📈Podnews Report Card, 🎛️Audacity strategy, ADWIT returns, an 🧟‍♀️ Exquisite Audio Corpse, and Multi-Lingual Storytelling🇪🇺

Issue 295 of The Fiction Podcast Weekly is brought to you by Exoplanetary.

Exoplanetary returns with a monumental four-episode series exploring humanity's early days moving from the Earth to the Moon. Meet fascinating new characters and old favorites as the epic science-fiction audio drama goes deeper and stranger than ever before! Available on all podcast apps!

News, Roundups, and Announcements

• How do podcast apps and directories help podcasters, and what do podcasters need? James Cridland presented the results of the 2025 Podnews Report Card at Evolutions in Chicago. Find out why someone should send Spotify a nice aloe plant.

• Congratulations to Sarah Shachat and Gabriel Urbina on the upcoming release of their Audible Exclusive project, Hit Singles, “a feel-good, modern story about chosen family, blossoming romance, and finding your way in a new city.” Hit Singles’ trailer is available now.

• The End’s website now includes the option to download whole smorgasbords of RSS feeds, one OPML file at a time. Plus, the Climate Fiction collection is a timely roundup.

• Forgive Me! is crowdfunding for Season 4. Come back to Texarkana, NY, and find out how Father Ben is managing St. Patrick’s community, or…?

• Studies show that emojis in subject lines result in more recipients opening the newsletter than those without them. I’m sure those studies were commissioned by the International Academy of Emoji Research and Design, but who knows? I thought they made screen readers have more trouble reading. If you use a screen reader to read The Fiction Podcast Weekly, write to me at [email protected]. I’d love to settle this accessibility question once and for all.

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Creator Resources

• The Independent Podcast Forum is a new event from the creators of The Independent Podcast Awards, on Monday, 16 June, in London.

• Audacity fans, rejoice! Here’s How to preview Audacity edits before committing and How to Record Computer Audio in Audacity on YouTube.

• MAGFest 2025: Now THIS is what I call AUDIO DRAMA YouTube video of a conference session on How to Make (Video Game Inspired) Audio Drama in less than 60 minutes.

• Creator Burnout is Real, and You’re Not Alone By Amir Shahzeidi

• Indie AF shares Making your first ever audio drama with Allison Cossitt 

• ADWIT: the Audio Drama Writers’ Independent Toolkit returns for a third season, examining what audio drama podcast writers want, resources for production, leads to helpful interviews with podcast creators, and much more.

• ICYMI: How to Start Writing is ready for you at Write Now.

• Shreya Sharma at Podcast Marketing Magic shares Hi, it’s time to up the quality of your promos, with assistance from Wil Williams.

• Andreea Coscai shares How To: Multilingual Storytelling with Studio Ochenta's Lory Martinez in Eurowaves.

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Opportunities

• The Independent Podcast Awards are open for entries. Deadline: Monday 2nd June at 6pm BST.

• The Austin Film Festival’s Fiction Podcast Script Competition deadline is April 22.

• The Chinati Artist in Residence Program Four to six artists are hosted annually for two-month residencies. Resident artists are provided with an apartment on the museum grounds, a studio in downtown Marfa, Texas, and access to Chinati’s collection and archive. A stipend of $4,000 is provided for honorarium, travel and art materials. Deadline: 30 April.

• This looks like fun. The All The Best Exquisite Audio Corpse Challenge invites audio storytellers to come together and create a unique audio story, broken into 2-3 minute segments, all inspired by a theme and audio motifs (to be revealed). Sign up before Sunday April 6.

Milestones & Debuts

• Moonburn. When a down-on-his-luck 18-year-old, Lucas, moves into a NYC boarding home for a fresh start, he discovers decades-old diary cassette tapes left behind by the room’s first occupant, Carter.

• Sorry About The Murder whets your appetite for Season 2, returning on April 25. On t'aime, Canada! Elbows up!

• Don’t Mind: Sealskin Rock. Two sisters and their deadbeat father are moving yet again, this time to a remote chateau off Canada’s New Brunswick coast. Tasked with renovating the creepy old building into a bougie hotel, the family is wholly unprepared for what awaits them within the walls of the Grotte Château atop Sealskin Rock.

• Fresh Meat. Andy's first (and last) shift at burger joint Rosie's ended in a bloody blaze. Five years later, the truth is finally coming out.

• The Gentle Art of Making Enemies When Isaac refuses to go to his father’s funeral, his brother Noah drives to Colorado to perform a good old-fashioned kidnapping.

Keep sharing good stories.

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