Issue 340 of The Fiction Podcast Weekly is brought to you by Dream Job. Imagine working…in your sleep.
The door to your dream job is one sleep away! Let our meditation guide lead you through the inner corridors of your mind to your dream job. Packhowl Media presents an experimental collaboration as part of Podcasthon to raise funds for The Trevor Project. We want LGBTQ youth to be able to sleep easily and live well. Relax and manifest your Dream Job at Podcasthon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
News, Roundups, and Announcements
Overcast offers a beta of AI-generated transcripts, visible by swiping past the info screen. I personally have not yet seen it, but I haven’t signed up for the beta. More details as events warrant. #overcast4life
Crossed Wires, the biggest podcast festival in the world, seeks a new managing director. “[T]he brand is poised to evolve beyond its annual festival into a year-round platform - expanding into new content formats, merchandise, partnerships, and international opportunities,” so… go get’em, Tiger, if you dare.
Podnews reports that HLS video was the belle of the ball at Podcast Movement Evolutions at SXSW. Hosting companies that support HLS video include Transistor, Audiomeans, PodBean, Captivate, RSS.com, Acast, Omny Studio, ART19, Buzzsprout and Simplecast. Nobody’s going to shut up about video until at least September; best to be prepared.
Why Apple’s Video Podcast Push Feels Like the End of an Era by Stephen Robles clarifies what podcasters lose by adopting HLS video in Apple Podcasts (all Apple’s latest features for audio podcasts, such as chapter headings and artwork, for example).
No Tax on Tips: What Podcasters and Creators Must Know Now, by Ralph V. Estep Jr. If your audience voluntarily gave you money through an online tip jar or “buy me a coffee” style donations, you may benefit from this change in US tax law, but if you received crowdfunding money through memberships, it usually doesn’t count.
Poppy is the Narrator for Junji Ito’s Creepy Audio Drama ‘In Old Records’ by Hesher Keenan for Metal Sucks. The attached Kickstarter has blown past its original goal by almost 300%. And the secret of their success is…?
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Creator Resources
March 22nd: Nick Douglas wants to meet audio drama creators and artists at the NYC audio drama meetup, 1pm-4pm. RSVP to get the location, and remember to dress for the weather because it’s March, and you never know.
Aaron Tracy On Building An Audio Drama is episode 290 of The Screen Writing Life. Get the do’s, don’ts and differences between writing for TV and writing for audio from the head of Parallax, creator of many celebrity-led Audible originals.
Sound design offers infinite possibilities. So why do we default to naturalism? by Anna Wood for Exeunt magazine
How & Why to Submit your Work to Audio Flux | For Podcasters, Audiophiles, & All Creators (with Julie Shapiro) by Arielle Nissenlatt for Podcast Plunge
How to spring-clean your show to eliminate podfade, by Jason Cercone for the Podcast Professionals Association
The Podcaster’s Dilemma, by Flloyd Kennedy. I was going to include this in the newsletter a month ago, and I didn’t because my brain is a tide pool. Nevertheless: share and enjoy!
the hi-mark is a symbol to mark creative work made with human intelligence,
not artificial intelligence. Scroll down to get the hi-mark in different sizes and file types.
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Opportunities
BAX Productions seeks an editor for Dick and Joe. Paid. Listing expires 19 April.
Animal Hyperrealism Vol IV Sound Design Contest Download the video, design the sound to accompany it (original sounds only, no libraries allowed), and submit your entry by the 6th of April.
BANGUOJA Audio Festival Open Call seeks audio documentary and narrative audio storytelling works from creators worldwide to be presented at the BANGUOJA audio documentary and art festival in Vilnius, Lithuania. Deadline: 10th of April.
The Virginia Humanities Public Humanities Fellowships are a $15,000 stipend to support a 4-month project on innovative humanities topics that are relevant to communities within Virginia, conducted by people residing in Virginia or affiliated with a Virginia college or university. Preference will be given to projects that engage the public in meaningful and creative ways and explore issues around public humanities topics related to subjects such as history, literature, religion, community stories, and to applicants with experience engaging large, diverse, public audiences. Fellows must be 18+.
The deadline is 31st March.
The Charles Parker Prize is a free-to-enter award for student audio storytelling in the U.K. from accredited media training courses. Ten pieces are shortlisted, and the top five are awarded a slot on BBC Radio 4 as part of the New Creatives programming.
Play As We Are: A Symposium of Somatic Sound Practices is a free 1-day symposium and practical workshop in London for musicians, composers, sound artists, performers, researchers, and movement-based practitioners exploring somatic approaches to sound and music-making. 15 May 2026, 10:00 am–5:00 pm, free to attend.
Hub & Spoke presents: Sounds Like America. Send a hyper-local sonic postcard to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. “Selected audio pieces we receive will be submitted to Transom with the possibility of being on and across their platforms, and promoted to public radio stations and national radio programs and podcasts.”
Launches and Milestones
Dark Road Diaries launched March 13 (🐈⬛). If you like your supernatural chaos with a side of sharp banter, this new horror-comedy audio drama delivers demons, danger, and a very bad day that keeps getting worse.
Rod Hinckley Breaks the Guinness World Record for Longest Usable Golf Club. What more do you need?
Azathoth Blues. Three honest cops work in a corrupt city. Harrison Crane is a war veteran slowly drinking himself into oblivion. Ben Wade is an idealist desperately trying to stay hopeful. Susan Danton is principled, analytical, and utterly alone. The reward for their integrity is reassignment to the Unified Cold Case Taskforce, an infamous unit buried in a basement office nicknamed the Murder Dungeon and overseen by Captain Donovan, a legendary hardass no one wants to work for.
God, I wish people could learn to write brief descriptions. Your Audio Drama Needs a Better Description—Here’s How.
Keep sharing good stories.
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