Michael May

Michael May is a freelance radio and print reporter based in Boston.

Michael May teaches radio documentary at the Salt Institute in Portland, ME and is a radio and print freelancer. Before that, he was the managing editor of the Texas Observer. For more than a decade, he reported from Austin, where he investigated an idiosyncratic FBI informant named Brandon Darby, heard Willie Nelson sing “Amazing Grace” a capella and discovered that a police“bait car” can snare good Samaritans. His stories ended up on This American LifeStudio 360Marketplace, The Austin Chronicle and others. He has also worked as an editor for the national radio show Weekend America and a news reporter at the Austin NPR station KUT-FM. For his radio work, May has won a Third Coast Audio Festival Gold Award and a National Headliners Grand Award.

Tough crowd

Vegas comics remember their underworld bosses.

Tough crowd

Aha Moment: Willie Nelson on ‘Amazing Grace’

Aha Moment: Willie Nelson on ‘Amazing Grace’

Viruses at the Movies

Viruses at the Movies
Legal justice team

A 'LEGO provocateur' pushes the company to add female characters

A 'LEGO provocateur' pushes the company to add female characters
Whales

How pop music helped save the whales

How pop music helped save the whales
A water merchant in Nairobi sells to the city's poor.

Women unite in the slums of Nairobi to provide clean water

In the slums of Nairobi, Kenya is a project to get clean water to the poor run by a cooperative of women. These women address a more subtle type of conflict,that between the “haves and the have-nots,” a sort of ”urban water wars.”

Women unite in the slums of Nairobi to provide clean water
Turkana Women

Why some Kenyan villagers take AK-47s to fetch water

On the border with South Sudan, is a Turkana village called Loblono, in Northern Kenya. These Turkana people have survived for centuries in one of the harshest landscapes on earth, the dry-as-a-bone desert that also stretches across South Sudan and Somalia. They live a nomadic lifestyle based on herding cattle, chasing the rain and the grasslands that sprout from the desert when it’s wet. The Turkana have always been in conflict with neighboring tribes, like the Poquot and the Taposas. But, in recent years, dwindling water supplies have exacerbated the conflict on this smallest of scales.

Why some Kenyan villagers take AK-47s to fetch water

Kenyan communities succeed in managing scarce water, where aid projects once foundered

Water is the most precious resource for communities around the globe. Yet, surprisingly, aid projects to drill wells in Kenya often failed because people didn't maintain the wells. Now communities are taking responsibility for cooperatively managing their water and their success is leading them to tackle other problems, like education.

Kenyan communities succeed in managing scarce water, where aid projects once foundered
Cannabis close-up

Do alcohol and pot really make you more creative? It depends

Scientists are always interested in how people are creative — and how they can be more creative. Can drugs or alcohol help? The answer, according to scientists, is it depends.

Do alcohol and pot really make you more creative? It depends
The World

Playing Against The Virus

Epidemics have become a hot topic in gaming. In the online video game Pandemic 2, you play the virus, aiming to wipe out humanity. In The Great Flu, you control a world health organization and make decisions about face masks and airport closures.

Playing Against The Virus
The World

Viruses At The Movies

What radiation was to the 1950s – a real but poorly understood menace that served as an all-purpose plot device – viruses have become for our era.

Viruses At The Movies

Preserving India's Hampi Ruins

The Indian government recently took a drastic step to protect the ancient ruins in Hampi by bulldozing homes and businesses of people near the site.

Preserving India's Hampi Ruins

Working in India's Textile Mills and the Sumangali Scheme

Indian textile mills increasingly rely on young women and girls. Many workers sign contracts known as the Sumangali scheme. The mills withhold part of their paycheck and then give them a lump sum later. But if the workers leave they lose all of the money.

Working in India's Textile Mills and the Sumangali Scheme

Death of a Bangalore Law Student

Reporter Michael May follows the trail of the mysterious death of a law student in Bangalore, India. Local newspapers reported the young woman's death as an honor killing.

Death of a Bangalore Law Student
Members of Bangalore metal band Eccentric Pendulum.

Bangalore Metal Band Eccentric Pendulum

Eccentric Pendulum makes its own form of progressive metal, full of tricky time signatures and driving modal riffs.

Bangalore Metal Band Eccentric Pendulum