Who are you and what’s Wyrd Woman about?

I’m the author of three books, and the co-creator of Broads and Books Productions. Wyrd Woman is a show that I wrote, produced, and performed.

It’s about a woman who’s isolated herself from an increasingly terrifying outside world, and who, over the course of nine nights, experiences visions and visitations of women throughout time.

What’s the first podcast you ever listened to?

My very first podcast was something like The Daily from the New York Times – just a news show. But my first audio fiction was The Bright Sessions. I was hooked, and so impressed! The ability to tell such a rich and full story via audio really stuck with me.

Why did you decide to start podcasting in the first place?

My friend Erin and I are book nerds. And in 2018, she had the idea that we should start a book podcast. We spent months researching our niche and teaching ourselves how to do it, and in early 2019, we launched our first show, Broads and Books. We gave book recommendations on a theme, and infused the show with our strange sense of humour, resulting in lots of offbeat stories, funny tangents, and more.

We ran that show for four years, then decided to expand. We formed Broads and Books Productions in 2023, with a number of new shows under our umbrella, including Wyrd Woman.

Which podcasts do you take inspiration from?

I love a good limited series with a narrative nonfiction thread. Classy was so well done from a content and technical perspective – thoughtful, explorative, kind, and truthful in how class impacts not only our lives and futures, but our sense of self. It really hit home, echoing some of my own experiences.

In fiction, I am so inspired by the epic, funny, dark, touching show that is Midnight Burger. I also find The Silt Verses so amazing – how they work with sound to create internal and external horror in a fully imagined world is so cool!

Where did the concept for Wyrd Woman come from?

In early 2023, I was making final edits for my memoir, A Grotesque Animal. The book is about class, gender, sex, generational trauma, and more, but was initially sparked by my discovery at age 43 that I’m autistic. In the process of writing that book, I dove deep into the feeling of being different and never understanding why until middle age. In one of the sections, I did some research into key historical moments, including today, where being different, or weird, was dangerous.

And then that summer of 2023, I was feeling really scared. In the U.S., Trump was back with a vengeance. My state, Iowa, was taking a hard right turn, banning books, outlawing abortion, and, like so many other states, criminalizing being LGBTQ. I was looking at a future where Trump won again, and how these dangers would only increase. I thought about history, all the times that people had a chance to run before they were captured, hurt, or killed, and wondered if this was the time. It was terrifying.

I’d been wanting to try my hand at audio fiction. And all of these things came together into a story that crosses time and connects women who are different. I brought in characters from Viking times, the Middle Ages, the Victorian era, the USSR in the 1930s, and more, all of whom were living through terror, and who were targeted for living outside the norm. I think more than anything I was writing this for myself, a queer, disabled, deeply weird woman, to give myself hope in a dark time. And I wanted to share that with all the others like me.

You’ve also written a short story collection – Exile in Guyville – how do you decide which of your writing should be a short story and which could go on to be an audio drama? What do you think that audio can add to the art of storytelling?

I wrote the stories of Exile in Guyville in 2019, and at the time I was not yet considering audio as a storytelling mechanism. So I threw everything I had into writing.

These days, I’m still figuring out when a story will be written and when it’s audio. There’s something ineffable about what divides and dictates the two. I’m finding that if something feels inert on the page, or it’s not working in some way, it might be needing a soundscape.

In addition to Wyrd Woman, you have two other podcasts, Fuzzy Memories, and Midwest Weird. Could you tell us more about those?

Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine featuring strange stories. Like a traditional print literary magazine, writers submit their stories or essays, and we choose the best fit. But instead of putting that story in a print magazine or online, we turn it into a podcast episode with narration and soundscape. So a story like “36 Hours in the SPAM Museum”, which would be wonderful enough as a print story, is made even more rich and strange with the author’s intonations and music and sound to enhance and punctuate. I do the sound design, and it’s such a fun and intense experience, being able to bring another writer’s weird story to light in an equally weird way. We specifically feature writers from the American Midwest, as it’s a region that is often written off as backward or boring. But as our writers show, it’s also a region of hauntings, surprises, and the uncanny.

Fuzzy Memories is pure comedy and heart. I host the show with Erin and Heath, two of the funniest people ever. And we talk about pop culture from the 1980s and 90s. Whether it’s the utter inanity of 1987’s “Jaws: The Revenge”, 1989’s cutthroat world of fast food pizza, or 1997’s actual football jail, we find the best, worst, and just bizarre. It’s an excellent laugh, and we have so much fun doing it.

Across your work there is an emphasis on the concept of “weird” – could you tell us what being weird means to you?

When I was a kid, we didn’t have much reading material at home. But my mom subscribed to a few women’s magazines, and I tore through them. And at ten years old, I understood some of the tropes and the messages being sent. So I wrote a parody, called “Weird Woman Magazine.” It was about girls and women that don’t fit in the pages of “normal” magazines. I made little business reply cards, and ads for tonics, and quizzes testing your weirdness. I thought it was hilarious and true, but no one else seemed to get it. Or maybe they just didn’t like the idea that I could be proud of being a bit strange and different.

Then, and later, and now, I always felt different. I always felt weird. I found lots of words to help me understand that difference – feminist, queer, autistic – but it all boiled down to abnormal. Atypical. Odd. And in the grand tradition of retaking ownership of words used to denigrate, like the LGBTQ community reclaiming the old slur “queer,” I often summarized those identities into a word that had been an insult, and now I tried to wear proudly.

“Weird” means seeing things others don’t. “Weird” means creating things others won’t. “Weird” is perspective, and identity, and value. It’s content, and creation, and community.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as a podcaster?

To just teach yourself the thing, and work at it, and fail and try again. In the past I often found myself waiting for some kind of permission to start a creative project. Nobody is going to grant that, and nobody should. Podcasting is such a unique and immediate art form, one that lets creators experiment without the gatekeepers of publishing. And that’s an incredible opportunity for people willing and ready to create!

Where can the Pod Bible readers find out more about you?

You can find my books and shows at www.amyleelillard.com!

Listen to Wyrd Woman on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other popular podcast apps >>

The post Wyrd Woman: A sci-fi exploration of non-conformist women appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Fiction podcasts are having a bit of a golden age! From independent podcasters creating their own stories, to the behemoths of television stepping into the game, there’s a wealth of scripted shows right now. At first look, the most popular fiction podcast lists can seem dominated by U.S. companies like QCODE and Wondery, who bring A-List celebrity names and big budgets to their Blockbuster-style show. But we also have some fantastic fiction podcasts produced in the UK and Republic of Ireland that are making waves worldwide, and setting trends that other shows are closely following.

So here are nine of the best UK and ROI fiction podcasts, that I think are definitely worth your listening time:

The Magnus Archives

Probably the biggest fiction podcast to come out of the UK, The Magnus Archives is a horror/paranormal extravaganza, centring on the mysterious Magnus Institute and the eerie, inexplicable investigations they’ve uncovered. The central character, The Archivist, takes us through these cases with his audio statements, but as the seasons progress, the story develops into a much wider narrative tale. The main show ended in 2021 after five seasons, but there’s plenty to sink your teeth into – and now is the best time to listen as audio drama stalwarts, Rusty Quill, have raised a whopping £700,000 on Kickstarter for their follow up show, The Magnus Protocol. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Holy Sh!t

In a sea of horror/sci-fi/fantasy fiction podcasts, Holy Sh!t is a breath of fresh air. A young adult, comedy-drama from Hat Trick Productions (the producers of Derry Girls) about two friends, Meg and Lydia, navigating life at separate Uni’s, where one of the freshers may, or may not, be the second coming of Christ. The story is told in an unique way through WhatsApp voice notes and is a light-hearted take on religion, but at its core deals with female friendship and, most aptly, forgiveness. Fans of TV shows like Sex Education and Euphoria will definitely enjoy this one! Listen now on your podcast app >>

The Chronicles of Wild Hollow

Here’s one if you have younger listeners in your family looking to get into fiction podcasts! Wild Hollow is a high-concept, fantasy series featuring a colourful cast of anthropomorphic animal characters ranging from outlaws to pirates and bourgeois city magnates. If you’re used to fantasy books, you’ll enjoy the fact that you can explore the interactive map of Wild Hollow on the company’s website, which features the locations from episodes. Plus there’s lots of further artwork, and info, of the cute and cuddly characters. Created by a group of Drama School graduates, and with plenty more episodes from this imaginative world to come, this is a franchise worth keeping an eye on! Listen now on your podcast app >>

Wooden Overcoats

Ask a fiction podcast fan to name a British audio drama, and they’ll without doubt mention Wooden Overcoats. It centres on a family-run funeral parlour in the tiny, fictional village of Piffling Vale, and the lengths the family will go to sabotage a rival undertaker who sets up a competing, well-resourced, business across the street. This beloved sitcom is much in the vein of TV shows like Fawlty Towers or The Vicar of Dibley. Filled with the dry humour and eccentric characters you’d expect from a traditional British sitcom, it should be on every fiction podcast fan’s download list. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Forest 404

We couldn’t complete this list without mentioning the BBC. They have been champions of audio dramas for decades, first with Radio 4 and now also with the fiction podcasts created by BBC Sounds. One of their best offerings is Forest 404, a futuristic, dystopian thriller starring Pearl Mackie (Doctor Who) playing a 24th Century sound archivist, whose job is to sift through ‘ancient’ 21st Century soundscapes. Most of the sounds she’s archiving are foreign to her – especially those depicting natural and organic life. This is a clever use of sound design to tell a unique story, something many fiction podcasts have been experimenting with ever since! Listen now on your podcast app >>

The Dial-Up

With only four episodes of ten minutes, anyone looking for a quick fiction-podcast-fix should check-out this time-travel tale. The Dial-Up tells the story of two lonely men, both from Glasgow, who encounter each other randomly on an internet voice call. But they soon realise that one of them is speaking from modern day and the other is talking from late 1999… This bitesize podcast was featured on a Buzzfeed ‘best of’ list in 2022, and was also written and produced by me! Our second season is set to be released August 2023. Listen now on your podcast app >>

Whistle Through The Shamrocks

From the creative mind of Irish starlet Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton, Derry Girls) this is a tongue-in-cheek, scripted retrospective of Irish history covering everything from the Potato Famine to The Easter Rising. Told through the voices of the O’Flanerhyn family, listen as they struggle to deal with their unscrupulous British landlord, who comes over to lay claim to ‘his’ land! The highlight of this show is the repeated meta interruptions from Nicola and her co-writer, Camilla Whitehill. It’s great to hear them ‘argue’ with the actors about the cliché-ridden and borderline offensive Irish stereotypes in the script. Listen now on your podcast app >>

HAUNTED: The Audio Drama

Since launching their first season in 2022, this is one of the fastest growing indie horror podcasts to come out of the UK and has topped Spotify charts worldwide. A satisfying mix of X-Files and Doctor Who, HAUNTED tells the story of a retired paranormal investigator, and the enthusiastic podcast host who propels him out of retirement into a series of adventures, battling monsters of mythical origin. Now on their second season, and just off the back of recording their first ever live episode in their home county of Essex, HAUNTED is only going to keep getting bigger and better! Listen now on your podcast app >>

Eliza: A Robot Story

For those of you hooked on stories dealing with AI or ChatGPT, Eliza is the fiction podcast for you. Its central character is a robot played by Tanya Reynolds (Sex Education) who starts experiencing emotions and feelings. She falls in love with a human, and works together with him to make her even more sentient, but very soon her new relationship turns abusive and controlling. More than just a sci-fi, robot tale, Eliza was made in partnership with The Pankhurst Trust/Manchester Women’s Aid, and deals with a number of topics including domestic abuse, and women’s rights. Listen now on your podcast app >>

—

Philip is a Northern Irish writer, living in London, who writes for screen, theatre and audio. He is the creator of the fiction podcast, The Dial-Up, and is currently a personal assistant to a BAFTA Award winning film producer. Follow him @pip_writes and @DialUpPod.

The post 9 of the best fiction podcasts from the UK and Ireland appeared first on POD BIBLE.

I caught up with SallyCade Holmes, the Senior Manager of Business Operations and Partnerships at Next Chapter Podcasts, to find out more…

Can you tell us how you got involved in Play On Podcasts?

I’ve worked as a consulting producer with Play On Shakespeare for years. When I heard the plan to make these modern verse translations of Shakespeare’s work into podcasts I jumped at the opportunity to work on them!

Most people will be used to seeing Shakespeare on stage or film. Would you say that Shakespeare’s plays lend themselves well to podcasting?

The Play On Podcasts create an aural environment that allows your imagination to run wild. Our sound designers, directors, composers, and actors all work together to create a listening experience that’s truly out of this world. It really allows you to hear and understand Shakespeare in new and more clear ways.

One of the things that stands out to me is the use of sound to make the world feel very populated. I am assuming (given COVID restrictions) this wasn’t the case in real life… Can you give an insight into how this was achieved?

During the height of the pandemic, all of our cast recorded remotely. We have a stellar crew of engineers, sound designers, technicians, and producers that work tirelessly (and remotely) to achieve the highest quality listening experience.

Sadaharu Yagi, KING LEAR Recording Engineer 3 – Photo Credit Edgar Camey

Can you remember your own first introduction to Shakespeare?

I think it was in 7th grade? Romeo and Juliet? But it was in English class so we were just reading the text… I don’t think I realized that this text was meant to be performed. It just felt like a thing I had to read. As I got more and more into theatre, I realized how much more alive these stories are when amazing actors are breathing life into the characters.

We always like to give people a point of entry to new series – there’s now 5 series/5 plays – do you have a favourite series you’d direct people towards?

Oh man. They’re all amazing. I’m really partial to A Midsummer Night’s Dream because it feels so whimsical and your imagination can really go wild. I also love Macbeth because I’m a huge RuPaul’s Drag Race fan and our witches are played by Peppermint, Manila Luzon, and Monet X. Change — three queens from Drag Race.

Keith David, who plays King Lear in the latest series. Photo Cred Bernard White

Were you influenced by any other podcasts whilst developing this?

I spoke with our Executive Producer Michael Goodfriend who said Passenger List by Radiotopia and Blackout by QCode were examples of immersive listening experiences that inspired the Play On Podcasts’ style. He was engaged by the number of levels in the audio storytelling that exist in these pieces — phone calls, intercoms, dialogue, etc. Also Floodlines by Atlantic Magazine has a sound design that we were inspired by — it illuminates the story without overpowering it.

Listen to the latest Play On Podcasts now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

The post Play On Podcasts: Shakespeare runs wild appeared first on POD BIBLE.

With the first episode launching this Monday 25th October, Jackie The Ripper is a five-part audio comedy drama podcast which offers an absolutely hilarious, gruesome and timely reimagining of the Jack the Ripper murders. In this retelling, we see a ruthless female serial killer terrorising male victims while teasing her killing spree on social media. From the makers of hysterical spoof comedy podcast, The Offensive, this brand-new audio drama follows the woman-hunt of Whitechapel, with sharp, satirical dialogue from voice-over actors from Mumbai to New Zealand.

Number 1 in the Apple Podcast Fiction Charts today, Pod Bible caught up with writer Joel Emery and director Adam Jarrell to discuss the intricacies of making a hit podcast and much more!

Could you describe the concept behind Jackie The Ripper and what it was like establishing a comedic spin on such an infamous story?

This is a retelling. We’ve kept the finer details, victim’s names are similar, dates are the same, locations are precise – however, we’ve tweaked two things… It’s modern day – and the killer is a woman and she’s going for the men of Whitechapel. True crime is one of the most popular genres across all media at the moment, and has been for some time. We’ve become accustomed to putting comedic spins on tough subjects throughout our three years on The Offensive, and with the gender roles being reversed from the original events, it allowed us the artistic license to get creative with the “gory details”. There’ll be a serious moment in the postmortem, broken by a character saying the word ‘knob’ once too often.

What importance do these dates have on the release of the series?

It’s Halloween week! For some reason we all find Halloween quite fun, so the nature of Jack The Ripper fits it well with late October, a chance for a little scare here and there, but mostly laughs at the expense of our protagonists and a few de-bollocked victims. The boring answer to that was a few international football breaks, meaning the occasional week off from our weekly show ‘The Offensive’, and allowing ourselves to dive head first into Whitechapel.

Was the female characterisation of Jack The Ripper simply part of the comedic agenda or do you feel it takes on more of a social importance?

If you research 1888 and Jack the Ripper and what he did to Mary Ann, Annie, Liz, Catherine and Mary Jane… And you don’t come out the other end of that a feminist – then you’ve got something wrong with you. Neither of us know the reality of being a woman, so while feminism remains a strong theme in the show – it would be disingenuous and obnoxious to present the show to the world as purely how us blokes see it. Other themes are in there, social cohesion (or lack there of), masculinity crisis, loss and pride.  Ultimately we build from the comedy first and foremost. It’s embarrassing to admit that knobs and balls being chopped off is still funny to us. And we know it’s funny to people older and much wiser than we are. It just is.

Already Scheduled for March 2022, series two of Jackie The Ripper will be released! What do the listeners have to look forwards to in the upcoming sequel!?

Well, historically we know that Jack the Ripper committed AT LEAST five murders, and without giving away any spoilers, each season consists of five episodes, and you can bet we’re not doing an episode per murder. The already fleshed out (no pun intended) characters have a long journey ahead of them, and with this being such an ensemble piece, there’s more than meets the eye (ear) on quite a few of them. As I say, no spoilers, as they’re no fun at all, but you’re in for quite a ride.

Jackie The Ripper, a Stak production, is

available on all podcast platforms now!

The post Jackie The Ripper is a hilarious new audio drama, just in time for Halloween appeared first on POD BIBLE.