Audio Flux is a home for innovative,
short-form audio and bold storytelling.
It was co-founded in 2023 by a pair of audiophiles who believe deeply in audio culture and community, and the transformative power of sound + story. And who loooove to listen.
How it works: Twice a year, Audio Flux invites people far and wide to create short audio works inspired by a theme and related set of prompts. For each “circuit” we engage with a creative partner who helps design these parameters, and share the resulting “fluxworks” via live events, online, across social channels, and on the Audio Flux Podcast.
Audio Flux has been featured in a variety of press, including: NPR’s All Things Considered, Vulture, PBS Newshour, Nieman Lab, Good Tape, Modern Day Knitting, on 99% Invisible, Sound School, and WGBH’s The World. The Audio Flux Podcast was listed as one of the New Yorker’s Top 10 Podcasts of 2025.
Audio Flux live events (aka listening parties) have convened all over the place, including at: On Air, Tribeca Audio, Resonate Podcast Festival, XMTR, Sound Scene Festival/Hirshhorn Museum, and other conferences, festivals, and gatherings. Curious about what’s coming up? More info here.
We have also begun offering Audio Flux as a curriculum, and strongly believe it’s an excellent vehicle for teaching audio production, storytelling, deep listening, and critical thinking skills. And it’s a very FUN way to learn the audio ropes. If you’d like to talk more about this, drop us a line!
*As of OCTOBER 2026, the total number of fluxworks produced: 448 // from 30 different US states, and 25 different countries.*
Meet your Flux Capacitors:
Audio Flux co-founder Julie Shapiro is a career listener, audio maker, and creative instigator. She previously served as Executive Producer with PRX’s Radiotopia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Creative Audio Unit. She helped create the critically-acclaimed Ear Hustle podcast and co-founded the Third Coast International Audio Festival, among other influential audio projects. Julie is currently a Visiting Artist in Residence with Harvard’s ArtLab, serves on the Board of Directors for AIR (Association of Independents in Radio) and is executive producing My Brother David, a narrative podcast about pancreatic cancer. Alongside all of that, she continues to champion new forms of listening, participation, and global audio culture through Audio Flux.
John DeLore is an audio enthusiast, renowned radio/podcast sound designer, producer, and editor, with a career that spans from his time at WNYC/New York Public Radio (Studio360, On The Media, Death Sex & Money), to the start-up days of Gimlet (Mystery Show, StartUp, and ReplyAll), to Stitcher (The Paris Review Podcast, Chris Gethard’s Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, The Atlas Obscura Podcast, Unfinished: Short Creek). These days John runs his independent production shop Starlight Diner (Constellation Prize: Nightwalking, Weight for It, and the 4th season of the now independent Paris Review), and along with Julie Shapiro is the co-founder of Audio Flux, a new home for independent audio. John has presented at various audio conferences (Third Coast, Hearsay, AES, IMI Fest, OnAir, Resonate, Tribeca Audio) and in his spare time records music in his garage-turned-studio.
Amy Pearl joined the Audio Flux team in 2024, as host of the Audio Flux Podcast. Amy is a photographer and audio producer with a soft spot for very short pieces. She produced a weekly 2-minute feature for WNYC called Good Things and helped create 10 Things That Scare Me, one of the first short-form podcasts. She is currently working at New York Times Audio. Her hobbies include bottle-feeding newborn kittens and walking around.
Lusen Mendel makes audio features for local radio stations (Crosscurrents and Out in the Bay on KALW, The California Report Magazine on KQED, Mixtapes on KFOG-OB), and does audio engineering and av technicianing for local museums and theaters (SFMOMA, BATS Improv, Backyard Theater). They enjoy hosting audio potlucks and collaborating with local artists. They’re currently searching for the first sound, and hope to record it before it rests. They joined the Audio Flux team in 2026 to make Circuit 07 extra noisy!