Happy #AudioDramaSunday y’all!

I’m feeling pretty unmoored right now, if I’m being completely honest with you. News from throughout the world continues to be terrifying, and we’re just expected to move through it and continue to participate in a brutally capitalistic society that proves day in and day out how little it cares for any single one of us as human beings. I’m so sick of waking up each morning and seeing men, women, and children die (literally) every time I open a social media app, then opening another and seeing folks try and justify these horrors with propaganda, and in some cases, outright celebrating them with no remorse. I feel helpless, and hopeless, and scared all of the time. I’m genuinely having a hard time even writing this paragraph, because I know this kind of introspection is not what y’all come here for, but I feel much worse about the idea of remaining silent on the matter. I can’t let myself become numb. Free Palestine. Free Sudan. Free Congo. And, for the love of god, Free queer folks in the USA (and everywhere).

This week is the last one of my unemployment. I’ll make an announcement of where I’m going next once that gig has officially started, but I’m also looking back on this past three months with a lot of introspection. I’ve had bouts of hyper-productivity in my creative practice, and bouts of exactly the opposite. I’ve had bouts of hope and bouts of despair and bouts of indifference. I’ve moved the needle on projects I was worried had been abandoned years ago, and I learned that other projects I was saddling a lot of my goals for the future on wouldn’t be moving forward, at least not in the format I had pitched them. That isn’t to say I have to give up on any of them, and in fact I very much won’t, but it does leave me in the same kind of liminal state that I’ve been living through lately. Questioning where I should put my efforts as I look ahead to the rest of the year (and years) to come.

As a creative, I often feel manic about what my goals should look like. I move from month to month, week to week, day to day, hell, hour to hour, and minute to minute and my aspirations change. There are moments when I’d like to go all in on the entertainment industry: abandon everything and give grinding away in LA an earnest chance. There’s others where I want to stay right where I am, and put every iota of myself back into being a musician, or a novelist, or even just a critic. And while I try my level best not to equate my own self worth with my ability to turn a profit off of the art I create, I find myself mourning, daily, the versions of myself that I’ve put a boatload of effort into only to abandon for the next shiny and sparkly thing. I have several episodes of a chat-style podcast in the can that might not ever see the light of day. An entire album’s worth of songs with a band from college that remain perpetually 80% finished. A pitch deck and a podcast pilot that turned into my first attempt at writing a novel in years, only to stop after 10,000 words and craft an entirely different book proposal. There’s only so much time in the day to get anything done, but gosh, sometimes I wish I could just pick a lane and stick with it.

On that bright and sunny note, let’s get to why we’re actually here, shouldn’t we?

Beef And Dairy Network

This month on the Beef and Diary Network, we’re introduced to another wild personality in this entirely bovine-focused universe, Gary “Fiesta” Lewis. And truly, Benjamin Partridge is one of the best writers I know at coming up with perfect new comedy characters. From his ability to name them, to their absolutely ridiculous jobs, and his cast’s utter commitment to the bit (or should that be udder? *I’ll see myself out*). This infamous snooker-club owning hardman gives us the rundown on what it’s like being the head of a criminal beef enterprise, and is always the case with this show, is gut wrenchingly hilarious in the process.

Academy

My first AT WILL MEDIA marathon this week came when I finished the first season of Wondery’s Academy. This show gives me massive Cruel Intentions meets The Skulls vibes, with a 2020’s sensibility and a relentless horniness that I genuinely always love to see in audio fiction. The twists and turns here are satisfying, the villains get their comeuppance, and our girl gets her boy (after regrettably bedding down with one of his friends, first). I’m so glad this show finally came out in its entirety, because I loved the pilot when it premiered last year, and getting to hear the whole was incredibly gratifying.

Midnight Burger x The Amelia Project

I was lucky enough to finally listen to the new Midnight Burger x The Amelia Project crossover episode, SOMNIUM, earlier than the wide release this spring because of my subscription to Fable and Folly+ and good gosh am I glad that I did. We all know that the Amelia gang is always up for a crossover, and that they’re the kings of it (although I like to think our run of Forgive Me! crossovers will give them a run for that title one day), but WOW was it fantastic to get to experience the brilliance that is the diner crew meeting characters from another podcast. I’ve long believed that Midnight Burger has the perfect premise for crossovers, situating themselves in a dimension hopping diner, and god did this episode prove me right. I just hope that this is the first of many more to come.

The White Vault

There always comes the time in a new season of The White Vault where I realize we’re closer to the end than the beginning, and I get a little sad. Fool and Scholar Productions have long proved themselves some of the absolute best in our entire business with thrilling scripts, next level sound design, and the kind of arctic horror that puts most other media to shame. I’ve been loving Goshawk with every fiber of my being, and am thinking of finally supporting their team on Patreon in order to marathon a few of their exclusive miniseries in that universe. I’m particularly looking forward to listening to Iluka because I know my friend Dallas Hawthorn (Fireside Folktales, Moonbase Theta, Out) is in that one.

Breaker Whiskey

This week’s episodes of Breaker Whiskey were a beautiful pallet cleanser after the absolute despair of the one before it. It’s not to say that there wasn’t plenty to grieve here: Whiskey still finds herself alone in the world, with no more human connection to speak of, but after the initial shock of discovering Leanne’s body, she decides to instead document how Leanne lived. That meant learning about the woman’s propensity for gardening, her own hopes and dreams, culled from her journals, and the love she had for her husband who she lost even before the world changed. It was a melancholy story, sure, but it was also a beautiful one.

Windfall

I’m going to be a bit passé here and talk about the first season of my own show, Windfall. Since I’m currently in the swing of things, actively producing our next twelve episodes to premiere at some point later this year, I wanted to go back and actually listen to the first ten. I’m only halfway through on this, my first re-listen in years and… y’all. I don’t care if it’s a bit gauche that I’m saying this: we made an incredible show. Are there things I would change, if I could go back in time? Sure, of course there are, but we assembled a top tier cast of actors who truly believed in the scripts they were bringing to life. And while I’d never recommend anyone sacrifice as much of their financial stability as my brother did when producing them? It’s unreal to me how good they still sound, all these years later. We did that. We really, really did.

In two days’ time, it’ll be our 5 year anniversary, and while there was a huge part of us that wanted to be celebrating that milestone by premiering the season, we’ve decided to be kind to ourselves and postpone that launch until we have enough of a backlog in the can that we aren’t scrambling to finish episodes as they air. That being said, I am thrilled to let you know that I officially have the first three episodes entirely dialogue edited, and I’m moving through them at a solid clip. I hope to have the whole season edited by the end of March (mid-April at the latest), at which point we’ll be able to schedule the remaining pickup sessions we need for any audio that is missing from our original production days. And while we aren’t ready to be back quite yet, I will keep y’all well updated on our progress as we move through it.

Ask Your Father

Gideon Media’s newest show Ask Your Father continued this week with the release of our fourth episode, “Not Close to Being Done.” Sean Williams and Kevin R. Free continue to have absolutely bananas chemistry as Lem and Mikey, but I also would like to shout out Rebecca Comtois and Rob Maitner who are doing stellar work as our tethers to mission control back on earth. They clearly know something that Lem doesn’t, which is keeping the tension of the show’s predicament on a live wire. We only get to experience them in small bits and pieces throughout the series, but they’re pulling a lot of narrative weight here and deserve all of the flowers in the world.

Hannahpocalypse

After their absolute emotional stunner of a previous episode, Hannahpocalypse returned this week with their inevitable villain meets villain moment. And gosh, do Rictor and Morgan have a lot of catching up to do. Tom Schalk and Leslie Gideon grab my immediate attention every time they pop up in this series, so getting to hear them play off of one another was an absolute delight. I should say that I’m not looking forward to whatever chaos their uneasy alliance will wrought, but then I’d be lying to you all and we can’t have that. This new ~friendship of convenience~ is going to be disastrous for Hannah & company in the best way possible, and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Possession

My second AT WILL MEDIA marathon this week came with the rest of their fantastic Audible Original, Possession. I mean, again, you literally cannot go wrong when casting either Lamorne Morris or Ebon Moss-Bachrach in a project, so making them a two-hander is a literal no-brainer. And while, admittedly, I called this series twist long before it was officially revealed, that didn’t make it any less resonant. I don’t want to give away any spoilers on the ultimate nature of the horror on display here: but know that it’s extremely prescient in a way that’s satisfying as hell. You should give it a listen, if you’re an Audible user!

The Kingmaker Histories

My last listen of the week came in the form of the newest episode of The Kingmaker Histories, and gosh, was it a good one. What starts out as a rather low-stakes mission for Iyer, Winterlich and Co. turns into a real battle of wits, with poor Collette’s life literally hanging in the balance. Setting all of this at a kid’s birthday party is a brilliant move, and casting Graham Rowat is always a god-tier move. I’m obsessed with this world that Meg Molloy Tuten has created for us, and am so thrilled every time a new episode drops. If you haven’t given this one a listen yet: what the hell are you waiting for?

BONUS SNACK!

Midnight On Beacon Street

This week’s bonus snack is one I’ve been anxiously awaiting: Midnight on Beacon Street, the debut novel of my friend Emily Ruth Verona, a fellow Creative Writing alum from the SUNY Purchase College class of 2012. Verona has, without exaggeration, always been one of the most talented writers I’ve ever come across. I’ll never forget reading her work in undergrad and being legitimately jealous at how effortlessly gripping her prose was. This book, a 90’s set horror that takes place over the course of one meek babysitter’s night at work was no different. I was extremely proud to be able to pre-order this book, and even more so once I cracked the spine and got to work. I read the whole thing in under 24 hours! In a related bit of trivia, Emily was one of Christie Donato and I’s beta readers for the first season of Windfall wayyyyy back in 2017, and her insight invariably improved the final product. If you’re looking for a new read, please consider picking up this beautiful book.

That’s all I’ve got for now, pals. Thanks for sticking with me through all the ups and downs. Next week, I’ll inevitably have more Windfall season two updates, and maybe I’ll actually get back into Old Gods of Appalachia like I was hoping to this one!