Interview: Escape Pod

Congratulations to Escape Pod co-editors Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya for their Hugo nomination for Best Semiprozine!

Launched in 2005, Escape Pod is the original genre podcast. Escape Pod has  been nominated for the Hugo and the Parsec award, and the podcast is part of the Escape Artists family (which includes Podcastle and Psuedopod, among other), which means every piece of fiction they publish is also produced as an audio podcast. There are now so many episodes of Escape Pod, that the staff put together a guide for new listeners!

Authors whose work has appeared on Escape Pod include E. Catherine Tobler, Keffy Kehrli, Amit Gupta, Cory Doctorow, Izzy Wasserstein, Premee Mohammed, Ken Liu, Eugie Foster, and N.K. Jemisin, just to name a few.  Guest narrators also appear on Escape Pod, including Ann Leckie, Alethea Kontis, Kate Baker, Peter Behravesh, Trendane Sparks, Tina Connolly, and many more.

Something I really like about how the Escape Pod episode list is set up, is that each short story is tagged by genre. Want to see all the robot stories, or all the mysteries, or all the humor, or all the humorous robot mysteries? Click the tag, and you're all set!


Over the last fifteen years, Escape Pod has hosted flash fiction contests,  published the Mothership Zeta quarterly e-zine, and hosted the Artemis Rising month-long celebration of genre fiction written by women.   To celebrate their fifteenth year, Escape Pod is publishing an anthology of works by authors whose short fiction has appears in the podcast, Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology will be available later this year.


Co-Editors S.B. Divya and Mur Lafferty were kind enough to chat with me about how they got involved with Escape Pod,  what they enjoy most about being involved with producing audio fiction, the 'zine's 15th anniversary anthology, and more!

S.B. Divya's short fiction collection Contingency Plans For the Apocalypse and Other Situations, is out now from Hachette India, and her debut novel Machinehood will be out from Saga Press next year.  Her short fiction has appeared in Uncanny, Tor.com, Apex, Lightspeed,and Daily Science Fiction, among other publications. Her novella Runtime was a Nebula finalist.  You can learn more about Divya at her website, eff-words.com.

Mur Lafferty has been involved with podcasting for longer than she'd like to admit. She was one of the founding editors of Pseudopod, an early staff member of Escape Pod, and the founder/editor of Mothership Zeta, Escape Artist's quarterly e-zine. Her podcast Ditch Diggers won the Hugo for best Fancast, and she has won the Astounding Award for best new writer. Her novels include Solo: A Star Wars Story,  Six Wakes, and The Shambling Guide to New York City. Learn more about Mur and her work at her website, murverse.com.

Let's get to the interview!

NOAF: What is your role at Escape Pod? How did you come to be involved with Escape Pod?

Mur Lafferty: I've been involved with EP since the beginning, helping Serah Eley out with promotion, narration, and eventually taking over as Editor a few years ago. (10? Sheesh. Time flies.) I left to reduce my number of projects so I could go to grad school. A few years later I started another project with Escape Artists that didn’t really work out, but when we shuttered that, Norm Sherman was leaving Escape Pod and Divya was moving up from Asst. Editor to Editor. She wanted a partner, so I was honored to return to the show again.

S.B. Divya: I joined Escape Pod in 2015 as an associate editor (AKA "slush reader") at the invitation of Rachel K. Jones. We were both members of the Codex Writers Group at the time, and had come to love each other's stories. About a year later, Nathan Lee had to step back from being Assistant Editor, and both he and Norm Sherman (editor at the time) thought I'd be a good fit for the position so I gave it a shot. I enjoyed learning more about the editorial process, and eventually, when Norm needed to move on, I became one of the editors. Having to juggle a day job and parenting, I really wanted a partner for this role and was overjoyed when Mur agreed to be my co-editor.

NOAF: What’s been your favorite thing about being involved with Escape Pod?

ML: I love looking for stories while thinking about how they would be performed in audio, not just in text. It gives us a unique perspective on looking for stories. And finding new authors is always a thrill.

S.B.D.: Like Mur, I love discovering new authors, and I enjoy thinking about the right narrator for each story and trying to find that best match. I'm also doing my best to be a gatekeeper for more voices in science fiction that haven't been heard in the past. I think it's important to have diversity among editors as well as authors, and sometimes that means seeking out authors who might not think of Escape Pod as a place to submit their fiction. Having the ability to solicit and share those stories with our audience brings me a sense of satisfaction.

NOAF: Every piece of fiction you publish is also a hosted, narrated podcast. In what ways does having an audio narration enhance experiencing the story? In what ways does always having a hosted audio narration complicate your deadline schedule?

ML: We always have to think of how the show will sound, which makes it really hard to turn down stories that are otherwise amazing but wouldn't work with audio, As for the workload, we are lucky to have a dedicated team of narrators, producers, and hosts. We try to work several weeks ahead of time to make sure we can iron out any problems before we post the episode.

NOAF: Escape Pod has been publishing short fiction for fifteen years. How has Escape Pod evolved over the years? What directions do you see Escape Pod going in the future?

ML: Since starting in 2005, we have expanded our team, become a SFWA recognized pro-paying market, changed editors a few times, and began buying electronic print rights so we can post the stories in full on our site to increase accessibility. We have become part of a larger group of podcast magazines at Escape Artists as well (including Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, and Podcastle.) In the early days we published a lot of horror and fantasy stories, especially around awards season, but now that we have more shows dedicated to their own genres, Escape Pod focuses entirely on science fiction. In the future? It's hard to determine that in today's climate, but internally we are moving toward paying everyone on our staff (slush readers are next). Externally, this summer we are taking a page from pre-streaming television and featuring "re-runs" all summer, showcasing some favorite episodes of the past with new, more thorough hosting endcaps by one of our hosts (and co-publisher), Alasdair Stuart.

NOAF: To celebrate your 15th anniversary, you are publishing Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology, which will be available in October of this year. Fifteen years of fiction, how in the world were you able to decide which stories to include in the anthology?


ML: We looked at authors who have been part of the show in the past fifteen years, either choosing a reprint we've published or asking for something new. We tried to choose a representative sampling with a focus on those who've continued to grow their science fiction careers. The final list was a product of our choices, the publisher's preferences, who had time for new stories, and who had the rights for reprints.

NOAF: What will winning the Hugo for best Semiprozine mean to you?

ML: It's taken over a decade to have podcasting respected - every few years a mainstream outlet expresses amazement that one can serialize audio or release fiction through this new platform called podcasting. Our two Hugo nominations have helped greatly to bringing science fiction's eye to podcasting, and a win would further cement our medium as a publishing model that's not going anywhere.

NOAF: Thanks so much! 

POSTED BY: Andrea Johnson lives in Michigan with her husband and too many books. She can be found on twitter, @redhead5318 , where she posts about books, food, and assorted nerdery.

Interview: Lauren Beukes and Fryda Wolff

"The safe choice? Walk away. But when has Jessica Jones ever played it safe?


Jessica Jones has made an art of ignoring her particular brand of super-powered trauma. But these days, she's giving the whole "self-care" thing a try. Seeing a therapist, finding healthier coping mechanisms (read: no business-hours drinking), working toward not wanting to punch things all the time. Maybe even taking the occasional case that won't eat her alive. A simple missing persons case seems like just the ticket. But when a boy's body turns up under an overpass in what looks like a cut-and-dried OD, Jessica can't let it go and dives headlong into an obsessive search for answers."

Marvel's Jessica Jones: Playing With Fire launched on Serial Box on May 28th, with new episodes available every Thursday.   Jessica Jones' dry sense of humor,  her brand of "self care", and a simple missing person case, what could possibly go wrong? (well, everything of course, and that's what makes this so addictively entertaining!).

The 16 epsisode season was written by Lauren Beukes, Vita Ayala, Sam Beckbessinger, Zoe Quinn, and Elsa Sjunneson, and narrated by Fryda Wolff.   When the publicist reached out to see if I'd be interested in interviewing Beukes and Wolff, I jumped at the chance.  You know Lauren Beukes from her novels Afterland, Broken Monsters, The Shining Girls, and Zoo City.  You know Fryda Wolff from her voice acting work in the video games Darksiders Genesis,  Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Fortnight, and many others. She's also the voice of Moxie, an AI companion for kids.

Beukes and Wolff were kind enough to answer my questions about writing for audio, getting to write in the Marvel Universe, home audio recording, collaborating with other writers, and so much more. Because they both have drasically different roles in the creation of Marvel's Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire, I was able  to ask each of them different questions. 

Let's get to the interview!

NOAF: Some voice actors and audiobook narrators will study the material closely before doing the recording, others barely look at ahead of time in hopes of recording their authentic reaction. Which is your preference?

Fryda Wolff: For audiobooks it's always recommended the actor read the material in full before recording, because otherwise you'll find yourself reading page 300 and suddenly you see " . . . he said, in his strong French accent." And oops you've been performing that character in your natural accent because you didn't have this information before. Luckily for me, Jessica Jones: Playing with Fire was written in short, digestible chapters, so I had plenty of time to go through the script before we got to work.

NOAF: Were you a Jessica Jones fan before recording this show for Serial Box? Did you do any special research to make your voice match Jessica's world?

FW: I had seen the first season of Jessica Jones on Netflix, and found it so intense I could only watch maybe 20 minutes of an episode at a time, but I did eventually get through it. The acting was top notch, which is why it put me on edge. I started season two once I was confirmed for this serialized fiction, and it put me right back in the world. My personality's baseline is to be cynical and jaded so playing Jessica's not a stretch for me, which helps.

NOAF: Were there any scenes that were particularly fun, or particularly challenging to record?

FW: The opening scene (which is available to preview) where Jessica’s fighting thugs in an ice cream truck sets the tone for the story. Absurd things might be happening but Jessica's gonna Jessica and tell you what's up in a flat tone, as she's the unflappable straight woman. Getting to say absurd things with a straight face is always a fun challenge.

NOAF: You have a home recording booth. Can you walk us through how you renovated a room in your house to be a professional recording booth?

FW: With real estate prices being what they are in Los Angeles (single family homes in my neighborhood start at around $1.5 million), I rent a two-bedroom apartment. There are loads of options you can find online if you're in the market for a prefabricated vocal booth. Mine happens to be from VocalBooth.com, though I would rather have purchased from Studiobricks.com. Traditional vocal booths made from wood require a team of people with muscles and power tools to assemble and disassemble, they're an enormous hassle. My 4x6 vocal booth weighs about 1700 pounds and so it must be on the first floor or it will crash through a second floor. Whereas Studiobricks are lightweight panels made from foam and can be hammered together with a mallet. Having a vocal booth is a job requirement for a voice actor. I bought the booth originally so I wouldn't have to record during a certain time of day or night, or wait for the sounds of lawnmowers and barking dogs to stop, so I could ensure my auditions would be high quality.

The investment has since paid itself off many times over, and now that we're in a work from home scenario due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was already prepared to record studio quality audio for clients from home.

NOAF:Your previous career was in video game design, and video game sound design.  In your opinion, how have video games evolved over the last ten years? Where do you think they'll be 15 or 20 years from now?

FW: I think art and media evolve together as they’re a direct reflection of what artists were feeling in the time they were made. Now that some game companies are making the effort to have more diverse hiring, we see better inclusion in the writing. Technology has always pushed towards the cyberpunk aspiration of making the virtual more real, so we see expanding tech and titles in the VR space. We also have accessibility for tools, like free or subscription-based game engines and middleware. Many universities as well as specialized vocational schools teach various facets of game development. You can also now crowdfund to finance your project, rather than be solely at the mercy of a publisher’s investment.

Ten years ago, some of these advantages were just a dream. Years from now, I expect we’ll see even more interesting, stimulating and diverse storytelling. VR tech will be cheaper and perhaps most households can afford a set, maybe schools will issue them to kids for distance learning and homework. Maybe coding and game development will be taught in primary schools as a standard. Performance and motion capture tech will also get cheaper over time; maybe you'll be able to mocap and animate your own game at home, even if your budget is small. I think accessibility and diversity are the keys to expanding games as a medium, and if those principles are supported then the artistry can only adapt and grow.

NOAF: Were you a Jessica Jones fan before you worked on this project?  What kind of research did you do, to really get into Jessica's mind?

Lauren Beukes: I'm a huge fan of the original Bendis comics and the TV show, but I also have a deep love for noir, which does not, nearly, have enough troubled female detectives, so it was a thrill to be able to play in her universe and her head.

NOAF: What was it like, to collaborate with so many different writers, and to write in someone else's world?

LB: I love collaborating. It's possibly my favourite thing. Other minds are amazing and surprising, and it means you might get stuck sometimes, but you're never stuck alone. I loved working with these brilliant people, their unique perspectives and voices and insight. It was very much gestalt – more than the sum of our parts.

NOAF: How did the team decide who was going to write which episodes?  Any funny stories about how particular scenes were plotted out or designed?

LB: We settled it with an old-fashioned rage-in-the-cage, home-made weapons, anything goes, no backsies. No, that’s not right. We used our words and talked it out. What was interesting was how particular episodes really resonated with different writers. It was very organic and democratic. Elsa was excited to write the Matt Murdock chapters because it's the first time the blind Daredevil has been written by an actual blind writer. Vita called dibs on the big fight scene, and Zoe wanted to delve into the psychological trauma and head games. I wanted to kick it off, set the tone and then we brought in another wonderful South African writer, Sam Beckbessinger, post-writers room, to write some of the later chapters.

NOAF: Did the episodes you wrote have to be a specific length? Did this cause any unexpected challenges?

LB: Serialized fiction is not for scaredy cats. We had to ensure the chapter were short and punchy enough for audio, but also end on a high note, or a low one, that will propel the audience to the next chapter. It’s about telling compelling and compulsive stories.

NOAF: Knowing that the final product would be an audio recording, did you need to make any changes to your writing style to accommodate the change in medium? How (if at all) was writing for audio different than writing a novel?

LB: I've written for animation and most of my novels are in audio too, so I'm used to thinking about the weight of words and how things sound, but I did have to suppress my natural instinct of going on for a full page of dialogue with no breaks.

NOAF: Thank you so much!

POSTED BY: Andrea Johnson lives in Michigan with her husband and too many books. She can be found on twitter, @redhead5318 , where she posts about books, food, and assorted nerdery.
 

Fireside Chat: Amanda Rose Smith of Serial Box

One of our contributors, Shana, is also the social media manager for Serial Box, a company that creates and distributes serialized audio fiction. Think audiobooks with extra bells and whistles. Shana put me in touch with Amanda Rose Smith (@LadySoundSmith on Twitter), who is the audio producer and composer for most of Serial Box's output, including the new fantasy series Born to the Blade. This series has an impressive pedigree, and boasts a writing team of Michael R. Underwood, Marie Brennan, Malka Older, and Cassandra Khaw. Amanda is an audio pro with literally hundreds of audiobook credits under her belt, and production and composition credits for a number of other projects across many different media. We spoke through the interwebs to discuss some of the ways this type of audio production overlaps and differs from other kinds of production work. — Vance K

VK: Could you give a quick overview of your involvement with Serial Box? I know you composed the Born to the Blade theme, but does it go beyond that?

ARS: Yes, I'm actually the audio producer for just about all the series. So that means I cast (with their final approval) and coordinate the recording and post production. I do all the sound design and themes as well. There are a couple series I didn't do, such as The Witch Who Came in From the Cold and Belgravia, but that's it.

VK: Gotcha. I listened to Born to the Blade Episode 1, and it wasn't exactly what I expected. I don't know why, but the notion of "serialized audio fiction" made me think of old radio shows, with full casts, etc. This was more like an audiobook with sound effects. Is that an accurate description? And for context, I loooove audiobooks.

ARS: Sort of! In the audio world, those old audio dramas are kind of antiquated and I didn't really want to harken back to an older form as much as work towards a newer one. Serial Box calls itself the HBO of reading, and I was thinking of it more as a hybrid between a television series and a book. So my [audio] effects are meant less to give sound to every little thing that might make sound, and more to just subtly make the listening experience a bit more immersive than it would be in a straight audiobook.

VK: Do some of the series feature a full-cast production, or are they exclusively a single narrator?

ARS: Some of them are multicast! Tremontaine has 3 narrators. It's still not like a radio play though, because they tend to narrate different sections from the point of view of different characters, less than speaking directly to each other.

VK: I want to circle back to the "audiobook with sound effects" thing later, but since you mentioned multiple narrators, that leads me to something else. When you're dealing with something that's hours long, are your narrators there with you in-studio, or do they all record separately and then send in the audio? The last time I did a lot of voice over recording, I insisted on bringing them in because — I know many performers have home studios — but I was too nervous as a producer to cede control of the read to someone I hadn't worked with before. What's your approach?

ARS: I do both in different situations. Sometimes I also direct via Skype. If someone is going to record at home, I often do that for the first episode, but we also do comprehensive listen downs and rounds of corrections. So if someone does record at home, self-directed, we make changes as needed if something feels off.

VK: What is that "listen down" like? How many people are involved?

ARS: It varies. Sometimes its just me. Oftentimes, the series producers listen before a piece airs as well. And, depending on the project, I sometimes enlist proofers to listen and note any mistakes. Every episode gets listened to at least twice before airing, which is really important for quality, I think.

VK: How meticulous can you afford to be in line readings and nuances of performance? My work with narration and voice over has extended only to projects that are less than an hour in length, but I'll drill down on almost any single line that isn't as good as I feel it can be. But when you expand out to novel/series-length work, I assume there have to be "we can live with it" moments.

ARS: It does happen sometimes. And certain things are also subjective. It's not always a matter of it being wrong, but of different interpretations. When it comes to straight errors, I'm pretty serious about that, but all the actors we work with are truly fantastic and sometimes their interpretation is something I might not have thought of, but it's still great.

VK: Yeah, that happens a lot. This isn't any kind of revelation, but I feel like the longer the project, the more crucial that trust in the person you've cast becomes. If I'm doing something very brief, I feel like I've got a bag of tricks that can get almost anybody through to a workable final product. But that only holds for so long. What is your casting process, then? Do performers read small samples, do you work off of recommendations, etc?

ARS: I've been working in the audiobook world for about 10 years, so I'm fortunate enough to have a lot of actor contacts. So I draw on them a lot. Generally I get a lot of auditions, pare it down to a few people I think are all great, and then make the final decision from those people with the producers of the series. But trust is SO key. Like, for me, following audition instructions is really important. If you don't do that, how can I trust you to take care of the project?

VK: Right. Circling back, I'm curious what the decision-making process is for how to structure your approach to sound design on a project like Born to the Blade. The canvas seems so vast, you could do an entire start-to-finish sound mix, but instead you pick your spots. What helps govern your approach when the options seem endless?

ARS: Well, obviously time is a factor, as much as I wish it weren't. But it's also an aesthetic choice — for me, it's about supporting the actor's performance, enhancing it, but not competing with it. It's not like a visual medium, where you can design around the dialogue. The whole thing is dialogue. So you have to consider that with the effects, to make sure you aren't covering the performance up. All the information about the story is coming primarily from their words.

VK: Do you have any insight into what's driving the push into serialized fiction at the moment? A couple of years ago John Scalzi started releasing The Human Division as a serial, which harkens back to old...I mean, Dickensian...publishing models, but now the trend seems to have caught on. Is it the influence of podcasting? Something else?

ARS: I think podcasting has a lot to do with it...people are doing a lot of multi-tasking, and I think that these episodes are great for commuting, or doing things around the house. It can be nice to have a bite-sized story rather than a full novel, and also following along with something as its being released, weekly, or monthly, or what have you.

VK: Before moving on, I have to ask — there are people who physically make books who can't stand to read them, there are grips who make movies who can't stand to watch them, etc. — do you get to enjoy podcasts and audiobooks yourself, or does being in the trenches make you want to keep them at arms' length, as a consumer?

ARS: It can be hard. I'm not sure if it's that I want to keep them at arm's length in general, or just that since I spend so much time listening to them that it can be nice to get away. I have about 1000 books under my belt in general, including Serial Box and my other work, I probably end up working on around 75-100 books a year so I don't always want to hear more in my free time, especially since it can be hard not to listen with a work-critical ear. BUT that said, I also really, really enjoy listening to the ones I work on, and sometimes have to re-listen to passages because I was into the story and not paying close-enough attention to the accuracy or what have you. So I really do enjoy listening to them, and I think if for some reason I weren't working on so many I would listen a lot.

VK: That's always a nice feeling. Getting lost in something you helped bring into being.

ARS: Totally!!! I had the Born to the Blade theme stuck in my head for two days, and was really proud of that.

VK: Can we talk about your music? Music started my journey into the arts, and into my career. I started off in a band, we decided to make a music video, made album art, etc., and that got me hired to do graphics, and then video work, etc...So I'm always interested in other artists' journeys. How did your creative/music endeavors intersect with a career in audio production?

ARS: Well, I started off as a classical composition major, specifically interested in film music, and I started engineering originally to record my own music. And then found that I loved that, too. Interestingly enough, my work study was with the office of disability services recording textbooks onto tape for blind and dyslexic students with one of those old little dictation recorders. I'd get their weekly assignments and then read them aloud.

VK: The tools have changed a little bit.

ARS: Heh. For sure. When I was graduating, I realized that as a composer and musician, making a career was...challenging. I come from a poor background and there wasn't anyone able to subsidize a beginning composition career. So given that, I liked recording, I decided to continue school in that vein, and ended up getting a masters in music technology from NYU. Over the years, all the different backgrounds and skills have just kind of...merged interestingly. Recording, composing, and also the out-loud expression of stories. Working for Serial Box has been a particularly cool way to mix all those skill sets.

VK: Between the Born to the Blade theme and the work you have on your website, I'd certainly describe your music as "cinematic." B2tB is as epic and sweeping as you'd expect in a fantasy TV show or movie. Do you bring a sense of genre (of the overall project) to bear when you start composing, or is it rooted in character, story scope, etc?

ARS: Definitely both. Part of what I love about this kind of composition is the opportunity to step into so many different worlds and genres. Just in the themes...Born to the Blade, Remade, Royally Yours, False Idols...they're all totally different styles. I've always been a giant nerd, and most of the other projects I work on are smaller scope, so I was particularly psyched about B2B. I so rarely get to use choirs in my pieces!

VK: When you're digging into pieces that are very different in terms of genre, do you find yourself relying on your training, or do you seek out a lot of examples in that style that you look to for inspiration?

ARS: Both. I always ask the series producer for a few links, even something on YouTube, that they like and that they feel is in the vein of what they want. And if possible, I try to wait until I've finished recording and creating the first episode until I finalize the theme, so I know that it fits with the genre but also the characters and mood and plot trajectory. Music is such an emotional thing, it's hard to explain what something should be in words. Just saying something like "fantasy, epic" means so many different things to so many people.

VK: This is something I struggle with: if you're trying to do a piece that's "like" something else...like a fantasy theme, or like a mystery thing...do you try to nail that thing — the best Amanda Rose Smith version of a mystery theme, for instance — or do you also try to subvert expectations in some ways?

ARS: I don't try to subvert anything unless I think that's part of the process. An old professor of mine once said that in a film, the score is like an invisible actor, or the psyche of a character. It doesn't add something that isn't there, but it does illuminate something that someone might not know is there. So that could subvert expectations in some instances, but that's not my goal. So, for Born to the Blade, it's epic, but its also emotional. There's a lot of political stuff there, and stories about cultures that have been subverted by other ones. So I didn't want to only go big and bombastic, but also to inject some emotion into it.

VK: I think you did. If I remember right, you did some academic work on whether regular folks can tell the difference between acoustic and sampled instruments.

ARS: Yes! That's what my master's thesis was on. Of course that was a decade ago now, but still.

VK: How does that inform your approach to recording? I assume you're mixing live and sampled instruments in a lot of your work?

ARS: Well, mostly due to time constraints, these themes have been largely computer only. But when the opportunity arises, I do like to mix the two, even if listeners can't tell the difference. That doesn't mean it's not worthwhile, for the same reason that an actor's interpretation might be worthwhile even if it's not the same as mine would be. Real live musicians bring their own soul to the work. I've heard other people play things that I've written and thought, "Wow! I didn't even know it could sound like that"

VK: Another lovely feeling.

ARS: I wrote my first orchestral piece when I was 17, and though it was pretty terrible in retrospect, I remember that feeling well.

VK: But for all of that, people can't generally tell the difference, is what you're saying?

ARS: Generally not. Even when I did my experiment in 2008, people only guessed right about half the time. Tut there are certain instruments and genres that are harder to do all with computer.

VK: For sure. But regardless of the method of production, I feel like the goal is always to land emotionally with the listener, or viewer. So if you can accomplish that, what does it matter if the strings are synths or not?

ARS: Agreed!

VK: It seems like in a lot of ways your Serial Box gig is kind of a perfect one for you — you get to bring a lot of strengths to bear. Is this sort of a dream project, or is something dangling out there that you think, "One day I'd really love to...?"

ARS: I think that to some degree, just because of my personality type, I'll always have those dangling ideas. But to be honest, it really IS a fantastic gig for that reason. I get to merge a lot of different skill sets, but also the projects are all super high-quality, and the producers I work with really respect me and the skills and ideas I bring to the table. I feel that I'm really allowed to do a lot creatively. In a perfect world, every project would also have unlimited time for completion too! But alas I can't keep the listeners waiting forever.

Check out Born to the Blade here. And take a look at our (very positive) review of the first two episodes here. 

Posted by Vance K — cult film reviewer and co-editor of nerds of a feather since 2012, folk musician, and Emmy-winning producer.