5x15 and The Moth

Catherine Burns is The Moth’s longtime Artistic Director. As one of the lead directors on The Moth’s Mainstage since 2003, she has helped many hundreds of people craft their stories, including a New York City sanitation worker, a Nobel Laureate, the Tower of London’s Ravenmaster, a jaguar tracker, and an exonerated prisoner. She is a Peabody Award-winning director, one of the long-standing hosts and producers of The Moth Radio Hour, co-author of the New York Times Best Seller How to Tell a Story, and the editor of the bestselling and critically acclaimed books The Moth: 50 True Stories, All These Wonders, and Occasional Magic. She is the director of the solo shows The Gates (written and performed by Adam Gopnik) and Helen & Edgar (written and per- formed by Edgar Oliver), which was called “utterly absorbing and unexpectedly moving” by Ben Brantley of the New York Times, and the feature film A Pound of Flesh. Prior to The Moth, she produced television and independent films, interviewing such talent as George Clinton, Chuck D, Ozzy Osbourne, Martha Stewart, and Howard Stern. She attended her first Moth back in 2000, fell in love with the show, and was, in turn, a GrandSLAM contestant and volunteer in the Moth Community Program before joining the staff full-time. Born and raised in Alabama, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Find her on Instagram @thecatherineburns.

Meg Bowles is a Senior Director and Co-Host of the Moth Radio Hour. Signing on as a volunteer for the Moth in 1997, she had no idea where the Moth would take her. Over the decades, she has directed Mainstage shows everywhere from Anchorage to London. Although her background in television and film served to sharpen her editorial sense and eye for detail, she is recognized for her ability to spot stories in the wild, and to hone in on what transforms a seemingly small story into something universal. For her part, Meg loves working with people one-on-one, witnessing and supporting their progress. She is especially excited to see people who never imagined themselves as having a story go on to proudly claim the moniker of storyteller.

Kate Tellers is a Senior Director, a host of The Moth’s live storytelling series and Webby award-winning podcast, a storyteller and director. 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 Peabody Award winning 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.

Jon Goode is an Emmy nominated writer raised in Richmond, VA and currently residing in Atlanta, GA. Jon’s work has been featured on CNN, HBO, VH1, MTV, TVOne, and BET. His writing earned him the 2006 Promax Gold for the best copyright in North America, and in 2022 he won a gold American Advertising Award, and a Silver Telly. Jon's debut novel, Mydas, was a #1 new title on Amazon and is available wherever you buy books. Jon is the current host of The Moth, Atlanta. IG @jon_goode

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and film-maker. He writes for publications including The Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Independent, and Condé Nast; reports for BBC Radio Four and BBC World Service; presents documentaries for Discovery Channel; is the founder of Digital Dandy; and is the co-host of The First Mile travel podcast. He has reported from the most challenging locations on the planet: hiking to Mt Everest with wounded British soldiers, crossing the Bayuda Desert with explorers, and following World War Two secret missions in the mountains of Albania. Ash has walked over 3000km through East Africa, the Himalayas, Central America and the Arabian Peninsula; and in 2018, he travelled 8500km overland through 14 countries and territories along Russia’s European border, to understand Russian disinformation and cultural-political infiltration. Ash has a background in Countering Violent Extremism and Strategic Communications, and teaches Lifestyle Journalism at City, University of London. In 2014 he commissioned as an Officer into the British Army Reserve, where he serves in The Rifles. Ash was born in Windsor in 1982 and was educated at The University of Nottingham, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Poor School, and King’s College London.