Elisa Baena
Elisa Baena is a former associate producer for Sundial. Long before starting her career at WLRN and the weekly public radio show Latino USA, Elisa’s abuela prophesized that she would become a writer because of her over-the-top storytelling style as a child.
As a WLRN intern, she co-hosted an episode of The Sunshine Economy with Tom Hudson and her first radio feature aired nationally on All Things Considered. At Latino USA, she produced episodes about chisme, the inimitable Afro-Cuban singer La Lupe and her community’s response to the Surfside condo collapse one year later.
Elisa has a bachelor’s in English from the University of Miami. She was a writer and section editor for the student magazine Distraction, while her fiction and literary criticism earned undergraduate prizes at UM. But best of all, she got to see Shakira and Bad Bunny up close when her college dance team participated in the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show at the Hard Rock Stadium.
A Miami native and Cuban American, Elisa began listening to WLRN at 16 when she started driving a hand-me-down Mini Cooper to school. She is proud to work at the station that shaped her view of journalism and hopes to keep producing stories that honor her community and culture.
-
SundialMichael Anderson and Fabián Cárdenas are the filmmakers behind WLRN TV’s latest documentary Never Drop the Ball. They told us how the Negro Leagues helped desegregate baseball — and America.
-
SundialNew York Times bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries and children’s books Brad Meltzer visits South Florida to promote his latest book Ordinary People Change the World: Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
-
SundialYou might recognize her from the show “Wait wait…Don’t Tell Me.” Author and comedian Paula Poundstone has jokes! And she shares them with us before her performance at The Parker in Fort Lauderdale on Friday, January 26.
-
SundialSouth Florida journalist Brittany Wallman, who won a 2019 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Parkland school shooting for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, is now working as an investigative journalist for the Miami Herald.
-
SundialJohn Miller is an associate professor of glass at Illinois State University. His art show “Order Up! The Pop Art of John Miller” is now at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami. We talk about diner culture, which inspired the larger-than-life glass pieces.
-
In his decades-long career, Ron Magill has learned a lot from the animal world, and now he's putting some of those lessons onto paper. The Pride of a Lion is about K’wasi, ZooMiami's first male lion cub and how we can learn from his tale of survival.
-
SundialWe talk best and worst movies from 2023 with René Rodriguez. He’s a former film critic and manages the Cosford Cinema at the University of Miami. He also tells us what he's looking forward to in 2024.
-
SundialWildlife photographer and Zoo Miami’s “Goodwill Ambassador," Ron Magill joins us to talk about new book The Pride of a Lion.
-
From street art to music and baseball, host Carlos Frías and producers Leslie Ovalle Atkinson and Elisa Baena highlight their favorite moments on Sundial in 2023.
-
A panel of local food editors featuring the Miami Herald's Connie Ogle, The Infatuation's Ryan Pfeffer and the Miami New Times' Nicole Lopez-Alvar, share what dishes jumped off the plate and which restaurants they loved.
-
SundialA panel of local food editors, including the Miami Herald's Connie Ogle, The Infatuation's Ryan Pfeffer and the Miami New Times' Nicole Lopez-Alvar, share their favorite places to eat in 2023.
-
SundialWe talk about some of the best reads of the year with Mitchell Kaplan, the owner and founder of Books & Books. He also tells us about his recently launched literary foundation.