“Kelley is cheerfully curious, super easy to work with, and a lot of fun.”
— Peter Hedlund, Director of Encyclopedia Virginia
Kelley doing field recording at the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville, Virginia | Image credit: Kendall Madigan/Montpelier
Kelley is a public radio editor and producer based in Virginia. She is currently interim features editor at VPM News in Richmond and editor of Inside Appalachia and the Folkways Reporting Project at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. She created and produced UnMonumental, a Localore: Finding America project and was for many years a producer at With Good Reason. She holds an MA in Writing and Rhetoric from Virginia Commonwealth University and attended the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.
In 2016, Kelley worked with Untold RVA and Storefront for Community Design to build a studio space at a youth-led innovation center in Richmond, Virginia. She’s led workshops in audio production and storytelling and has given talks at MIT, the Public Radio Program Directors Conference, and the People-Powered Publishing Conference. Her work has been heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, BackStory, Virginia Public Radio, and Re:sound.
Kelley is available for radio feature commissions, podcast consultation, editing, production and hosting, tape syncs, and workshops in the art and craft of audio storytelling. For more information, get in touch.
“Kelley is a listener and a thinker. She chews over great ideas and weaves together talented people. She pushes her bubble and boundaries and urges others to do the same.”
—Mallory Noe-Payne, Interim News Director at WVTF/Radio IQ
Kelley Libby recording Free Egunfemi at Iridian Gallery in Richmond | Image credit: Mark Gormus
Radio segment documents lives beyond the shadow of monuments
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Community storytelling has the power to show us that we have common ground to stand on, and it introduces us to people in our community that we might not otherwise run into,” Libby said. “I want people to encounter each other.”
“Kelley is, above all, curious and open-minded. These sound like terrible cliches, but they’re actually extremely useful tools to client-focused creative interaction.”
— Chris Graham, Visiting Curator at the American Civil War Museum
Six Points Innovation Center (6PIC) in the Highland Park neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia | Image credit: Storefront for Community Design
Richmond Localore project lands in neighborhood center building creative economy
From Current: “Independent producer Kelley Libby spent nine months giving life to untold stories here in the former capital of the Confederacy. As she interviewed residents, something stuck out.”
“Kelley is a deep thinker, with a sense for adventure. She asks questions constantly and really listens to answers. She's self-contained, but community-minded.”
—Allison Quantz, Senior Producer of With Good Reason
Six men in a batteaux retrace John Marshall’s historic expedition up the James River in Virginia | Image credit: Holt Messerly
Radio Storytellers Are ‘Finding America’ With Hyper-Local News Experiments
From MediaShift: “What kind of stories–colonial and contemporary–is the city of Richmond hiding? That’s what Kelley Libby, a freelance radio producer, hopes to answer with her project UnMonumental. The city’s African burial ground, for example, sits under I-95 and its fate is at the center of a sports stadium debate. What other stories will surface from a bit of journalistic digging? And who can help tell those stories?”
Kelley in the studio at James Madison’s Montpelier | Image credit: Kyle Petrozza