Episode two – Dean and Cordelia series – “Widespread Mechanical Failure”
Introduction:
Hello my survivor friends,
This is Chris your producer and host and welcome to episode 2 of the Dena and Cordelia story arc by Jesse Daniels.
And I get the unique pleasure of introducing a new audio artist for today’s reading –
Shannon Stockwell.
Shannon Stockwell is a professional grant writer and a lover of storytelling. She recently received her Master of Arts in media studies from The New School in New York, where she specialized in comedy theory and sound design/podcast production. She loves reading and watching television and particularly enjoys sitcoms and fantasy/sci-fi, but she is liable to become deeply invested in any kind of page-turner regardless of genre or medium. In her spare time, she likes kickboxing, weightlifting, sexuality education, and noodling around with a random craft for a few months before she gets sick of it and moves on to another craft. She lives in suburban Massachusetts with her mother, father, and five cats.
Please enjoy this production of “Widespread Mechanical Failure” Written by Jesse and read by Shannon – I’ll come back with comments after.
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Outro
The lone survivor slowly stacks one grey stone on top of another. Building a cairn offering to the fickle gods. Rain spits sullenly into the dying firelight. God has a grim sense of humor. No relief comes in the dark night of her soul.
Well Hello my survivor friends. For you time travelers it is just about Halloween in the year 2025. That was episode 2 of the 3 episode Dean and Cordelia arc. Episode 3 is written and in production as we speak. It’s been fun working with Jesse and now Shannon.
After that I have several things in process.
A few weeks back I entered a 24 hour story contest with my publisher. I told Patrick (Exterminator series Patrick) about it and he played too. The way it works is they give you a prompt and you have 24 hours to submit a story based on the prompt.
They said it would be around 6 weeks to announce the winners so they should be calling me with my first-place prize any day now 😊 But, seriously, I am going to do an episode where Pat and I read our entries and talk about the process.
I’m still looking for anyone who wants to play along to submit stories for the show. The offer stands: I’ll help you edit the story, I’ll pay you for it, I’ll pay for it to be read and I’ll produce it.
Why? Well I’m at a point in my life where I love the interaction with other creatives and I want to keep the feed active.
Along those lines I’m thinking about doing a class on ‘How to write an episode’ where I share how I come up with ideas and then turn them into actual stories. Because believe it or not, sometimes it’s hard and if you have a process to lean on when it gets hard it adds to your success rate and consistency.
So, keep your eyes open for that and let me know if you’re interested. I would plan for after the holidays in a couple of months. I ‘no kidding’ have some experience in presenting online.
In other news I did finish moving the ATA website at Oldmanapocalypse.com over and all of the outros and chats are posted there if you need any of those links.
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So what has Chris been listening to, watching and reading?
Well so many things that we don’t have time for them all but I am on the 6th of the 7 Murderbot books by Martha Wells. And I love them. I’m reading all the books first before I watch the TV series. We are reading it in my SciFi book club.
What do you think? Is it better to read the book first or watch the show first?
For the Expanse I watched the show first and it was great because they did such a great job of casting the characters to the books, it fit really well. But there have been other series where the TV production veers wildly away from the source material.
Anyhow – the first 4 books in the murderbot series were very refreshing because they were so short and to the point. I had just plodded through a couple of dense books over the summer – the Handmaids Tale and the Secret History by Donna Tart which was an effort I did not enjoy.
These little Murderbot books were more like novellas. You can read one in a day. And I found this lightness appropriate for the current zeitgeist. The poor murderbot doesn’t waste any time explaining the universe or get lost in flowery exposition – it just complains and binge watches online shows – just like any contemporary would.
It’s action packed and funny, but still manages to ask big questions like ‘what’s it mean to be human?’
I can’t wait to finish reading them so I can watch the show.
So gather up the dry wood and moss to build an effigy of the god. Place it on the newly erected pile of stones. Light it as the solstice breaks. Join us in a beseeching ululation to call the blessings
And keep surviving.
