Radiomaker Fil Corbitt was in Ecuador, preparing to unplug from all technology for two weeks, when their phone rang with unexpected news: They would receive the Silver Pen Award at the 39th Nevada Writers Hall of Fame event. Corbitt was about to turn off their phone before a legendary field-recording trip with Sound Tracker and acoustic ecologist . They took the call before beginning the listening and recording expedition in the Ecuadorian Amazon — and learned they were the .
“I was standing outside of a hotel in Quito, Ecuador, when the call came in,” Corbitt said. “It was totally unreal and surprising to learn I won. It was really interesting because the trip to Ecuador was very emblematic of what led me into sound recording in the first place.”
, musician and writer from Reno, Nevada. Their principal project is a podcast called “.” They have also produced content for a variety of well-known national media outlets, including NPR, The City from USA Today, High Country News, The Wall Street Journal and Rolling Stone. They also won gold at the 2025 Signal Awards. The Guardian, A.V. Club, Outside magazine, the Nevada Press Association, Third Coast International Audio Festival and many more have honored them for their work.
Corbitt prefers the term radio to podcast or podcasting.
They said, “Often when we think of podcasts, we think of it as some kind of social media ‘content.’ What I am doing, I am striving to make something that is bigger and more important than that — I am on the artistic side of content creation and storytelling. I like to think of it in a documentary sense; it is literature that is presented in sound form. This is why I like the term radio so much. People tend to understand it more.”
Corbitt has a true passion for editing and recording.
“I love sound, storytelling and sharing interesting radio pieces that cover important and meaningful stories with other additional media elements,” they said. “Winning the Silver Pen Award really feels like things are coming into alignment for me. I grew up making home videos with my brother. I also attended journalism school because of how much I loved audio and video editing. I was in a touring band where we’d record our own music and self-promote our tours, and I worked for USA Today for two years. Through all the work I have done, I was able to take what I learned and use it to help shape ‘The Wind,’ which came to be in 2020.”
“The Wind”
Corbitt is currently working on year seven, season seven of “The Wind.” They said they are developing shows they’ve thought about for a long time with other big next steps to come.
“To be making art and making a living in general, I am constantly striving to find a balance,” Corbitt said. “I often think back to when I began recording ‘The Wind’ and all the stories that have been told. It is amazing to receive this award and reflect on all that has happened in the last several years.”
Corbitt noted that they recognize listening as a learned skill essential to creating.
“To pay attention, you have to give something,” they said. “It’s not transactional. It has to be relational. Patience is key. This is the skill that is so integral to be able to listen well.”
Corbitt started “The Wind” right around the time COVID-19 hit. They left the city and moved to the Sierra, rented a room from a couple and began realizing the dream of living in the mountains. Then COVID-19 hit, changing the world, our social lives, relationships with work, creativity and each other.
“I was living in a beautiful place where I could open the door and walk straight out into the forest,” they said. “Time and time again, I was always called back to the same spot. Because of my connection to that place, I decided to build a desk using downed trees in the forest. This was my place to go to and truly be immersed in the mountains I felt so fondly of.”
Corbitt said the desk gave them a sense of being rooted in a place that allowed them to explore different worlds without forsaking the core essence of what they wanted “The Wind” to be.
“The desk was a physical anchor, and the show was a way to build within the structure that everything could be held together,” they said. “That first season of ‘The Wind,’ I was building roots, exploring different ideas and parts of themes; things like Western identity, Brazilian punk music, itinerant train hoppers, diving into deeper worlds and having ‘The Wind’ as the anchor to explore and the desk a place to create.”
Out of their work on “The Wind,” Corbitt saw “” get picked up by NPR stations across the US.
“Postcards” is a popular two-minute weekly audio segment and broadcast drop-in that airs on 10 NPR radio stations across the United States. It is equal parts travel and poetry, offering listeners a break from the news, with sounds of life, crafted locally by Corbitt.
As season seven is being created, Corbitt said they hope to travel to the United Kingdom and across the United States. A trip back to Ecuador may also take place next year. They are also signed up for their sixth year of participation in the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
Walking terrain to map out ideas in the brain
As Corbitt reflected on receiving the Silver Pen Award, they referenced British author and naturalist Robert Macfarlane’s idea regarding how walking through physical terrain can be a profound method for mapping out internal ideas, memory and self-knowledge.
“When I am outside in the alpine or the high desert, far from the roads and power lines, I can reach beautiful ideas. I have a love for open landscape and space — this provides the opportunity to move. This is so important to me as a person, an artist and a radiomaker.”
Corbitt said we think it is good and healthy to walk in the forest, but it truly can be good for us in ways we can’t quite reckon with.
“There is a deep spiritual level and lots of diverse living things to be found in nature,” they said. “This is so important to recognize because it helps us better understand what it means to be human.”
About the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame
The Nevada Writers Hall of Fame was conceived by former Friends of the University Libraries President Marilyn Melton in 1988. She envisioned two purposes: an annual event honoring Nevada's finest writers and a stimulus to encourage excellence among emerging writers in the Silver State.
The first selection committee met at Marilyn’s home and chose Robert Laxalt and Walter Van Tilburg Clark as the recipients. Since that time, the Hall of Fame has become an annual event.
The names of all the authors who have been inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame are now prominently displayed on a wall of honor in the Leslie Harvey and Robert George Whittemore Tower Entry and Reception Gallery of the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center.
Honorees are selected based on their body of work, critical recognition and a strong connection to Nevada through the themes of their writing or residence in the state.
The Silver Pen Award was established in 1996 as part of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame to recognize writers who work in or write about Nevada, are in midcareer and have already shown substantial achievement.
The award is designed to honor their talent and encourage other emerging and midcareer writers. It is hoped that through their outstanding work they may one day be inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
