Leila Day is an editor, host, and award-winning showrunner with a focus on narrative podcasts with soul. Sheās worked as an Executive Producer and editor at Pineapple Street Studios and as a senior reporter and editor at NPRās KALW public radio. She's edited podcasts for Marvel, CBS, NPR, and others. Her passion for finding unique ways to combine journalism and personal story has resulted in multiple journalism awards, with her projects recognized in the New York Times, CNN, Essence magazine, Oprah, and more. Leilaās podcast,Ā The StoopĀ is now in its 11th season, and is part of The Radiotopia Network.
One memorable mistake I learned from was one of my first pieces as a producer.Ā I was interviewing an older couple in their late 80s and my thesis at school was, are older folks still having intimate sexual relationships? When I interviewed them, they wouldnāt answer the questions about sex. But they answered all the questions about love. I had this story in my mind that I wanted to create, and then I met the people and realizedā¦this wasn't their story. Their story was about love, but not sexual love.
The best line from that piece was, āMy peachy doesn't flutter, but something in my heart does.ā
You have these perceptions as a producer, these preconceived notions of what your story is going to be.Ā And it becomes something completely different because you build these relationships with people.
I love the short form of radio.Ā But when I got into podcasting, I really enjoyed the fact that I could extend these stories and work with people for longer periods of time and really get into building all sorts of emotional arcs over multiple episodes.
As an editor,Ā I absolutely love working with producers to help them craft and shape their stories.Ā As an executive producer, I love putting teams together. Because I'm an editor andĀ an executive producer, I'm able to jump into scripts with people and say, āOkay, let's figure this out together.ā
Having a celebrity host doesnāt guarantee a showās success.Ā It's about how that person engages with the story and how the listener can relate to the host. If you have this all-knowing host coming in, and they're not going through any sort of process of understanding or questioning themselves, thatās not good.
I really enjoy the process of being stuck.Ā If we knew what we were making all the time, it would be the blandest listening. The more you're stuck, the deeper you're going to think about it. I've worked on so many shows that being stuck is just one step in the creative process and you have to be stuck in order to come out on the other end.