“The Kitchen Sisters have done some of the best radio stories ever broadcast.” – Ira Glass
The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) are the producers of two Peabody Award-winning NPR series, Lost & Found Sound and The Sonic Memorial Project, the duPont-Columbia and James Beard Award-winning series Hidden Kitchens on NPR’s Morning Edition and the NPR series and radio special The Hidden World of Girls hosted by Tina Fey. Their NPR series, The Keepers (stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians) was heard on Morning Edition. The Keepers hour long radio specials were hosted by Academy Award-winning actor Frances McDormand. Their Webby Award-winning podcast, The Kitchen Sisters Present… is part of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX.The Kitchen Sisters Archive, some 7,000 hours of interviews, oral histories, music, archival audio and field recordings, was recently acquired by The Library of Congress.
Their first book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More From NPR’s Kitchen Sisters was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The Kitchen Sisters were the recipient of the 2019 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award from The Society of American Archivists and a lifetime achievement award from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.
The Kitchen Sisters have appeared live onstage in multimedia performances at TED, SXSW, Pop-Up Magazine, Prospect.4 in New Orleans in collaboration with Otabenga Jones & Associates, Radiotopia Live, Third Coast International Audio Festival, the Smithsonian, the High Line and more.
The Kitchen Sisters Podcasting, Interviewing & Recording Workshop travels the world training new and emerging voices and producers. They have run a dynamic internship and mentoring program since 1999 and have taught radio and documentary at The Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and guest lectured at Harvard, Yale, Smith, USC, UCLA and at events around the country.
The Kitchen Sisters Productions, their nonprofit organization, is dedicated to creating documentaries that chronicle untold stories of culture and tradition, presenting little-known voices and perspectives, to keeping the airwaves vibrant, imaginative and democratic and to training young people and others with a passion to be involved in public media.
In addition to producing radio, Davia Nelson has been a casting director and screenwriter and does live interviews onstage for the Telluride Film Festival, City Arts and Lectures, the JCCSF and many other organizations. She lives in San Francisco. Nikki Silva is also a museum curator and exhibit consultant. She lives with her family on a commune in Santa Cruz.
Collaborators
Nathan Dalton | Producer
Nathan Dalton is an audio producer, musician and filmmaker. With longtime visionary storytellers The Kitchen Sisters, he produces the James Beard- and duPont-Columbia Award-winning series Hidden Kitchens for NPR’s Morning Edition, and the Webby-winning podcast The Kitchen Sisters Present. He has created stories for TED, Pop-Up Magazine, and Radiotopia Live, and videos for social impact clients across the country. He spent much of his youth touring the country and playing music with a variety of bands, but these days he can be found wandering the farmer’s markets and the library stacks of Berkeley, California, where he lives with his family.
Brandi Howell | Producer
Brandi Howell is an experienced audio producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of her documentary work focuses on exploring the little known stories that shaped the urban and counterculture landscapes of 20th century US history. Her work can be heard in audio guides produced for MoMA, SFMOMA, and stories for Afropop Worldwide, America’s Test Kitchen, and other museums and public media outlets. In addition to Howell’s own production work, she works with The Kitchen Sisters, the Peabody award winning independent producers who create stories for NPR and other public media, where she has worked as a producer for seven years. Prior to her career in media, Howell worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations in San Francisco, including The Gladstone Institutes and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corps. She has her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley and her Master’s Degree in Public Policy from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. When Howell is not deep in production of her next story, she can be found digging the crates of her favorite record stores looking for the next hidden audio gem for her growing collection of rarities.
Jim McKee | Sound Designer / Engineer
Jim is the owner of Earwax Productions, which he co-founded in 1983. He has worked on major motion pictures, festival-winning independent films, documentaries, as well as popular IMAX productions. He is a leading force in making our increasingly digital and electronic world friendlier and more intuitive. Jim has been at the forefront of major changes in sound technology, helping to keep audio standards high across all media. His resume includes the sound design for artist Ai Weiwei’s groundbreaking installation on Alcatraz, @Large to the familiar sonic brands and audio user interface with Apple, Facebook, Belkin, Logitech and Pinterest. Since 2007 he has mixed feature DVD/Blu-ray feature compilations for Pixar/Disney. Jim received his Master of Fine Arts from The Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College in Oakland, California and his Bachelor of Music Education from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Virginia.
Board of Directors
Mara Brazer
Claudia Ceniceros
Marc Hand
Cristina Hudson
Richard Hylton
Ellen Lewis
Frederic Marienthal
Davia Nelson
Nikki Silva
Marlene Saritzky
Carolyn Zecca-Ferris
The Kitchen Cabinet
Jay Allison
Paul Auster
Joe Boyd
Eleanor Coppola
Andrei Codrescu
Mark Danner
Robert Fisher
Angelo Garro
Sandra Wong Geroux
David Giovannoni
Peter Guralnick
David Isay
Phil Kaufman
Cindi King
Robert Krulwich
Tom Luddy
Michael Ondaatje
Anne Pasternak
Bonnie Raitt
Joshua Robison
Ellen Sebastian Chang
Susan Sillins
Chris Strachwitz
Michael Tilson Thomas
Alice Waters
Barbara Wollner
Howard Wollner
Funders
Funding for The Kitchen Sisters comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The California Humanities, Creative Work Fund, Robert Sillins Family Foundation, TRA Fund, Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation, Franklin Legacy Foundation, Susie Tompkins Buell Fund, and Listener Contributions to The Kitchen Sisters Productions.
