Hello! I’m Austin Mitchell, a supervising producer at The New York Times.

I began my professional audio career in early-2016 as an intern at Gimlet Media, helping to develop and produce the first season of Science Vs.

That led to being a producer on the first season of Crimetown, which led to being a senior producer on The RFK Tapes and The Ballad of Billy Balls.

I joined The New York Times in 2019 as a producer on The Daily, where I helped develop spinoff projects like The Latest and The Field while also making the flagship show.

After a brief stint at Novel, I’m now back at The Times, developing a new project that will launch soon.

So why am I doing these Stuck Sessions, you may ask?

Well, if it wasn’t for my own passion projects I never would have gotten a job in this industry.

In 2013 I started a podcast called Broken Legs where I interviewed actors, writers and directors in New York. It was not good. But it forced me to take chances and try things, and it got me out of the house.

In 2015 I started a podcast called Profiles:NYC, a series of one-minute profiles of strangers in New York. I made nearly 200 of these and got better and faster as I went, and it got me out of the house.

It took almost two years of being rejected for internships before I finally landed at Gimlet. There’s no way I would have gotten that job if I hadn’t had a body of work to share and the confidence that I could actually be good at this. That all came from making stuff on my own.

The industry is going through something right now and so many people are out of work. I don’t have a job to give you. But I do have my time to give you.

I know the frustration that comes from having to wait for other people to offer you opportunities. That waiting part is extremely disempowering. So I’d like to encourage you to say screw it, I’m just gonna make what I want to make right now. And I’d like to help you do it.

If you have a project idea but don’t know how to start, or a project you’ve started but don’t know how to finish, please use the form on the homepage to submit for a Stuck Session.