The Moth’s artistic director, Catherine Burns, who grew up in Alabama, spoke with The Bitter Southerner about everything from the power of a well-told story to the time her mother invited Harper Lee over for lunch — she was just “being neighborly.”
Conversation with Catherine Burns | Hosted by Josina Guess | Edited by Sean Powers
Maybe you’ve been sitting outside with a few friends when everything gets quiet except for the hum of cicadas and crickets, a passing car or train, a flutter of moths at the porch light, and the sound of one person’s voice. Maybe the person is telling a funny or painful memory, or recalling a moment when they decided to be honest with themselves or the people around them, or discovered a strength they never knew they had. The evening stretches out like a blanket and you feel like you have all the time you need. You stop thinking about what else you might be doing with your time or what you are going to say next; you don’t look at your phone, because in that moment, that one person has your full attention. Through live events, a radio show, and a podcast, The Moth has been able to harness storytelling magic — a magic older than our grandmas.
When I told my children that I was going to be interviewing Catherine Burns, artistic director for The Moth, they got excited. For as long as they can remember, our family has listened to “The Moth Radio Hour” on long car trips or during tedious chores, like dishes and folding laundry. In my children’s words, “The Moth is a big deal, Mama!” By focusing on the power of a well-told, true story, The Moth has gotten big while still keeping a refreshingly down-home feel.
Catherine Burns, artistic director for The Moth, with her mother
Catherine told me how The Moth started with a group of friends on a porch on St. Simons Island, Georgia. She talked about the way that no one was a stranger to her mother, how when Harper Lee was new to town she just did the neighborly thing and invited her over for lunch. She described the time Trina Robinson told an audience in Chicago about purchasing the original documents that marked the sale of her ancestors who had been enslaved in Kentucky. She detailed the ways The Moth is using storytelling to empower women and girls around the world and working with everyone from high school students to leaders of NGOs to convey the message that we all have powerful stories worth telling.
The Moth will be turning 25 next year, and I asked Catherine, since The Moth started on a porch, if they’d ever recorded an episode from a porch in Georgia. She said they haven’t — yet. I told her I’ve got a big porch! We can’t wait to meet more of the team when y’all visit Georgia next summer! I’ll leave the light on for you, and the moths will gather.
We hope you’ll enjoy listening to the highlights from our conversation.
When we asked The Moth for a sampling of Southern stories, we got an amazing list! We whittled it down to a few favorites:
Kari Adams: Love You Like a Hurricane Etsy Wedding
Wanda Bullard: Small Town Prisoner
T. Dixon: Critical Crash
Warren Holleman: The Briar Patch
Ava K Jones: The Voodoo Priestess of Football
Hannah Drake: Go Back and Tell
Raymond Christian: Water Color
Josina Guess is the managing editor of The Bitter Southerner and resides outside Athens, Georgia. Her Bitter Southerner essay about the lynching of Willie Earle, “The Wind Delivered the Story,” was picked by Longreads as one of the best crime stories of 2020. She has written for Fourth Genre and Sojourners, among others, and is a contributor to the anthology Fight Evil With Poetry.
