Happy #AudioDramaSunday Friends!

I’m a little late today because last night we had some folks staying over after a birthday party for Sam and two of our other closest friends, Kim and Sean. It’s been a minute since those three have shared a birthday, but these little Pisces princesses have been celebrating together for a decade now. I can’t help but feel a little gobsmacked every time I realize that lately. In fact, last weekend when we went to dinner for Kim’s actual birthday, I realized we’re only a few years away from having known each other for half of our lives. It’s weird because I still feel like the stupid kid I was when we all first met each other, even if my body doesn’t feel quite so invincible any longer. The passage of time is inevitable like that, I suppose, but I do feel incredibly lucky to be able to be sharing my life with so many wonderful friends and family members.

Kim, I have known since my freshman year of college. They were another Creative Writing major at Purchase, a year ahead of me and on the poetry class, so we didn’t have a lot of classes together, but we did share a huge group of mutual friends. We did have one incredibly memorable class together, though: memoir writing with personal essayist Melissa Febos, whose work and teaching style still resonates deep within us all these years later. We’ve drunkenly housed an entire chicken bacon ranch pizza together, only to fall asleep butt to butt watching My Strange Addiction, cared for each other’s cats, and had far more sleepovers than they ever asked for (though, those days are over now that we’ve been neighbors for the last few years).

Sean and I spent a little over two years working together at Indeed almost a decade ago now. We would spend every lunch at his apartment just a few blocks away, griping about work and watching movies 45 minutes at a time. Sam even spent an extremely brief 3 months there alongside us, at which point we called ourselves the Fever Pitch Fan Club because of how often we watched the Jimmy Fallon & Drew Barrymore classic(?) More recently, Sean and I were laid off right around the same time, and having him around to go to afternoon movies on a Monday or a Tuesday while we both gritted our teeth through the simultaneous freedom and frustration of unemployment was a huge gift. Truly, one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

Sam is such a trooper, I can’t even stand it. After recently moving down to part time at her day job to focus on her illustration career, she’s experienced a bit of feast or famine when it comes to client work. And, as is her luck, the feast always happens right around the time we’re about to celebrate something. This weekend, she’s been hard at work for a new client, and so instead of having the days off to relax, she’s been taking every spare moment to master the art of drawing chicken wings. She never ceases to amaze me with her drive and talent, and as much as I beg her to stop working so hard all the time, she wouldn’t be the woman that she is if she didn’t. Her consolation, for the weekend, was to have a LiLopalooza marathon by watching Freaky Friday, Parent Trap, and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen while cranking out illustrations. We even tried I Know Who Killed Me after coming home from the brewery last night… but that one was a bit too gross for her. Tomorrow’s the actual day of her birth and we’ll be celebrating by watching Mean Girls and hanging with our two adorable cats. Just the kind of chill day my love needs.

Oh, PS, I got a job! I’m now the Digital Marketing & Communications Manager for Hapik, a fun climbing gym concept that first started in France and has made its way over to the states. I’ve only been there for a week so far, but everyone seems incredibly cool, and the kids clearly have the best time, so I think it should be a fun place to have landed on my feet.

But let’s get to podcasts!

Midst

So, I had two new episodes of Midst to hear this week, and they were both fantastic, but I’d specifically love to shout out the newest one. In it, we learn some real bombshells about both Phineas and Lark that will absolutely change the course of the series to come, as well as their ability to trust one another. This show, with its three free-wheeling and unreliable narrators is truly one of the most innovative series I’ve ever heard. I’m obsessed with the way the story flows out of each of them in turn, and will miss it so much when it comes to an end this year.

Breaker Whiskey

Breaker Whiskey’s back on the road and getting metaphysical. There seems to be some possibility that there are some inter-dimensional antics going on, which is maybe a slight improvement over her previous hypothesis that she might be in literal hell. I’m not sure how much of a comfort it really is, especially since she finds herself still alone in the world, save for whoever is out there being infuriating enough to only communicate through cryptic morse code messages transmitted over the radio. Yet still, she persists, and will continue to hunt down every library she comes across to try and understand the scientific possibility behind any of this, if she can.

World Gone Wrong

I was fortunate enough to land myself a copy of the first three episodes of World Gone Wrong before the show officially premieres this upcoming Tuesday. As a new venture from Audacious Machine Creative (née Hartlife NFP), the team behind Unwell, a Midwestern Gothic Mystery and Our Fair City, it should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that this show slaps. Starring Michael Turrentine and Hilary Williams (Wes and Joey on Unwell), the show follows ex-roommates Mike and Jamie as they launch a chat podcast to help deal with all the ways in which the world is now… wrong. From acid rain, to werewolves, to vampires, and some timey wimey shenanigans, this show is full of heart, humor, and the kind of beautiful storytelling one should come to expect from Eleanor Hyde, Jeffrey Nils Gardner, Jessica Best, and every other creative they ever choose to take along for the ride.

Josies Lonely Hearts Club

If you tuned into the Forgive Me! feed today, then you too have been introduced to the charming majesty that is Josie’s Lonely Hearts Club, a semi-improvised audio drama set in the studio of New Mexico’s 3rd-best romantic advice call-in show co-created by star Rachel Music and Maximillian Clark of Superhuman Public Radio. What I love about this show is how it gets to have its cake and eat it too: allowing Josie to both react in real time to the improv antics of her callers, while also progressing her story along by developing a relationship with her engineer Frank. It’s fun as heck and the first eight episodes are already available wherever you find podcasts!

The White Vault

We’re at the penultimate episode of The White Vault: Goshawk and good god, did I not see that coming. The twist comes pretty close to the jump here and keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. Fool and Scholar Prodcutions have done it again, introducing even more menacing elements to their arctic horror saga. If you loved the most recent season of True Detective and aren’t caught up with this team’s work, you should really get started. You’ll thank me for it.

Old Gods of Appalachia

I haven’t listened to Old Gods of Appalachia since 2021, at which point I’d only ever heard the first season and a few bonus episodes. I couldn’t tell you why I dropped off at the time, but I have been saying to myself over and over again for the last three years (plus a few weeks to you all in this newsletter) that I would come back to it. I’ve only just dipped my toe back in the book, but good god, do Steve Shell and Cam Collins write some of the most horrifyingly compelling audio horror out there. I’m so glad I finally got back to it and I can’t wait to earnestly catch up to all 50+ episodes I’ve missed in my absence.

Victoriocity

Victoriocity: Truth & Claw continues to be just as fantastic as the first two seasons before it! And gosh, am I glad to have it back in my life, especially now that I’ve realized that their new novel High Vaultage won’t actually hit the states until September of this year. I was already jealous of all my UK friends sharing pictures of their advance copies, but once I noticed the ship date on my pre-order that deepened more still! And yet! I am thrilled for everyone out there that gets to experience the deepening misadventures of Clara Entwistle and Archibald Fleet. This week, my favorite segment was an extended sequence where our PI’s tried to fetch a cab to the outskirts of Even Greater London, only to meet a very opinionated horse who had his own say in the matter.

The Kingmaker Histories

After what felt like a blink of an eye, we’ve already reached The Kingmaker Histories series 2 finale! And gosh, what a series it was. This episode in particular was a delight because we got learn a bit more about Eisen and his past in the military through the introduction of a new character Lando. It was nice, for a little while, to see the curtain pulled back a bit on one of our intrepid heroes, and nicer still to see where his current allegiances lie. I cannot wait for this show to come back, but in the meantime, I’m already thinking about my full series relisten!

BONUS SNACK

Petey

I haven’t finished any new books in the last week, and I’m still pretty behind on most television, but one thing that has been getting me through it has been the new Petey Audiotree Live session. I’d never listened to this band before, though I knew a bunch of my friends were big fans of theirs. Audiotree will always hold a special place in my heart, since it served as a huge discovery tool for me when I was looking for new music at the end of college, and while I’ve fallen off my extreme devotion their channel in more recent years, I still love getting to hear folks’ sessions pop up from time to time. My track highlight on this release is Don’t Tell the Boys due in no small part to the lyrics in its bridge about The OC.

That’s all for this week. Next week, I hope to have caught up with even more Old Gods of Appalachia, and maybe find a new obsession. Anybody listening to anything great I’ve missed? Send it my way!