hrj | Entries tagged with podcast

I gambled that my authors would read their email and respond within a few days and held off on the On the Shelf podcast until I could include the announcement. Offers went out on the 6th, the podcast would normally have gone up on the 7th. As of this morning I still had one acceptance yet to come in, but I'd scripted the show and decided to go ahead and record. Then the final acceptance came in just as I was setting up the mic. (I wouldn't have uploaded the episode until everything was final, but it was unlikely I'd have to change the script.)

Once again, I'm pledging myself to get ahead of the game. I'll send out payments tomorrow and any suggested edits by the end of the week, along with requests for bios and pronunciation guides. I'll be doing all the narration myself this year. So I have half a chance of actually getting everything recorded well in advance. (But only half a chance, because inevitably I get distracted by something else, thinking, "Well, I have plenty of time.")

I bought five stories again this time, due to some short lengths, though I'm not sure whether I'll do a double-episode or use one as a special bonus fiction episode at some point. The podcast is having its 10th anniversary this year, which might make a natural context for that.

There's a terrible tension when reading fiction submissions between wanting to share the experience (both the good and the questionable) and knowing that no good ever came from discussing specific submissions in public. [1] Especially when...*waves hi to some of my submitters who also read this journal.*

If I had an editorial team, then that would be the appropriate forum for such discussions, but the project simply isn't big enough to call for anyone besides me. (Also, part of the joy of a small project is that ability to cater to one's own tastes without the need for compromise.)

I think as the Fiction Series has evolved, I've gotten a bit more skilled at identifying and articulating what I'm looking for and what drives my decisions. I've blogged a couple times in general terms on that topic (and link to it in the Call for Submissions) so even those who don't follow me personally in social media can have a glimpse inside my decisions process, if they care to.

Anyway, nothing really important here, just ruminating on my current priority. Only 7 more stories to read in the first round, then comes the harder part.

[1] Conventions have occasionally had panels on the theme "it came from the slush pile" where stories get shared, but anything that gets specific enough that a particular story/author could be identified is rather in bad taste.

For some times I've been thinking it might be useful to create an index to the LHMPodcast fiction episodes. (And maybe an index to the interview shows? And...well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.) So this morning I did just that. https://alpennia.com/lhmp/essays/index-fiction-episodes

I'm somewhat at loose ends this weekend and have time to work on projects because my brother's in the hospital for some tests and diagnosis (a stomach bug hit him very hard) and I didn't want to leave our 93-year-old father home alone. It's just an hour away from my house, but I have my fingers crossed that everything will be back to relatively normal by tomorrow. Otherwise I have to sort out some logistics to work-from-home in this location.

If you're interested in hearing me talk about The Language of Roses, fairy tale retellings, and all sorts of things, I'm appearing this week on the podcast Writers Drinking Coffee:

https://www.writersdrinkingcoffee.com/posts/podcast/episode-153-the-language-of-roses/

If you like hearing all manner of creative folks chatting about their work, it's a great podcast to follow.

If the birds want me to post more about them, they need to up their game. So far we've established a solid set of regulars. The chesnut-backed chickadees, the house finches, the gray titmouses (titmice?), and the Anna's hummingbirds (plural, I had two at once at least one time). I know there are scrub jays and mourning doves in the yard, because I hear them regularly (and see them when I'm out in the garden) but they aren't interested in the feeder.

On the other hand, the numbers are increasing, so word is getting around. They even squabble about access sometimes, though rather unnecessarily since I've never seen more birds than there are access points.

The cats have been interested but not excited. The outdoor visiting cat (presumably belonging to a neighbor since it doesn't look scrubby enough to be a stray) is similarly interested but not excited. The squirrels have not yet discovered the feeder, but they're working hard on the acorns and walnuts at the moment.

In other news, I've been spending my morning pre-work time getting my notes and outlines together for a regency romance I've been noodling on for years. I have my timelines all set, the characters all have names and full backstories, and the chapters and scenes are roughed out, though they need another pass before I figure I have everything aligned properly. This means that the timing is such that I'm thinking about using it for a NaNoWriMo project (which I've never done before). That's assuming that I don't spend most of November in a nihilistic funk because the election goes the wrong way.

My other major project this month has been getting the podcast moved over to the new site. Doing it on a gradual basis has not only prevented burnout but means I could plug each day's work on twitter and build up a rhythm of promotion. I need to re-activate my regular promo posts through Hootsuite, especially now that the LHMP has its own twitter account and I won't feel like I'm spamming my friends quite so much. All the existing podcast episodes will be up no the new site as of tomorrow, so then comes the work of convincing listeners to subscribe to the new show. When I first started, it was hard to tell how many people were listening because of my content and how many were simply there for the podcast-group as a whole. Now that the old channel is down to just me and one other show, it's a bit easier to estimate what a successful transition might look like.

As always, I wish that the blog/podcast didn't feel like talking to myself in a dark empty room. Chatting with other podcasters recently, I've been sounding people out on what kept them going during the "building an audience" phase, and the times when there was no audience feedback. They were pretty much unanimous that the only thing that kept them going was being part of a team so that the show felt like a conversation even when it was just them talking to each other. That...was not a comforting answer.

Usually my weekends have a sort of standard shape to them. If I have a podcast to record, do that, then head out to a coffee shop to get some writing in. Do some yard work in the afternoon. Similarly on Sunday (except yard work only one day or the other).

This weekend started with recording the Week 4 essay podcast then editing it and getting it uploaded. (I'd debated picking the Week 5 story and recording it too, but I haven't gotten bio information yet and so hadn't written in intro script. Also, my voice was getting raspy.)

Overlapping with that, I started the last stage of processing the marmelade, which took up most of the afternoon since I sensibly split it up into smaller batches for the final reduction. And somewhere in there, I was thinking about how this month's essay podcast would be nifty to add slides to. (It's about the historic development of the association between women wearing masculine-coded clothing and having same-sex interests--basically, the history of "butch as an esthetic concept.")

This sent me down an unfortunate rabbit hole. No, not the rabbit hole of finding appropriate illustrations, but the rabbit hole of "I swear there should be some easy way to do this in iMovie but I can't for the life of me figure out how." (The punchline to this was when I posted a rant about it on fb and a friend who worked on the programming team for a previous version of iMove said, yep the current version is totally f'ed up.)

So I spent hours getting more and more frustrated trying to figure out how to actually manipulate the soundtrack and images (which I *think* I successfully uploaded) and not being able to match what I was seeing with any of the online tutorials.

Eventually, I gave up and poked at the Photos program to see if I could add a soundtrack to a slide show, and yes, that was possible. It involved all the annoyances of managing images in Photos. Like, I don't want it to organize the images by the date the program thinks it was taken, I want to upload them into a single folder; also, I want to use some images more than once in the slide show without having to fake the program out into thinking they're different images. But it was working. I just needed to go through the podcast sound file and identify what the display duration needed to be for each image.

That was when I discovered that the Photos slideshow function has a limit of 59 seconds for any given image. So I went back to my image file and frantically tried to figure out additional images I could add in so none needed to be up for more than 59 seconds. (It wasn't until Sunday morning that I realized I could just duplicate the image and have two copies displayed back to back.)

I came to the proverbial "good stopping place" around 1am Sunday morning. At which point I realized that I was not only dead tired, but shivering from cold (since the thermostat timer had totally taken me seriously about my bedtime being 9pm). I don't often do the deep hyperfocus thing on a project these days, but that one really pulled me in. And, of course, I woke up at 6am as usual, since my body doesn't understand weekends.

I had promised myself that I'd set the podcast thing aside for another day and work on some data prep for the FOGCon program scheduling session, but having had the epiphany about not needing to find new images, I figured, "I'll just go in and set up the necessary duplicates..." So I only got *most* of the FOGCon prep done before it was time to head to BART to get to the meeting.

Fortuantely *my* BART line was not one of the ones out of commission due to the massive windstorm throwing debris on the tracks. Unfortunately the massive windstorm meant the power was out at the co-work space in Oakland where we were having the program scheduling session. Fortunately, enough people had phone-tether connections with good signals to do the online parts of the meeting. And fortunately the power came back on just around when the ambient light was starting to get problematic for the whiteboard work. I was also glad that the organizational prep I'd done (which I developed on the fly last year) was exactly as useful as I'd hoped it would be. Now I just need to write up my process for future reference.

I was addressing two topics. 1) The logistics of scheduling groups of people for reading slots, such that they were all available and we had a good mix/balance of participants in each session. My addition was a spreadsheet to track availability and existing scheduling against readers and timeslots so we didn't have to keep checking back and forth against the database. 2) Tracking the people who had expressed interest in programming against those who had been scheduled so that we could do our best to include everyone possible and now overschedule people just because they'd expressed interest in many things. Another innovation this year will be to drop a note to people who we weren't able to schedule for anything with an explanation and apology and a suggestion to check in at the con in case we have unexpected openings.

By the time I got home (ca. 7:30pm) I was totally wiped out and went straight to bed. I'm not entirely caught up--who ever is?--but not feeling as slammed as I was yesterday. Usual weekend things left undone: yard work, laundry, dishwasher load. But I now have 14 - 8oz jars of some very delicious orange marmelade and I'm two steps away from having a great batch of candied orange peel completed. (I still have a couple dozen oranges waiting for the third project, which I think is going to be another try a Gervase Markham's marmelade recipe which comes out more jam-like and is flavored with rosewater.)

And in the middle of all the processing of the produce of my estates, I had an inspiration for the theme of my summer party this year: Sharing the Produce of Our Estates -- an opportunity to do sharing/exchanges of edible projects. The initial fb responses were very positive, though I need to figure out some promotional logistics so people who don't usually do preserving-type-stuff still feel included.

Just a reminder for those who haven't been bombarded by the information elsewhere that the call for submissions for stories to be published on The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast will close at the end of January 31. (Realistically, it closes at the point when I open up my computer the morning of February 1, in the Pacific Time Zone. But I don't advise cutting things so close that you need that information.)

CfS: http://alpennia.com/lhmp/essays/call-submissions-2020-lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-fiction-series

Brand new audio story on the podcast. Check it out!

I wanted to do something special for the 100th episode of my podcast The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. And after pondering the logistics of several ideas, I decided to produce an extra audio fiction episode, featuring my Italian Renaissance short story "Where My Heart Goes" about Duchess Margaret of Parma and Laudomia Forteguerri.

Here's the link to the podcast.

Here's the link to the transcript.

Sometimes you send a query out into the universe and the universe writes back and says, "We'd love to have you on our podcast!" I had so much fun doing this interview with Sarah at Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Check it out!

One of the hardest things about launching a project is seeing it fail for lack of interest. This is the last day for submissions to the LHMPodcast 2019 short fiction series and currently I don't have enough submissions to fill all the slots in the series, much less having enough after going through a selection process. If you've been holding on to your story thinking, "Nah, there's no point, she won't be interested," please don't self-reject! At this point, it looks like I may end up cancelling the fiction series due to lack of interest. And not even lack of listener/reader interest, but lack of interest in writing these stories.

Everyone tells me there's a hungry desire for lesbian historical fiction. It's a tough field to find an audience for, but I have the audience all lined up and listening to my podcast. All I need is the fiction to offer them.

I've been trying to perform "public positivity" about this so as not to put people off, but this is it: the last day. So I'm letting the desperation show.

Submission Information here.

I had a bit of a podcast-guest drought over the turn of the year. I'm getting a bunch of interviews on the schedule that should cover most of the first half of the year, but don't currently have anyone recorded for February. It makes me a bit twitchy, but since I officially announced that the week 2 & 3 shows will be less structured going forward, that gives me leeway to pull something out of my ass at the last minute if necessary.

What I can't pull out of my ass are submissions for the fiction series. The month is essentially 2/3 gone and I have no (zero) submissions yet. And, yes, I've had some verbal confirmations of intent. But I'm seriously worrying I won't even get four submissions, much less enough that I can choose the four best from a strong field like last year. What the hell am I doing wrong? You'd think that, given the usual token royalties offered for lesbian short fiction, the prospect of getting $300 for a 5000 word short story--just as if I were a professional mainstream venue and everything--would stir people's interest. There's a lot of talk about how people want good f/f historical fiction to read, and a lot of griping from authors about how hard it is to sell it. So where's the disconnect?

I suppose it would simplify my life in future years to give up on the fiction series. (It would certainly save me the angst of trying to shift it from a loss leader to a self-supporting project at some point.) But I really liked the idea of supporting the genre this way.

At least I have a solid set of titles for the new/recent books segment. There's even one that looked interesting enough that I ordered it. (Only Kindle and hard copy so I went for hard copy.) And I loved doing the group movie review/analysis. And I'm commissioning transcripts of the interview shows. (Though I'm not aiming for real-time posting yet. Working on the backlog first.)

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast is open for submissions throughout January 2019 for short stories in the lesbian historic fiction genre, to be produced in audio format for the podcast, as well as published in text on the website.

Technical Details

We will accept short fiction of any length up to 5000 words, which is a hard limit. We will be buying a total of four stories. (If we get some really great flash fiction, there’s the possibility of more.)

We will be paying professional rates: $0.06/word.

The contract will be for first publication rights in audio and print (i.e., the story must not have appeared in either format previously) with an exclusive one year license. (Exceptions can be arranged by mutual consent for “best of” collections within that term.)

Instructions on how to submit are given below. NO SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED OUTSIDE THE SUBMISSION PERIOD OF JANUARY 2019.

What We’re Looking For

Stories must be set in an actual historic culture--i.e., a specific time and place in history--and the plot and characters should be firmly rooted in that time and place. (No time-travel or past memories, please. And no supernatural elements, just ordinary history.)

Stories must be set before 1900. We’d love to see stories that reach beyond the popular settings of 19th century America and England unless you do something new and interesting in them.

Romance is optional, and romance stories should have some other significant plot element in addition to the romance.

We are not looking for erotica. Sex may be implied but not described. (It’s difficult to include both a substantial non-romantic plot and erotic content in short fiction. I’d rather that stories focus on the plot and characters.)

Stories should feature lesbian themes. What do I mean by that, especially given the emphasis the LHMP puts on how people in history understood sexuality differently than we do? This is where we get into “I know it when I see it” territory. The story should feature protagonist(s) whose primary emotional orientation within the scope of the story is toward other women. This is not meant to exclude characters who might identify today as bisexual or who have had relationships with men outside the scope of the story. But the story should focus on same-sex relations.

Stories need not be all rainbows and unicorns, but should not be tragic. Angst and peril are ok as long as they don’t end in tragedy.

Authors of all genders and orientations are welcome to submit. Authors from traditionally marginalized cultures are strongly encouraged to submit, regardless of whether you are writing about your own cultural background.

Please feel free to publicize this call for submissions. See this link for full technical details of how to submit.

As I've been announcing for the last few months, my podcast, The Lesbian HIstoric Motif Podcast will be buying and publishing short lesbian historical fiction on the show. We're paying pro rates for at least two stories (possibly more, depending). Submissions will be open during the entire month of January so if you have a story waiting (or are inspired to write something) check out the details and consider sending something.

Details on the submissions call here.

Yesterday I posted my 2017 version of "What Hath She Wrote?" in which I list off all the non-fiction things I've done this year. I confess, I'm always mildly gratified to see it all in one place like this.

Today I updated the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast's call for short story submissions with specific details on formatting and how to submit. The submission window will open on January 1, 2018, so if you have a lesbian historical short story kicking around (or get inspired to write one), check it out!

The usual recap of what the blog is doing, announcing the month's author guest (Farah Mendlesohn), and a fun Ask Sappho question about how pre-modern women communicated same-sex interests. Also: the podcast version of the announcement of the call for submisisons.

But Heather (you say), you don't write horror! You don't write supernatural fiction! What do you mean you want to feature Halloween content today?

Halloween marks the end of the ancient Celtic year--the time when doors open between this world and the next--and what better day to have set the beginning of the action of "Hyddwen", my Mabinogi-inspired story about a woman who repays her debt to an otherworldly queen by being her champion in a very strange battle. Morvyth follows the footsteps of many an ancient Welsh hero in crossing that boundary on the day that falls between the years. No one who does so comes back unchanged. And one of these days I'll start writing "Gwylan" which deals with some unexpected fallout from that visit.

For my other Halloween-themed link, I invite you to re-visit the podcast I did last year for the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, where I discuss Christina Rosetti's poem "The Goblin Market", including a full reading of the poem at the conclusion of the podcast. It's a spooky and frightening poem, but what I loved most was the shifting musical rhythms of the verses, with their repetitions and change in tempo. I've really started enjoying reading poetry as part of these podcasts just for the delicious taste of the language. (Hmm, maybe "delicious taste" isn't the best metaphor when talking about Goblin Markets!)

New Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast: "Female Knights in Shining Armor". Click through to my blog for a link to the podcast and a transcript.

I've been playing around with ideas for how to use the occasional "fifth week" in the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast schedule, and the idea that keeps coming back to me with the tenacity of an affectionate cat at feeding time is to publish audio short stories that fit the theme of the Project. I bounced the idea off a few people and other than the occasional reaction of, "You know...this means you have to read a slushpile," no one tried to dissuade me.

So I'm making it official. This announcement should give enough time for inspiration, writing, and polishing, while providing a close enough deadline to keep people focused. (For those of you who find NaNoWriMo too daunting, maybe it would make a good project?) The one thing that I was absolutely certain of the moment the idea came to me was that I would be offering professional rates. I want to provide incentive for writers to submit great stories. Stories that fulfill the goal of the LHMP of encouraging the writing and enjoyment of truly great lesbian historic fiction.

Details on how to submit will be available closer to the submissions window. For now, fire up those keyboards and start writing!

Call for Submissions: Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Fiction Special

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast will be open for submissions during January 2018 for short stories in the lesbian historic fiction genre, to be produced in audio format for the podcast, as well as published in text on the website.

Technical Details

We will accept short fiction of any length up to 5000 words, which is a hard limit. We will be buying at least two stories, possibly more, depending on length (if we get some really great shorter works). If the experiment is successful, it may be repeated in the future.
We will be paying professional rates: US$0.06/word.
The contract will be for first publication rights in audio and print (i.e., the story must not have appeared in either format previously) with an exclusive one year license. (Exceptions can be arranged by mutual consent for “best of” collections within that term.)
Instructions on how to submit will be made available on this site closer to the submission period. NO SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED OUTSIDE THE SUBMISSION PERIOD OF JANUARY 2018.

What We’re Looking For

Stories must be set in an actual historic culture--i.e., a specific time and place in history--and the plot and characters should be firmly rooted in that time and place. (No time-travel or past memories, please. And no supernatural elements, just ordinary history.)
Stories must be set before 1900. We’d love to see stories that reach beyond the popular settings of 19th century America and England unless you do something new and interesting in them.
Romance is optional--by which I mean story lines focusing on the establishment of a new romantic relationship--and romance stories should have some other strong element in addition to the romance.
We are not looking for erotica. Sex may be implied but not described.
Stories should feature lesbian themes. What do I mean by that? Especially given the emphasis the LHMP puts on how people in history understood sexuality differently than we do? This is where we get into “I know it when I see it” territory. The story should feature protagonist(s) whose primary emotional orientation within the scope of the story is toward other women. This is not meant to exclude characters who might identify today as bisexual or gender-queer, or who have had relationships with men outside the scope of the story. But the story itself should focus on lesbian themes expressed authentically within a historic context.
Stories need not be all rainbows and unicorns, but should not be tragic. Angst and peril are ok as long as they don’t end in tragedy.
Authors of all genders and orientations are welcome to submit. Authors from traditionally marginalized cultures are strongly encouraged to submit, regardless of whether you are writing about your own cultural background.

Please feel free to publicize this call for submissions. Further details when available will appear on my blog at Alpennia.com. I recommend following it if you're interested.