Lee Overtree presides over one of the best improv talent incubators around — just ask any savvy kid under 12. “We’re a group of people who are truly inspired by kids’ writing,” says Overtree ’02, co-founder and artistic director of Story Pirates, a popular podcast and live show catering to the pre-tween set. “Our secret is that we don’t think of it as making comedy for kids; we think of it as making comedy for each other.” The formula works. Since its 2004 founding, Story Pirates has dazzled more than 1 million audience members with its performances of stories written and submitted by children; each podcast boasts more than 100,000 downloads. The idea for Story Pirates evolved from Overtree’s involvement in the student group Griffin’s Tale. Peter McNerney ’05 and Joanna Simmons ’05, above, are among the Northwestern alumni involved with the show.
Kate Zambreno Earns a Guggenheim
Kate Zambreno began her career as a journalist with Chicago alt-weeklies before foraying into experimental fiction. “Much of my writing goes past fact into the realm of fiction,” she says. The author of eight books, she is now nationally recognized for writing that “troubles genre,” as she puts it. In April, Zambreno, who currently teaches nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, was named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in nonfiction.
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