Spotify's got Adderall, Atypical office hours, a handmade Discord template, grant deadlines, and Spec Fic Radio Theatre

Issue 302 of The Fiction Podcast Weekly is brought to you by Vic, The Fiction Podcast Weekly Tiger, and their new podcast.

Did you know The Fiction Podcast Weekly is available in super-condensed, podcast form? Not only is Vic, The Fiction Podcast Weekly Tiger, on Bluesky, but they* also share the newsletter’s highlights via the magic of RSS. You can find Fiction Podcast Weekly on podlink, or wherever you get your podcasts.

News, Roundups, and Announcements

• Spotify is scrambling to remove dozens of podcasts promoting online prescription drug sales, by Clare Duffy for CNN. “Podcasts with titles, such as “My Adderall Store” — which has a link in the episode description to a site that purportedly sells Adderall, as well as potentially addictive pain medications like Oxycodone and Vicodin, among other drugs — were listed within the first 50 suggested results, a CNN review this week found.” The comedy writes itself. No wonder it seems to take so long to get your new show in Apple Podcasts: Spotify doesn't check for skullduggery.

• From ‘A-Ha!’ Moments to Analytics: Podcraft Polls, May 2025, by Katie Paterson

• Congratulations to the winners of The Golden Lobes, especially in the Scripted Podcast category. Harford: An Oral History took home the trophy (lobe?) and Oz 9 is Highly Commended.

• Newly-curated podcast roundups from Evo Terra for The End: Narrated... And Then Some! and Struggling for Sanity.

• Did you go to The Podcast Show in London? What resources for fiction and audio drama podcasters were there? Let us know!

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Promote Your Podcast, Business, or Service to Audio Fiction Enthusiasts

With over 1700 subscribers and an average open rate of 47%, the Fiction Podcast Weekly is a brilliant place to advertise. We have options to fit every need, want, and budget.

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Creator Resources

• How Retro Gaming Inspired a Podcast – with Rusty Quill Brendon Connelly shares, “We are holding a live event with multiple podcast creatives at the Norwich Games Festival, including discussion with the writer, director, cast, and crew of Rez High, an upcoming Rusty Quill series.”

• Lauren Shippen posted on LinkedIn, “I'm trying a new thing! On the last Wednesday of every month, I'm going to hold public office hours, where I answer anyone's questions - no matter how specific - about how to make audio drama!”

• Want to set up a Discord server for your podcast? AJ Fidalgo has created a template that’s free for you to use: AJ Fidalgo’s AD Fan Server Template. Go get ‘em, Tiger, and give AJ some excellent karma.

• How to Get Feedback on Your Podcast (and What Not to Do), updated for 2025

• The Power of Feedback: Transforming Your Audio Drama Through Table Reads is the latest episode of ADWIT.

• FlexClip Review: Simple Video Editing in Your Browser, in case you want to use video to promote your podcast.

• Nick Dunkerley of Hinderburg shares The Last of Us and How to Fight ZombAI's with Long Form Narratives, and Zen and the Art of Audio Editing, both of which can make you feel better about the effort we put into making good audio drama.

Classified Ads

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Opportunities

• Casting Call: The Dragoning. No deadline was mentioned, but the listing expires on 26 May.

• Scriptwriters: the Austin Film Festival’s late deadline to submit your fiction podcast script is the 28th of May, and the extended deadline is 8 July.

• The Spokane Arts Grant Awards - up to $10,000 of funding for arts and culture projects and programmes from individuals and organisations in Spokane, WA. Deadline: 1st June.

• Sonic Acts Springs - a launchpad for an early-career artist (aged 32 or younger) based in the Netherlands to develop a bold new small-scale work that engages with urgent ecological, political, technological, and social concerns, to be presented at the 2026 Biennial in Amsterdam. Deadline: 1st June.

• State of the ART(ist) Open Call - a grant for international artists working under existential threat, including political repression, war, surveillance, or social inequality. Deadline: 31st May.

Milestones & Debuts

• Alternative Stories launches new audio drama anthology, Spec Fic Radio Theatre. The show will feature single-episode or short-run science fiction, fantasy, and horror dramas produced by the award-winning studio behind The Dex Legacy.

• DINK: The Musical. Follow the lives of 3 DINK couples. That means dual income, no kids. They are just trying to get a grip on this whole "adulting" thing while constantly being bombarded with the question, "When are you having kids?"

• Ghost Town. In the town of Azurville, the residents know two things to be true. One, those who are born in Azurville, die in Azurville. Two, those who die in Azurville, stay in Azurville.

• Longtime, First Time. As the town of Wolf Bluff locks its doors and dampens its fireplaces, radio host Rex McHattie and his producer Kit Greenville are sound-checking their nightly call-in show, The Witching Hour. Between midnight and three AM, callers from all over the Wolf Bluff tell their best, most harrowing tales of mystery, murder, and malevolence. But the scariest stories might just be happening off the air.

*Vic has not disclosed their pronouns, and I’m not asking because they’re taking a nap right now. Keep sharing good stories.

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