Catherine Burns

Catherine Burns is a Peabody Award–winning director and storytelling coach. From 2003 to 2023, she was the artistic director of The Moth, the juggernaut of true stories told live, starting out as one of just two employees, and helping grow the company into a beloved international brand with shows on six continents. She was a host and producer of The Moth Radio Hour, heard on nearly 600 public radio stations and the BBC, and is co-author of the New York Times bestseller How to Tell a Story. As one of the lead directors on The Moth’s Mainstage, she has helped thousands of people craft their stories including Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, Nobel laureates, the Tower of London’s Ravenmaster, a New York City sanitation worker, and luminaries such as David Byrne, Elizabeth Gilbert, Malcolm Gladwell, Padma Lakshmi, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Salman Rushdie. She is the editor of the best-selling and critically-acclaimed books The Moth: 50 True Stories, All These Wonders, Occasional Magic, and A Point of Beauty. 

She is the director of the off-Broadway shows Loud Memory (written and performed by Ed Gavagan), The Gates (written and performed by Adam Gopnik), and Helen & Edgar (written and performed by Edgar Oliver).