KQED and The Kitchen Sisters launch The Making Of…

What are you making? KQED and The Kitchen Sisters want your stories for new community documentary project.

KQED and The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva) are launching The Making Of…, a new multimedia series that looks across the Bay Area to chronicle the art and innovation going on in the backyards, workplaces, cultural hotspots and public spaces throughout one of the most diverse and innovative regions in the country. The Making Of… includes stories created from listener submissions and recommendations. What are you making? How about your grandmother? Your next door neighbor, the guy you sit next to at work? Visit kqed.org/makingof or call The Making Of… storyline at 415.553.3362 and your story could end up on air.

“We live in a time when fewer and fewer people know how to make the things they want or use or need, or how these things are made. There are so many stories to tell in the Bay Area and we need your help to find them, and be part of this community collaboration,” says Davia Nelson, half of the Peabody Award–winning producing team The Kitchen Sisters, whose previous NPR series include Hidden Kitchens and The Hidden World of Girls. “We’re looking for the stories behind the things we make. Thinkers, innovators, neighborhood artisans and communitiy visionaires who make this region such a remarkable place in which to live and work.”

The Making Of… is part of a national experiment in how independent producers and public media organizations can work together. The Kitchen Sisters and KQED collaborationis part of Localore, a national initiative of AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio, Inc. designed to bring new journalistic and technical ingenuity to extending public media service to more Americans. From Chinese restaurants in Boston, to shuttered factories in Dayton, to the oilfields of North Dakota, to Bay Area startups, the ten Localore production teams are working with their public station incubators to uncover ground-up stories of America in transition. AIR is a creative brain trust made up of more than 860 media makers from across the US and 20 countries worldwide who are re-imagining and reinventing public media and journalism for the 21st century. Its programs are designed to identify, cultivate and deploy gifted talent for the benefit of citizens across the U.S. Learn more and follow the work underway in the field at AIRmediaworks.org.

Localore projects are presented with financial support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Wyncote Foundation, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT KQED
KQED Inc. has served Northern California for more than 50 years and is affiliated with NPR and PBS.  KQED owns and operates KQED Public Radio (88.5 FM San Francisco and 89.3 FM Sacramento); the interactive platforms kqed.org and KQEDnews.org; KQED Education; and public television stations KQED 9 (San Francisco/Bay Area), KQED Plus (San Jose/Bay Area) and KQET 25 (Watsonville/Monterey).

KQED Public Radio, home to Forum, KQED News and The California Report, is the most-listened-to public radio station in the nation, and the top-rated radio station—public or commercial—in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its award-winning local news and public affairs program service delivers newscasts, news features, and long-form newsmagazine and talk programs and documentary specials. Approximately 20 percent of KQED Public Radio’s weekly broadcast schedule is locally produced, with the remaining hours provided by NPR, APM (American Public Media), PRI (Public Radio International), PRX, the BBC, and others.

ABOUT THE KITCHEN SISTERS:
The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) are the producers of the duPont-Columbia Award-winning NPR series, Hidden Kitchens and two Peabody Award-winning NPR series, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project. Their most recent NPR series, The Hidden World of Girls aired on All Things Considered and Morning Edition. The Hidden World of Girls specials are hosted by award-winning writer and actress, Tina Fey.

The Kitchen Sisters are the producers of hundreds of stories for NPR and public broadcast about the lives, histories, art and rituals of people from all walks of life who have shaped our diverse cultural heritage. Their nationwide radio specials have been hosted by Frances MacDormand, Francis Coppola, Paul Auster and Willie Nelson, who narrated Hidden Kitchen Texas which was nominated for a James Beard Award and the inspiration for their book, Hidden Kitchens Texas: Stories, Recipes and More from the Lone Star State.

Other noted Kitchen Sisters stories include: Waiting for Joe DiMaggio, Route 66: The Mother Road, The Nights of Edith Piaf, Carmen Miranda: The Life and Times of the Brazilian Bombshell, WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts, Guillermo Cabrera Infante: Memories of an Invented City, Tupperware, The Road Ranger, and War and Separation.

The Kitchen Sisters are also involved in educating and training new voices for public media in an imaginative, artistic approach to storytelling. They have taught at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, the University of California Santa Cruz Social Documentary Graduate Program and frequently lecture and provide training at universities, festivals, workshops, radio stations, public forums and events throughout the country and abroad. They also train and work with interns, college students, and youth radio apprentices and participate in the life of the public radio community throughout the country.

In addition to producing radio, Davia Nelson is a screenwriter and casting director. She lives in San Francisco. Nikki Silva is also a museum curator and exhibit consultant. She lives with her family on a commune in Santa Cruz, California.