Now that we’re all in the throes of organizing our con-weekend itineraries, we’re posting these panel previews to highlight some of the programming we’re most looking forward to. So far we’ve covered sessions about gaming and academic geekery, and here I’ll be gushing about the panels to bookmark if you, like me, spend an almost superhuman amount of time listening to podcasts.
First up, I would like to seriously and desperately implore you to come to the live recording of Feminist Frequency Radio at 3 p.m. on Saturday. This year, Anita Sarkeesian, Ebony Adams, and Carolyn Petit will once again bring us an hour of pure joy in the form of thoughtful, funny, and serious feminist media analysis. Definitely include this session in your schedule and add some of their backlist to your podcast queue in the meantime!
We’ll also be graced with a live recording of the Fansplaining podcast at 10 a.m. on Sunday! The Fansplaining podcast deep dives into everything fandom, and the topic for the live recording is con culture! Swing by to hear hosts Elizabeth and Flourish discuss GeekGirlCon, the con experience in general, and the relationship between underrepresented groups and con culture.
Next, we have the folks behind d20 Dames, your favorite tabletop storytelling podcast. Join the four Dames as they play should an all-ages, one-shot adventure in front of a live audience at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday!
The last live podcast recording I’d like to draw your attention to is Sartorial Geek at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. Jordan Ellis and Liz Crowder host a podcast about all things geek, and especially for GeekGirlCon, they’ll be discussing LGBTQIA+ themes in books and YA with Mallory Cohen from WhatchYA Reading?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I know for sure how I’ll be spending at least four hours of the weekend. Check here for the full programming schedule, and be sure to grab your passes if you haven’t already!
One word can sum up the reason why I got into podcasts: traffic. It was summer 2014, and I was living near Baltimore, Maryland. My commute would range from 40 minutes to over an hour of bumper to bumper traffic, and I was bored listening to the same four songs on the radio. The time spent in traffic felt wasted. Wasn’t there any way to utilize this time to learn something?
One day, as I was listening to NPR, I heard a promo for one of their podcasts. I didn’t know what a podcast was, but soon enough I downloaded a few episodes for my commute to work. By the end of the year I was hooked to podcasts such as 99% Invisible and This American Life. Thursday mornings became my most anticipated commutes, as that’s when Serial would post episodes.
I have been more than a little bit obsessed with romance novels, erotica, and romantic fanfiction for most of my life. It started with sneakily checking out books from the library and skim-reading to get to the “good parts,” then moved on to scouring Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.net, and other glorious sites for all of my slash fic needs, no matter how niche (Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, anyone?), and now, at long last, I can finally say that I am a proud sex nerd and devourer of all things romance and sexuality.
Given this extensive history, I think it’s safe to say that I couldn’t have been more excited to sit in on this year’s GeekGirlCon panel A Geek Girl’s Right to Erotica. This panel was the first live episode of the certifiably awesome Podice Rippers podcast, hosted by Natalie Warner and Lainey Seaton. When not podcasting “at length and girth” about romance novels, Natalie and Lainey are a cyber-security technical writer and an account manager, respectively. Together, they host a podcast that is an incredibly funny and thoroughly geeky exploration of all things romance, smut, and erotica.
Image Description: podcast hosts and panelists Natalie Warner and Lainey Seaton sitting at their panel table at GeekGirlCon ’17. Source: Twitter
No matter how hard I try, I have never managed to be a part of a truly epic D&D campaign—or any other tabletop system. I’ve been playing various tabletop games since I was around 15, so nearly half my life, but they all seem to peter out for various reasons. Now, I haven’t given up and am actually scoping out a new game right now, but in the meantime, thank goodness, there’s The Adventure Zone, a biweekly D&D comedy podcast that dazzles my dice.
The Adventure Zone features three brothers, Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy, along with their dad, Clint. The brothers are well-known in the podcast sphere thanks to their hilarious and successful comedy advice show My Brother, My Brother, and Me from the Maximum Fun network. Griffin is our Dungeon Master, since at the beginning of the podcast he had the most D&D experience, and so the trio of player characters is made up of Justin as Taako, an elf wizard; Travis as Magnus Burnsides, a human fighter; and Clint as Merle, a dwarf cleric.
Hey again! Shubz here, still kickin it in Room 202 live blogging at Expressing Your Creativity Through Audio with Julie Hoverson, Gwendolyn Jensen-Woodard, and Rhys Torres-Miller!
Note: They’re speaking to this from the audio drama perspective, but it can be applied to other genres of podcasting.
Learn to do the tech work yourself.
It is time-consuming. If you want to get it right and share your creativity, take your time, and invest your time.
You can podcast inexpensively. You need (at least) a laptop and a mic.
Find your audience. It will be slow unless you want to pay for advertising. Keep in mind, that paid advertising doesn’t not guarantee more listeners and fans.
Network with other podcasts. Offer to do a review of their show. Be a part of the community.
Voice acting:
Reliability: Don’t over-commit. Commit to what you realistically can do.
Find out how much work you ACTUALLY need to do to complete it.
No one goes into voice acting because you love to entertain.