Thursday 24 May 2012

Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe (Blog Tour)


As part of the blog tour for her new book, Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe, author Shelley Coriell stopped by to talk about High School Radio Stations and the inspiration for the story...
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On the Air: A Look at High School Radio Stations

When choosing the high school setting for my YA contemp debut – WELCOME, CALLER, THIS IS CHLOE – I knew I needed a place where a formerly popular girl could meet up with a bunch of quirky misfits and become an “outsider among outsiders.”

At first I considered having Chloe join a drama club or speech and debate team. Plenty of room for Chloe to show off her bold personality, but not too original. Since I was editor of my high school’s newspaper, I also thought about having her join the school’s online e-zine or blog as an advice columnist, but that, too, had been done.

Then I thought back to my college days when I was at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. There I loved to hang out with student friends who worked at ASU’s radio station, KASC (The Blaze). The radio students were a unique bunch — sometimes intense, sometimes crazy-creative, sometimes sketchy, but always fascinating.

The perfect place for Chloe.



As I researched high school radio stations, I met up with students at FM 98.7 KWXL in Tucson, Arizona, who showed me how they do live shows and record programming.



I toured the control room, the heart of the station with microphones, headsets, and a huge control board with a gazillion switches and dials. DJs sit here.



I hung out in the newsroom where students write stories, do research, and hold staff meetings.



And techie types demonstrated how to cut in sound effects and manipulate sound, including music.

(all photos courtesy KWXL High School Radio)

Um…yeah…label me impressed.

Shelley’s Question: If you could work in a radio station, what job would you like to have?

To learn more about young adult author Shelley Coriell and Chloe’s high school radio world, visit www.shelleycoriell.com.
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Thanks Shelley! I loved the Radio station setting and could really picture Chloe in that environment!

To answer your question, if I could work in a radio station my job would probably need to be behind the scenes. I don't think I would be very good at the speaking part ... which I hear is pretty important lol.

Don't forget to check out the next stop on the tour, tomorrow at Totally Bookalicious.

2 comments:

Ynysawdre Elderly Residents Association said...

Love this post - fascinating behind the scenes. I wish we had school radio here how cool would that be :D

Anonymous said...

Brilliant post - Like Emma I wish we had school radio in the UK too.

The nearest I've come to one is at uni (and even then I only snuck a look - they were based in the same section of the union as the newspaper and magazine - UWESU Student Media :D)

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