The Moth Radio Hour Hosts

Our Hosts

Sarah Austin Jenness

SARAH AUSTIN JENNESS joined the staff at The Moth in 2005, and as Executive Producer, she has worked with hundreds of people to craft and hone their personal stories. She is one of the hosts of the Peabody Award-winning The Moth Radio Hour, and launched The Moth's Global Community Program -- coaching storytelling workshops in the US and Africa to highlight world issues including family homelessness and public health. Moth stories she has directed in the past decade have been told during the UN General Assembly and as far afield as the Kenya National Theatre. She believes stories have power and can change the world by creating connection.

Hixson Headshot

JENIFER HIXSON is a Senior Director, director and one of the hosts of the Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour. Each year she asks hundreds of people to identify the significant turning points of their lives - fumbles and triumphs, leaps of faith, darkest hours- and then helps them shape those experiences into story form for the stage. She falls a little bit in love with each storyteller, and hopes you will too. In 2000, she launched The Moth StorySLAM, which now has a full-time presence in 25 cities in the US, UK and Australia and provides more than 4,000 individual storytelling opportunities for storytelling daredevils and loquacious wall flowers alike. Jenifer’s story, “Where There's Smoke” has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, This American Life and was a part of The Moth’s first book: The Moth: 50 True Stories.

Meg Bowles

MEG BOWLES is a Senior Director and Co-Host of the Peabody Award winning Moth Radio Hour. Like most of the Moth staff, Meg started as a volunteer in 1997 helping to curate early Mainstage events and teaching storytelling workshops. In 2002 she was pulled away by Discovery Communications, mainly because she needed the paycheck, but when Moth Founder, George Dawes Green asked her to return to help curate the Mainstage in 2005, she found it impossible to say no. While directing stories for the Mainstage, Meg has had the privilege of working with a NASA astronaut who commanded the first shuttle mission after the loss of Challenger, a doctor who saved Mother Theresa’s life, a member of Churchill’s Secret Army who trained spies during WWII, an innocent man who spent 18 years on death row, a Nobel Laureate, a NYC police detective, a lobster fisherman, neuroscientists, veterans, musicians, chefs, fugitives, mothers, fathers and countless people who have found themselves in sometimes ordinary, but often unique situations and have generously shared their experiences and emotions, exposing their imperfections - the very thing that makes us human and ultimately connects us to each other. 

Suzanne Rust New

SUZANNE RUST is a Senior Curatorial Producer and Host of the Peabody Award winning Moth Radio Hour. A noted magazine writer and editor, Suzanne joined The Moth in 2018 in the newly created role of Senior Curatorial Producer. In that position, she seeks out an array of voices, including those that are under-represented and undiscovered, to share their true personal stories from Moth stages around the world. Rust joined The Moth from her position at Family Circle where she researched and culled stories from across the country for the publication. While there, she created the Folio Award-winning “Modern Life” column that highlighted diverse families nationwide. Her career also includes a stint at Real Simple where Suzanne wrote and researched three popular monthly columns. She also acted as media representative for both magazines with appearances on NBC’s Today Show, HLN, FOX and CNN. 

Cs

CHLOE SALMON is a Producer and Director, and is also an instructor for The Moth’s Community and Education programs. The Moth first came into her life as a faithful driving buddy during long trips across her native state of Kansas. Now, she takes great joy in her work behind the scenes that has set the stage for hundreds of stories to be told to audience members (and drivers) all over the world. She is ever-grateful to each storyteller she works with for their generosity in sharing a part of themselves - whether that’s their love for a family-owned rollerskating rink on the South Side of Chicago, their shock at being asked a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, their hope to keep the doors of a bookstore open a world away in Pakistan, or countless other moments and memories that come alive in their telling.

Jodi Powell

For JODI POWELL, stories are a common fabric of humanity. She connects to her story of Mama’s home cooking, the bumpy country roads of her Jamaican childhood and the glories of elementary rubber band dealing through tales told by others.

Michelle Jalowski

MICHELLE JALOWSKI is a director and producer at The Moth, where she helps people across the country mine their lives for meaning, pinpoint the story of it all, and develop it for the stage. She loves the intimacy and connection involved in developing a story - of diving into someone’s life with them headfirst and emerging with gold. Her work at The Moth allows her to combine her love of theater, documentary and live events, and she is grateful. In addition to directing and producing, Michelle teaches Moth storytelling workshops for adults and young people in and around New York. She lives in Brooklyn.

Kate Tellers

KATE TELLERS is a Senior Director, a host of The Moth’s live storytelling series and Peabody Award winning Moth Radio Hour, and co-author of their New York Times bestseller How to Tell a Story. Just a few stories into her first Moth event, fortuitously themed BEGINNINGS, she knew she had found her home. Since then she’s developed stories with her heroes from her Pittsburgh childhood to the present day and helmed storytelling events around the world. She’s designed and led storytelling programs with non-profits including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and Ashoka, as well as Spotify, Nike, Google and the U.S. State Department, that harness the power of storytelling as an empathetic communication tool. Her story, “But Also Bring Cheese” can be heard on the Moth Radio Hour and is featured in The Moth’s book All These Wonders: True Stories about Facing the Unknown (Crown). Her writing has appeared on McSweeney’s and The New Yorker. Through it all her love of storytelling runs deep because it gives her the phenomenal opportunity to laugh and cry with strangers.

Jay Allison

JAY ALLISON is an independent journalist and leader in public broadcasting. He is a host and producer of The Moth Radio Hour and has created hundreds of documentary programs and series. Over the past 35 years, he has been a frequent contributor to NPR news programs and This American Life, and is is a six-time Peabody Award winner. He hosted and produced This I Believe on NPR and co-edited the bestselling companion books. He is the founder of Atlantic Public Media which launched the public media websites, Transom.org and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX.org), and WCAI, the public radio station in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, serving Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cape Cod where Jay lives with his family.

George Dawes Green

GEORGE DAWES GREEN, founder of The Moth and Unchained, is an internationally celebrated author. His first novel, The Caveman’s Valentine, won the Edgar Award and became a motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson. The Juror was an international bestseller in more than twenty languages and was the basis for the movie starring Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin. Ravens was chosen as one of the best books of 2009 by the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Mail of London, and many other publications. He lives in Savannah, Georgia.