Dave Isay, founder of Sound Portraits Productions, describes the genesis of the StoryCorps oral history project, its progress and plans for expansion at the opening of the Atlanta Story Corps booth.
Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps and its parent company Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past two decades his radio documentary work has won nearly every award in broadcasting, including five Peabody Awards, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow award, and two Livingston Awards for young journalists. Dave has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994), a MacArthur Fellowship (2000), and a United States Artists Fellowship (2006). He is the author (or co-author) of four books based on Sound Portraits radio stories including: *Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago* (1997), *Flophouse* (2000), and the first-ever StoryCorps book, *Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project* (2007).