doing a breakfast show ruined her personality, how to keep an on-air partnership fresh, and why she has tricky relationships with Topshop and the Harlem Globetrotters. Geoff describes how he discovered Annabel, vents about the Women Aren't Funny brigade, and insists that radio listeners are not unwashed mutants. Also, in the Sound Women members only audio snippet, he contemplates the BBC Desk Of Death. For more about Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show on Absolute, and to subscribe to the podcast, click HERE. And click HERE for information about the annual Next Radio conference, and to see videos of previous years' talks. If you'd like to be on the Sound Women podcast, get in touch: email podcast@soundwomen.co.uk or tweet @soundwomen. Meanwhile, if you see me prowling around the fo

In this month's podcast, Jane Garvey delivers abundant wit and wisdom. "There's no such thing as a boring person," she says, and she definitely is not one. She describes how her childhood career ambitions went so askew, she ended up becoming the first ever voice on BBC 5 Live and, now, presenter of Radio 4's Woman's Hour; she ponders the gender politics of the show, how to go from Gordon Brown to gussets, and whether they can ever replace the 15-minute drama with football; and she advises women who want to get on in radio not to be self-deprecating and, most of all, to learn to listen. If you want to hear her sexy late-night show that brought Radio 4 to its knees, click here. And if you're a paid-up Sound Women member, head over to the secret bonus content page for a chunk of extra Garvey, in which she hints at her dream radio show, but denies any ambition to compete on The Great British Bake-Off. Also in the show: Ruth Barnes interviews Rachael Devine, who produces her weekday show on Amazing Radio an

In the wake of Sound Women and Creative Skillset's Women on Air Report, I gathered together Maria Williams, Sound Women's founder, Emma Barnett, host of Sunday Drive on LBC97.3 and Women's Editor of the Daily Telegraph, and Tony Moorey, content director for Absolute Radio. Together they chew over why only one in five radio presenters is female, why you'll rarely hear a female duo on the airwaves, and why you can't afford to be shy if you want a career in radio. To help redress the balance, Absolute are holding demo open days on 12th and 13th August; click here for more information. Also in this month's podcast: Amazing Radio's Ruth Barnes talks to sports broadcaster Caroline Barker about nearly trashing the BBC radio car, and how Father Christmas compelled her to co-found her production company Jibba Jabba. I hear from BBC 6 Music's Camilla Pia about the scrapping and puzzling that goes on behind the scenes at BBC 6 Music to come up with their diverse playlist. And if you're a paid-up Sound Women member

In July's Sound Women podcast: • Radio critic, journalist and presenter Miranda Sawyer praises quirkiness and confidence, and wishes drama and documentaries would loosen up a bit; • Amazing Radio's Ruth Barnes speaks to Adele Roberts about how she got from the Big Brother 3 house to BBC 1Xtra, and the importance of speaking off-air as well as on; • Emma Bradshaw reports on the Sound Women mentoring scheme as its first year wraps up; • and this month's radio agony aunt Laura Parfitt of White Pebble Media talks about how to pitch, set up your own indie, and make excellent radio. Over on the secret members’ only bonus content page, Laura divulges the meaning of the white pebble, and remembers a brief encounter with Richard Burton. To hear it, become a paid-up Sound Women member at soundwomen.co.uk/joinus. If you want to contribute to the Sound Women podcast, or if you have questions for the Radio Agony Aunt, email podcast@soundwomen.co.uk or tweet @soundwomen. Thanks to SoundCloud for hosting, Martin Austw

This month's Sound Women podcast is a Sound Women festival extravaganza, featuring: • Anita Anand on radio magic; • Dame Stephanie Shirley on how and why she came to be known as 'Steve'; • Angie Greaves on going from Gone With The Wind to the drivetime show on Magic; • Jo Good on the importance of networking and learning from Grimmy; • Fi Glover on why you should always be prepared; • Gloria Abramoff on being fun in the workplace. And if you're a Sound Women member, you can hear a whole load more audio from the festival here. If you're not a member, rectify this right now at soundwomen.co.uk/joinus. If you want to contribute to the Sound Women podcast, or if you have questions for the Radio Agony Aunt, email podcast@soundwomen.co.uk or tweet @soundwomen; and for more information about Sound Women, visit soundwomen.co.uk. Thanks to Lucy Duffield for the interviews, Martin Austwick and Kevin McLeod for the music, and to SoundCloud for hosting the show. The next episode of the Sound Women podcast will be ou

In this month's Sound Women podcast, hosted by Helen Zaltzman: • Lauren Laverne of BBC 6 Music talks about pseudonyms, combining work and family life, dealing with earworms, and trophies in the toilet; • Radio 1 Newsbeat reporter Sinead Garvan confesses to on-air innuendo to Ruth Barnes; • The Student Radio Association's Emma Bradshaw reports from the Student Radio Conference; • Nicky Birch of Somethin' Else tackles your radio problems; • and Sound Women founder Maria Williams talks about what made her start this whole shebang. To find out more about Sound Women, visit soundwomen.co.uk, and click here to buy tickets to the first Sound Women Festival at the Radio Theatre on 18th May, featuring Anita Anand, Fi Glover and Angie Greaves. Plus, if you're a Sound Women member, you will get an email with a link to a hidden page to hear special bonus podcast content in which Lauren Laverne talks about making wishes at the Clootie Well, and reveals whether a Kenickie reunion is in the offing. And if you're not a S