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Our Mission

Radius is a student-led organization which offers the skills of narrative, storytelling, job training, and digital literacy to members of underserved communities in greater Massachusetts. Using the populist medium of podcasting and the smartphone, MFA candidates and BA students help community members tell their stories and those of their communities. Currently, Radius is working with the Care Center in Holyoke and other organizations to create a podcast that aims to share community members' lived experiences of the pandemic.During these difficult times, we aim to create the kind of community and articulation which is capable of changing policy.

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Our Team

Edie Meidav is the founder and director of Radius MFA, a podcasting job training and outreach project since 2014 out of the English Department at the University of Massachusetts -Amherst. Her books include the novels LOLA,CALIFORNIA (FSG) and CRAWL SPACE (FSG), and the collection KINGDOM OF THE YOUNG (Sarabande). Her work has received support from the Lannan Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Howard Foundation, Fulbright (Sri Lanka and Cyprus), the Bard Fiction Prize, Macdowell, Yaddo, and elsewhere. A first job out of college: deejay in Los Angeles, piping odd mixtapes out over the agricultural fields of the U.S.A.


Mike Zendejas studies for a fiction MFA at UMass Amherst. He is an inaugural recipient of the Hong Kim Czuprynski Fellowship, as well as a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Emerging Writers Fellowship, given by Writers in the Schools (WITS). His work is available or forthcoming in: Acentos Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, FIVE:2:ONE Magazine, Liberation News and elsewhere. He loves reading, writing, and helping others do the same!

Taylor Calabro (they/them) is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studying English. They are currently a grant-writing intern for Radius, highly motivated by the virtues of sharing the stories of people who often go unheard. They have previous experience in volunteering for the Bernie Sanders campaign, where they canvassed and connected with volunteers across the country. As an autistic, queer, and gender non-conforming person, they are excited to bring the unique intersections of their experiences into the conversation about ethically platforming disenfranchised voices, and furthermore empowering them through the modern outlet of podcasting.

Jorge Biaggi (He/Him/His) is a Class of 2023 English Major studying at UMass Amherst that is pursuing speciliazations in Creative Writing, Social Justice, and Technical Writing. He has just recently joined the Radius MFA team as a Grant Writing Intern and is hoping to apply himself as a strong team-player by utilizing his own prior experiences in Public Communications. An active editor and submitter for the UMass literary magazines "Scribe" and "Jabberwocky", Jorge is excited to share and engage with his storytelling experiences in the new lens that Radius provides, and he is very eager to further integrate his own Puerto Rican heritage and Queer identity into making his time with Radius a unique and exciting moment in his College Career.