Erin Allen
Producer, StatesideErin Allen comes to Michigan Radio as a new producer for the station’s Stateside show. She is an experienced communicator driven by her curiosity about stories of people.
Since 2019, Erin has been the executive producer of the Detroit Podcast Festival which focuses on amplifying the stories and voices of Detroit. She also co-curates Radio Campfire, a live listening event series featuring creative audio stories of all kinds. Erin has worked as a content producer at WDET public radio and has experience in radio and podcast production, as well as event organizing, managing and coordinating.
She holds a BA in psychology from Grand Valley State University.
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For some Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, "passing" meant living part or all of your life as non-Black. Recent creative works — Lovecraft Country, Passing, and The Vanishing Half — have brought the idea of passing back to the forefront. This month on Stateside, we discuss the life of a Detroiter who passed as white in the '40s and return to historical, pop culture references to passing in America. -
In 1914, Elsie Roxborough was born into a wealthy, Black family in Detroit. But when she died in 1949, her death certificate listed her as white. Her life was rich, curious and at times, troubled, all while attempting a sort of high-wire-act of living multiple lives, between cities and names and races. -
Cultural references to passing have been around for a long time. But recent works like the Rebecca Hall’s film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s book, Passing, have brought it back to the forefront. Today, we talk about the contexts that have caused this narrative to recur across the centuries. -
Octavia Butler's 1993 book, Parable of the Sower draws readers into a 2024 America ripped apart by poverty, corporate greed, and climate calamity — as a teenage girl leads a rag-tag group of followers through a scary world. Two of Butler's most famous fans, Toshi Reagon and her mother Bernice Johnson Reagon have adapted Parable of the Sower into an opera, premiering in Michigan this weekend. -
Irina Bondarenko, a Ukrainian American in Ann Arbor, talked to us about staying in contact with loved ones stuck in Ukraine amid the Russian invasion. -
If you want to get together with friends for a drink, you probably head to a bar in your neighborhood. But there isn't an equivalent for cannabis users when they wanna share a smoke with friends. Soon, with cannabis lounges opening in Michigan, this may change. -
Your car's undercarriage isn’t the only place road salt accumulates each winter. University of Wisconsin researchers are seeing more and more salt in the Great Lakes — so much that the lakes' ecosystems are starting to change. -
For Black University of Michigan students, finding everyday hair care products is not easy. Two students sought to change that with the Youniversity Beauty Supply Machine, the first and only vending machine on campus that dispenses Black hair care products. -
It can be hard to know how to support people in a warzone on the other side of the world. One local business is coming at it through food. Today, we talk with the editorial director at Frame in Hazel Park about the restaurant's Ukrainian menu and fundraiser. -
During the pandemic, local public health officials have had the hard job of writing the road rules for their communities. Add to that harassment from the public and lack of support from health boards. Today, we hear from a NW Michigan health director who recently decided enough is enough.
