Randall Conrad, M.A.
Researcher • Writer
1116 Massachusetts Ave. •  Lexington MA 02420
781-674-2926  •  randall@calliope.org

Summary

• Versatile and creative writer, researcher, fact checker, speech writer, ghost, and more

• Superior people skills, good communicator, media and publicity experience

• Experience in education, nonprofit orgs, academic milieu

• Responsive, ego-free manager in marketing communications for global hi-tech corporations

Education

Université de Paris, General Curriculum
Columbia, M.A., cum laude. Romance Languages and Literatures
Harvard, A.B., magna cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa

Senior Writer/Editor - Voice, Web, & Print

• Years of Marketing Communications Experience

• Scripting for Interactive Media, Videos, Demos

• Web Sites - Corporate Overviews - Executive Speeches

• 700 Interactive, Motion Picture, Print, Speech, and Slide Presentations in 17 years

• Brochures & Product Descriptions

Some Clients: Adobe | BioQuest Venture Leasing | Compaq | CAST | Converse | NovaSoft | Rare Media Well Done | Shiva | Silver Burdett & Ginn | Thoreau Institute | Think! Interactive Design | Walden Woods Project

 

Consulting Researcher / Writer

 

2004 to present – Higganum Hill Books, Inc.

 

Researcher, editor/writing helper, fact- and quote-checker, and publicity originator.

 

Originated “Directions 2000” series for this independent publisher and edited:

• Henry David Thoreau: Cycles and Psyche by Michael Sperber, M.D. (2004)

• A Sounding Mirror: Courage and Music in Our Time by Thomas Stumpf (2005)

• Transcendence: Seers and Seekers in the Age of Thoreau
  by François Specq, Ph.D. (2006)

2003 - 2006 – Learning Centers for Children, Inc. (dyslexia remediation tutoring)        

Research, case statements, proposal writing, PowerPoint presentations, monthly newsletter via e-mail, web site materials

 

2003 – Body1, Inc. – Public and professional healthcare information for web sites       

Interviews (SARS Interview with Stephen Zinner, M.D.), Medical Professional articles, procedure descriptions, symptomatologies

 

1998-2001 — Smithsonian Institution — National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C.
 

As a contract consultant with Rare Media Well Done, a museum conceptualization company, I worked with a team that produced the Media Master Plan for the Smithsonian's ultimate Mall museum, which opened in 2004. Shared responsibilities included:

• Working with design firms, media technology experts, and professional museum planners

• Distilling wide-ranging, disparate content and presentation concepts into consistent written format

• Organizing the technology information into a web-based Media Master Plan covering all media for all exhibits

1996-2000 – Think! Interactive Design

• Managing Partner & Creative Writing Director      

• Wrote and edited reader-friendly content for HTML files

• Collaborated with creative teammates on site design and architecture

Full-Time Teaching

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1971-1976
-Filmmaking
-Film Department Head, 1975-1976

Tufts University 1971-1976
-Art History: the French Surrealist movement (multi-media)
-Art History: World Cinema

Part-Time Teaching

Boston University, School of Public Communication 1980-1983
-Filmmaking

M.I.T., Department of Humanities 1980-1983
-History of Cinema

            University of Massachusetts, Boston, Extension School 1988
-American History: Shays' Rebellion and the Federal Constitution

Writer for Independent TV and Video

Writer
The Man Most Alive: Conductor from Concord.
Script for a public television biography of the American philosopher and abolitionist  Henry David Thoreau. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Writer
Ben Hecht: A Life On The Front Page.
Script for a public television biography of the American journalist and playwright. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Writer
The Regulators.
Script for a historical television drama based on a true story of Shays' Rebellion. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Director / Co-Writer / Co-Producer
"'A Little Rebellion Now and Then': Prologue to the Constitution."
Awards •  C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle •  American Film and Video Festival

Co-Director / Writer / Producer
"The Dozens." Dramatic feature film.
Grand Prize - Best Dramatic Film: Sundance Festival
Other Awards  •  C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle  •  Athens, Houston, Rutgers Festivals

Director / Writer / Producer
"Cutting Up Old Touches." Documentary.
Premiere: Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Classroom Videos including: "The Brooklyn Bridge" — Silver, Burdett Ginn. Short video script for sixth-graders about the most heroic engineering feat of the era.

Scholarly Publications (selected)

"'I Heard a Very Loud Sound…': Thoreau Processes the Spectacle of Sudden, Violent Death"
        – ATQ 19:2 (June 2005)

"Realizing Resistance: Thoreau and the First of August, 1846, at Walden"
        – The Concord Saunterer, v. 12/13 (2004/2005)

"Indexing a Classic: Thoreau's Fully Annotated Walden"
        – Key Words (American Society of Indexers), 12:4 Oct.-Dec. 2004

"'A Sylvan Appearance': An Instance of Woodplay in The Maine Words" – TSB 233 (Fall 2000)

"A Lot in the Woods: Results of the First Annual Thoreau Pun Survey" – TSB 231 (Spring 2000)

"A Captain with the Insurgents: Jason Parmenter of Bernardston" in Martin Kaufman, ed., Shays' Rebellion: Selected Essays (Westfield MA: Institute for Mass. Studies, 1987)

 Book Reviews (selected)

Alan D. Hodder, Thoreau’s Ecstatic Witness – Thoreau Society Bulletin 241 (Fall 2002)

Elizabeth Witherell, ed., Collected Essays and Poems of Thoreau – Thoreau Society Bulletin 238 (Winter 2001)

Michael West, Transcendental Wordplay – Thoreau Society Bulletin 231 (Spring 2000)

William Cain, ed., Oxford Companion to Thoreau – Thoreau Society Bulletin 233 (Summer 2001)

Film Studies and Interviews (selected)

"Totem and Taboo in the Lone Star State: A Second Look at John Sayles's Lone Star" (in press)

An Unspeakable Betrayal: Selected Writings of Luis Buñuel. Review. Cineaste, 25:4 (2001)

"No Blacks or Whites: The Making of Buñuel's 'Young One'" - Cineaste, 20:3 (1994)

"Mystery and Melodrama: A Conversation with Georges Franju" - Film Quarterly, 35:2 (1981-82)

"'I am Not a Producer!': A Conversation with Serge Silberman" - Film Quarterly, 33:1 (1979)

Awards, Fellowships, Affiliations and Service

Grand Prize, Sundance Film Festival
Red Ribbon, American Film & Video Festival
C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle
London, Florence, Thessaloniki, and Hong Kong International Film Festivals
Governor's Commendation, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Artist's Fellowship (twice), The Artists' Foundation
Project Completion Award, The Artists' Foundation
Woodrow Wilson Fellowship (declined)
Fulbright Fellowship
National Endowment for the Humanities, Media Division, grant award panelist
Thoreau Society and Emerson Society
32° Scottish Rite Mason

Conferences

Université de Lyon (France), Panelist-presenter (invited), 2009 Conference.

Thoreau Society. Panelist-presenter. 2004 Annual Gathering, Concord, MA.

American Literary Association. Panelist-presenter. 2002 Annual Conference, Long Beach, CA.

Independent Feature Film. Panelist. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, sponsored by the Massachusetts Film Bureau.

Independent Feature Production. Organizer and moderator. Boston.
 Conference supported by the Massachusetts Arts Council.

The Independent Feature Project. Steering Committee Member. Founding Conference, New York City.

U.S. Conference for an Alternative Cinema. Delegate of Boston Film/Video Foundation. Bard College.

Service and Program Administration

Calliope Film Resources. Treasurer, 1977-present. A nonprofit producer and distributor of programs in arts, humanities and public education.

Boston Film/Video Foundation. Founding Board Member, 1976. President and Chairman, 1980-81. A nonprofit regional center for independent film, video and performance art, supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.

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