All right, luvvies? This is the sixth issue of the newsletter in this current incarnation, and I'm thinking about switching things up. Read on for a peek at the plans.
Also: oops, I sent the last one of these out with a placeholder subject line ("may 2023") by accident. If it feels like it's been a while since I sent one of these, that one might have ended up in your junk filter.
prologue: a serialised story
soliloquy: the best audio drama recommendation newsletters
asides: Interactive Soup, what's new with Merely Roleplayers, what I'm making and enjoying, #pinspiration
fin: who do you trust to find you stuff you'll enjoy?
At the end of 2022 I decided to try changing up what I do with this newsletter. I had been using it as a progress update – basically what now appears in the asides was the whole thing. I decided to put some more original thinking into each issue, to make it more worth reading, whether or not you're interested in what I'm working on.
I'm happy that the past few issues have been worth reading, but they're also a fair bit more work! Some of this year's issues have taken me a good six or seven hours to plan, write and polish. I like the end results, but when my writing time is limited, that's a lot per month to take away. At times I've been writing the newsletter, thinking "I wish I was spending this time writing a story, instead of writing about networking".
So – unless the whole lot of you email me back right now saying NO! – that's what I'm going to try doing. Writing you a story in this newsletter. I've got a story hook I haven't been sure what to do with, so I'm going to see if it works as serialised fiction.
I'm excited about this – my mind lit up at the idea of spending those six or so hours of newsletter writing time working on a story. I'm also nervous, because I'm not intending to plan far ahead; I'll see where the story goes each month, putting the characters into situations I then need to get them out of the following month. It's going to be a challenge. But hopefully I'll enjoy doing it, and you'll enjoy reading it.
If you want to write well in a medium, you should seek out other good work in that medium. If you want to write good books, read good books. If you want to write good audio drama, listen to good audio drama.
Hey, I want to write good audio drama! So I am constantly looking for good audio drama to listen to. If you're reading this newsletter, chances are you want to listen to good audio drama too. And chances are you also don't mind subscribing to newsletters. So here are some newsletters that reliably bring me good audio drama to listen to.
Lauren Passell's Podcast the Newsletter actually mostly recommends non-fiction, but you'll find a nugget of drama in there every so often.
Lauren's detailed, enthusiastic recommendations are what makes Podcast the Newsletter worth subscribing to, even if there might not always been something in there for you. Each recommendation gets a solid paragraph with a personal story about why she recommends it. You can tell she's really listened to every show she recommends – impressive considering the volume of recommendations in every single issue!
Next Interactive Soup: Tuesday 13 June, 6pm, Theatre Deli, London
Interactive Soup tickets cost £5 and get you entry to the event, a bowl or two of soup, and a vote. All the ticket money (usually about £200-£250) goes in a pot (separate from the soup), five different people pitch ideas for how the money could fund or improve an interactive performance (or the interactive performance community), and everyone votes on which idea gets the money. Get your ticket from the Interactive Soup website and I'll see you there!
Tal Minear's Podplane focuses specifically on audio drama, and specifically on work by trans and non-binary creators.
As with Podcast the Newsletter, Tal's recommendations are thoughtful and personal, and really give you a sense of whether you might enjoy a particular recommendation and why. Unlike Podcast the Newsletter, Podplane is much more bite-sized! Partly because it's more niche and specific – 'podcasts' is a huge category, 'audio drama by trans and non-binary creators' is a smaller pool – but you can also sense the careful curation going on behind the scenes of Podplane.
One effect of that careful curation is I have never read an issue of Podplane and not subscribed to at least one of the podcasts Tal recommends. A quick read, just a few select recommendations, and a sky-high hit rate. Up, up, and away!
Now playing in the Main House: Vigil: The Great Fire, a conflagration in 5 acts
Persephone Byron came to this century pursuing a demon of smoke and fire. Now it's going to get her attention the only way it knows how.
(This production just finished, so if you've been waiting to binge, now's your time!)
Coming next
in the Studio (from Tuesday 13 June): The Queen's Dead, guest starring Fiona Howat from What Am I Rolling? and Naomi Clarke, writer of The Secret of St Kilda, playing Court of the Lich Queen (beta) by Ursidice
in the Main House: Vigil: Chief/Exec, with Natalie Winter as Gwynned, shieldmaiden of Morrigan; Marta Da Silva as Harper, chosen of Shadow; Josh Yard as Jinny Greenteeth, consort of the Forgetful One; and Vikki as Renko, furloughed agent of DoOm
in the Studio: The Office Party, a heroic fantasy team-building exercise starring Natalie Winter, Strat, Chris Starkey and Dave, compered by Josh Yard, playing Quest
in the Main House: Vigil: Fear Itself, with Alexander Pankhurst as Graham, Ellen Gould as Jess Butterworth, and Chris Starkey as Cameron Jarvis
The Fiction Podcast Weekly is curated by Lindsey Harris Friel for The Podcast Host. It focuses specifically on fiction podcasts (which includes audio drama and narrated fiction), but isn't solely a podcast recommendation newsletter: it also includes fiction podcast news, resources, casting calls and upcoming projects in need of crowdfunding.
It's a packed newsletter, so the recommendations are mostly one-liners provided by the shows themselves. But there is still some curation involved: shows have to give a reason to be included in a particular week's issue, so you know the featured shows have either just launched (get in at the ground floor!) or just wrapped (ready to binge!), or there's some other newsworthy reason people might be talking about them.
Plus, liking audio drama is the start of a slippery slope leading to making audio drama, so you may as well subscribe to the Fiction Podcast Weekly and set yourself up with all those resources, events and casting calls!
Writing: Dead Weight, a cyberpunk audio drama about corporate hubris (yeet the rich!); and the untitled serialised story I'm starting for the next issue of this newsletter!
Reading: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (reread; I finished my reread of Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, this is the start of another fave trilogy); HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Listening: Deviser (Harlan Guthrie); A Game of One's Own (Snazzy Tapir); The Tower Parts I–III original scores (Tin Can Audio)
Evo Terra's The End is another specific one: specifically fiction podcasts (so, audio drama and narrated fiction) that are complete.
The End doesn't give a huge amount of descriptive detail for each podcast it features, but it does give technical details I never see included anywhere else – like the number of episodes and the total time to listen in hours and minutes. It's also one of the few newsletters that includes the cover art for every podcast it features.
And of course, you know that every show featured in The End is recently complete – that is, either it just ended for good, or a season just wrapped up. So you know that if you start listening, you can definitely get to a satisfying conclusion. No risk of getting into something promising that just launched, only to have it fade into production hell with the story unfinished.
And the listening time stats let you know how much of a commitment you're embarking on if you take up any of the recommendations. It's always nice to be up front about these things.
Happy Pride people, however you choose to mark it!
That's enough from me! Over to you: how do you find out about new audio drama (or books, or TV – whatever you're into enough that you want to make sure you don't miss out on the best stuff)? Who, or what publication, do you trust to find you stuff you'll like? Tell me in an email (just hit reply) or tag your answer on the socials with #FoggyOutline.