PODCASTS & WRITING

Sandra co-hosted and co-produced She and Her, a Southern feminist podcast and radio show from 2015-2020. Made with Anita Rao, current host of NPR’s Embodied, the show explored identity, culture, feminism with Southern movers and shakers. Star guests included: non-binary actor Lachlan Watson, indigenous singer and activist Charly Lowry, and nationally renowned gen-z photographer Kennedi Carter. Outstanding episodes included A Brotherhood, Not a Family, the story of one woman’s experience navigating the military’s culture and legal system after being sexually assaulted by an officer, and Are You My Mother, the story of how a daughter’s quest to find her mother’s biological family led her to a priest, the Miss Mississippi pageant, and a black market baby ring.

She also created, produced, and hosted Arts Across NC, a podcast by and about the North Carolina Arts Council. Made to celebrate and promote North Carolina’s distinct cultural traditions and artists, show guests included humorist David Sedaris, North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, and the late architect and photographer Phil Freelon. A special season of the show highlighted decades-old field recordings of traditional artists like celebrated Piedmont blues guitarist Etta Baker and The Menhaden Chanteymen, a group of Black commercial fishermen who sang chanteys while hauling in thousands of pounds of fish from the Atlantic Ocean.

As marketing and content director at the N.C. Arts Council (2017-2021), she produced hundreds of multimedia stories about artists and the public value of the arts. Favorite pieces include a story about blues musician and buck dancer Algia Mae Hinton, an interview with Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers, a story about the Tony-Award winning costume designer and Broadway legend William Ivey Long, and a story about an annual Chitlin Circuit event in Kinston produced by a woman on a mission to protect and promote the community’s storied contributions to modern American music. During the 2019 state-designated NC Year of music, she directed and helped produce 365 days of stories celebrating North Carolina’s music legacy.