Zak Rosen

Photo of Zak Rosen
I work to shepherd storytelling projects from idea to launch and beyond. I love conceptualizing, reporting, producing, editing and sound designing. Mostly for podcasts but also for radio, live events and campfires.
Member since 2007

Location

  • Detroit, MI

Portfolio

Zak is available for

show development, hosting and story editing.
  • Business
  • Editing
  • Engineering
  • Music
  • Producing
  • Recording
  • Reporting
  • Scripting
  • Voice
  • Teaching

About Zak

Zak is a Detroit-based story maker. He's currently the Director of Podcasts at Graham Media Group. He's the host of The Best Advice Show, editor of Shattered and How To Survive The End of the World. And with his wife, he created the podcast, Pregnant Pause with Zak and Shira. Zak's radio features have been heard on NPR, CBC, BBC, PRI, APM, Deutsche Welle and Radio Helsinki. He was a staff producer on NPR/PRX's State of the Re:Union and prior to that, a co-founding producer of WDET's Detroit Today. He facilitates workshops and consults with high schools, universities, and community organizations on various story-based projects.

Zak's Portfolio

Mom and Dad Are Fighting, a parenting podcast
Jamilah Lemieux, Elizabeth Newcamp, and Zak Rosen share triumphs and fails and offer advice on parenting kids from toddler to teens.
Work in Progress
A Detroit auto worker suffers a massive head injury on the job, leaving her crippled by severe nerve damage. At 50, she's forced to re-learn everything: how to speak, brush her teeth; how to be in the world. Doctors tell her she'll never again hold a job. But after two and a half years of recovery, Gloria Lowe has gone back to work, though not at the auto plant. Lowe is one of the leaders of a new movement taking shape in Detroit. Block by block, residents are reclaiming communities long ago written off. Lowe started a group that trains Detroiters in how to rebuild the homes that will create neighborhoods and eventually, Lowe believes, revive her beloved city. She knows first-hand what it's like to come back from a devastating blow. Now she's at the leading edge of a movement -- call it DIY urban policy -- that's taking a stand for Detroit, and without a whole lot of outside help. Independent producer Zak Rosen brings us Work in Progress, the story of how Gloria Lowe and a small army of dry-wallers, community gardeners, bakers, philosophers and other true-believers are working small miracles all over Detroit.
Listening with Sterling Toles
A chance encounter between a beleaguered man and a bodhisattva.
Peace Pilgrim's 28-Year Walk For 'A Meaningful Way Of Life'
On January 1, 1953, a woman set off from the Rose Bowl Parade, with a goal of walking the entire country for peace. She left behind her given name - Mildred Norman - and took up a new identity. Independent producer Zak Rosen has been looking back on the remarkable life of Peace Pilgrim.
The Best Advice Show
It’s easy to feel helpless as each new day breeds more uncertainty. The Best Advice Show, hosted by Zak Rosen, exists as a daily reminder that there are weird, delightful and effective ways to survive and thrive in this world. In every episode of the show, a different contributor offers their own personal take on what they do to make their life better, healthier, saner and more liveable.
Shattered
Sometimes, news stories echo in our minds for years after they’ve occurred. With each season of Shattered, we select one of those complex, true stories and take an in-depth look.
How To Survive the End of the World
Join Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown, two sisters who share many identities, as writers, activists, facilitators, and inheritors of multiracial diasporic lineages, as well as a particular interest in the question of survival, as we embark on a podcast that delves into the practices we need as a community, to move through endings and to come out whole on the other side, whatever that might be.
Pregnant Pause with Zak and Shira
Zak Rosen and his wife, Shira Heisler, discuss whether or not they want to have children. They confer with friends, family, writers, and scientists along the way. Pregnant Pause is their intimate account of making the most important decision of their lives (so far). (Named one of "100 Outstanding Audio Pieces for 2017.")

Experience

Skills

  • Voice Coaching
  • Tape Syncs
  • Story Editing
  • Sound Design
  • Show Development
  • Scoring
  • Research
  • Reporting
  • Producing
  • Mentoring
  • Audience Development
  • Interviewing
  • Hosting
  • Field Recording
  • Field Producing
  • Voiceover

Equipment

  • Hindenburg
  • Hard Disc/Flash recorder
  • Pro Tools