16 Fiction Podcast Debuts: November & December 2020
Wonderful podcasts from the end of a terrible year
This piece is written by Elena Fernández Collins and Amber Bulinski. You can see last month’s debuts here.
We all heaved a collective sigh of relief when 2020 finally loosened its grip on the timeline, but it didn’t do it quietly nor with grace. What was wrong continues to be wrong because we have not done the collective work necessary to fix it. I have been working in audio criticism for three years now, and I love the industry like I love a half-finished draft. There’s work to be done.
As we transition into a new year and, hopefully, into a better era, it’s time for me to say goodbye as the lead writer of this column, and hand the reins over to Amber Bulinski.
When I started this column in 2018, it was to breathe life into a part of the audio industry that was living ignored in the shadows. Fiction podcasting was thriving, but it was doing so mostly in obscurity from the critical press. These creators have told me horror stories about other podcast makers and audio professionals asking them when they’re going to make “real, serious audio” or why they’re “wasting their time, they could do so much more”.
Now that everyone seems to be flocking to fiction, the fight is different — and so is the purpose of this column. Amber’s work in podcasting has always been about elevating the voices of creators of color, about bringing light to marginalized creators and the battles they face in acquiring funding, a platform, and critical attention. This is exactly the voice that the Fiction Podcast Debuts column needs right now: someone who can dissect corporate and independent audio from around the world and find what doesn’t work (but white, straight, cisgender voices in podcasting will claim does) and what works (but white, straight, cis voices in podcasting will claim doesn’t).
Meanwhile, I’m going to take a nap. You’ll see me back out there soon.
May these podcasts bring you the will to fight and the comfort you need after the battle,
Elena Fernández Collins
Dem Times
Jacob Roberts-Mensah, Rhys Reed-Johnson
In Dem Times, Samuel Adjei gets sent from Britain to a Ghanaian boarding school by his parents. Despite the culture shock that leads to some comedic gold, Samuel learns to appreciate where his parents come from and that there is a bigger world out there that he was deprived of by living in Britain. Children of immigrants will relate to this fish-out-of-water fiction podcast about getting sent ‘home’ by one’s parents and will appreciate its frank discussions of cultural differences.
Cobbler’s Gulch
Cobbler’s Gulch started as a nursery rhyme for the creator’s children, who were terrified of the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz, but it turned into a delightful fiction podcast for kids and adults alike. Hazel is the only girl in the Cobbler’s Gulch Orphanage where she just tries her best to keep above water when everything seems so strange and terrible. With early Disney Original movie vibes thanks to its plucky sound design that blends the effects and curious background music together seamlessly, it’s an easy listen. The narrator format leads you through the scene like Peter Faulk did as the grandfather in The Princess Bride, elevating the story with a sense of nostalgia and care.
Hi Nay
Mari Datuin, a Filipina immigrant in Toronto, doesn’t expect that her family’s shamanistic background will drag her into the city’s supernatural world. Alas, it showed up at her literal doorstep anyway. Created by Filipino artists, Hi Nay (which translates to “Hi Mom”) is a series of horror encounters that Mari describes to her mother over voicemail. Motzie Dapul, co-creator and the voice of Mari, is adept at pulling an agonizing thread of horror from the audience, timing her silences just right within the descriptions of rot, smoke, and rhythmic thudding.
The Oyster
Alex Aldea, Adrienne Schaffler, Victor Figueroa
The Earth is on the brink of becoming totally uninhabitable, and in a bid to salvage what it can of humanity, the mysterious government builds an underground haven called “Eden.” But Eden cannot house everyone, and so the government assigns its citizens a usefulness point score and eliminates those who fall too low. When there still aren’t enough resources to sustain them all, the government implements “The Oyster”: a program to fill a human with enormous, boundless pleasure while they are no longer experiencing reality. This is the terrifying, otherworldly situation that Ori finds herself in, a dystopia that really has not changed as much as people want to believe, all of this is amplified by the balance struck between sharp shocks of sound and flowing whispers, keeping you off-balance.
Spirit Box Radio
Sam Enfield is filling in as the host of Spirit Box Radio after Madam Marie disappeared quite suddenly and only left behind some scraps of notes and no plan. Sam isn’t exactly the ideal host for a spiritual advice show, but he’s doing his best to help his audience communicate with the dead and otherworldly. Spirit Box Radio is a cute approach to Sam’s gentle haunting, a lighthearted tale of a basement-dwelling radio host having to deal with the past in the present.
In Strange Woods
Jeff Luppino-Esposito, Brett Raybeck, Matt Sav, Brandon Grugle, Stephen Jensen, Evan Cunningham
One of the two podcasts Atypical Artists released in the final quarter of 2020, In Strange Woods is a musical fictional mystery styled as a true-crime documentary, a combination that doesn’t sound like it should work on paper. Jacob Weller has gone missing during a prom afterparty in Whitetail National Forest, and his sister Peregrine’s life is irrevocably changed as turmoil ripples throughout the small community. Reporter Brett brackets his interviewees’ songs with his rhythmic narration, reflecting in structure the tension that exists in this Midwestern town and its people who would prefer to cover truth with sugary hospitality.
The Zip Code Plays
Ramón de Ocampo, Jeff Gardner, Adam Macias, Ellen Mandel, Ryan McRee
Each episode of The Zip Code Plays focuses on a specific neighborhood within Los Angeles, written by the Playwrights Lab at the Antaeus Theatre Company. This anthology brings lesser known slices of LA life to a wider audience with talented voice actors and transitional sound design that adds a more stage theatre quality to the stories. If you are missing theatre and wish plays were more accessible, The Zip Code Plays ushers you back in with a sense of love and care for the diverse communities it is writing about.
Life on Pause
Marissa Tandon, Gabriel Urbina, Beth Crane, Miya Kodama, Alex Whisenhunt, Alexandra Tandon
Created by a team of writers during quarantine, Life on Pause is a loosely connected anthology about everyday people’s lives during a lockdown for a pandemic that ravages the globe in a way much fierces and much more deadly than coronavirus. The “pale fever,” as it is called, lasts for three years, which means people having to deal with their problems in more long-term and effective ways instead of eternally hoping for a return to normalcy. These stories touch the heart, and help audiences deal with family, friends, loved ones, and your own mental health when trapped alone in ways that are compassionate and hopeful.
The Reignition Theory
The great city of Corraban was a strange place, overtaken by a long series of conquerors who just inhabited certain regions of the city and never left. In The Reignition Theory, several historians go through first-person accounts about the end days of a city rife with spies, soldiers, and politicians. It fascinates with ease, especially with the careful method of pulling you into this alternate universe as though you know everything, while filling in what you actually need to know about a people’s character or culture.
Lowland
Martin Joseph O’Neill
A production of The Stove Network, Lowland is a two-act dark comedy audio play adapted from a stage play that had to be reframed due to the pandemic. Angela Brown was preparing for a consultation as a council officer of the city of Barnside, which is sinking quite literally under a storm and its ensuing flood, but then ended up woefully unprepared. This satire about community and democracy was inspired by more than 500 postcards written by Doonhamers — residents of Dumfries, Scotland, where Lowland takes place.
Christmas Steve
Anne Gregory, Sean Casey, Landon Kirksey
Romantic comedies are like comfort food, so when a carry-out option becomes available in podcast format, you gotta try it. Enter Christmas Steve, a limited series fiction podcast about a busy doctor who goes back to her sleepy Wisconsin hometown during the holidays with hopes of finding true love. It has all hallmarks of well, a Hallmark Christmas movie, but more tongue-in-cheek, with over-the-top characters who miss being able to order their coffee black without being asked a dozen questions, or who have unrealistic expectations of what love truly is. And let’s not forget it was written by a married couple, which could be a Hallmark movie plot on its own.
A Bad Feeling Horror Podcast
Deanna Gomez, Mercedes K. Milner, Angela Thomas, Christopher Adrian
Hosts Ghoulie Gomez, Marina Longdead, and Abby I.V. share their favorite scary stories in A Bad Feeling Horror Podcast. This horror anthology gives you two stories in each episode with a nod to Elvira: Mistress of the Dark and R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series. A Bad Feeling Horror is not for the faint of heart, with sometimes graphic cautionary tales taken to new heights with its fresh voice actors and carefully placed sound design.
Greenhouse
The second of Atypical Artists’ 2020 productions, Greenhouse is the sweet blossoming of a relationship between Rose Green and Abigail Adams, who are forced to write each other letters as a condition of Rose’s acquiring her inheritance. The joy here is in watching Rose and Abigail both unfurl and lean towards each other, and getting to know two characters as deeply as they learn each other.
Fear of a Blak Planet
The Warriors of New Dreaming are a paramilitary Aboriginal group who plan to decolonize Australia by whatever means necessary, and Travis de Vries has recently visited their compound to interview the members on his podcast. Travis de Vries also happens to be a real Aboriginal Australian, a Gamilaroi man and podcaster, which creates an important blurring between reality and fiction. There is no doubt that the story of New Dreaming is fiction, as it is clearly demarcated as such, but these conversations about decolonizing nations, #LandBack, and the freedom of marginalized Indigenous and Black groups are ones actively happening in the real world as well.
The Silt Verses
Jon Ware, Muna Hussan, Sammy Holden
Carpenter and Faulkner are two agents searching for miracles — and for other members of their esoteric faith. Brought to you by the creators of I am in Eskew, The Silt Verses succeeds at using echoes and fades to move the narration along and pull the audience deeper into the mysteries unfolding. What follows is a dark winding tale of discovery in the vein of Fox’s Fringe and Sleepy Hollow that leaves you with more questions than answers.
A Game Called Quest
In this portal story actual play, four nerds end up in their fantasy game and body-swapped with their characters, using an indie role-playing system called Quest. Backed by fluttering musical choices, this metafiction hybrid features a diverse table with queer players and players of color, an aspect which reflects in the storytelling and in the game choices. There is compassion, found family, charming characters, an occasionally surprised GM, and insight into a world designed to be welcoming and inclusive.
This playlist was sponsored by Podchaser. Check out Podchaser’s Creator Profiles to find your favorite podcast hosts, producers, editors, guests, voice actors, and more!
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