Why You - Yes, YOU, Should Listen to the Pod

I'm talking about the three incredible podcasts produced by Escape Artists, Inc. Specifically, Pseudopod, a horror podcast, Escape Pod, which runs science fiction stories, and Podcastle, the fantasy branch of the operation.

If you are a speculative fiction writer, chances are you are like me and you have to make time to read. We all know it's a great thing for a writer to absorb as much narrative as possible, right? And yet there are times when reading enough is very difficult. There's all that pesky writing to do, not to mention all that pesky life stuff. At the same time I feel as though I want to keep up with what's going on in the wide world of fiction. Here's a way to take a big pair of scissors to all that complexity.

The three sister podcasts I've linked to above do an amazing job of culling the fields of horror, science fiction, and fantasy short stories for the best stuff, past and present. They do an equally amazing job of matching narrators to the content of the story. This is high-quality voice acting.

Best thing: these podcasts do the work of keeping up with your genre of choice for you. If you've missed an author for whatever reason who has had a major or even minor influence, chances are you will discover him or her here. Past authors who made significant contributions are well represented. (For example, this story by Leonid Andreyev completely altered my perspective on Russian literature and horror.)

Escape Artists, Inc. treats its authors very well. They pay pretty respectably and don't buy all the rights to your stuff. In fact, they encourage you to sell your story to a print market first, and sub to them after so both markets can benefit from the exposure in different formats. Good deal!

It is free to subscribe to all three podcasts.

The reason for this post: Escape Artists recently put out a podcast asking for help from listeners. You know how it is these days: we have never had so much choice about how we spend our entertainment dollars. Shooting something great a couple of dollars is basically the equivalent of applause, right? It's like saying, hey man, I dig what you did there. My suggestion is, sign up, listen to a few episodes, and if you like what you hear, let other people know. And maybe shoot them a couple of bucks while you're at it.