This week we’re joined by podcasters Elena Fernández Collins and Wil Williams. Between the two of them, they wear the hats of podcast critic, host, line editor, voice actor, sound designer, and more. They’ve helped shape the state of modern podcasting and are continuing to shape its future.
They share their thoughts on the current state of fiction podcasting, the direction in which its heading, and the important conversations we all should be having about this developing medium.
This episode was sponsored by SYGNYL. The varied texts of SYGNYL have at times been lost, found, translated, forged, or otherwise mishandled. Listener discern.
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Transcript:
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
[intro music fades in]Travis Tippens: Welcome to the Fantasy Inn podcast, where we share our love for all things fantasy and discuss the broader speculative fiction industry. Welcome to the Fantasy Inn.
Welcome back to the Fantasy Inn podcast. This week is an extra special panel episode with two incredible podcast critics, hosts, and producers—who also happen to be the two people who introduced me to audio fiction. So welcome to the show, Wil Williams and Elena Fernández Collins.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs] I didn’t-
Wil Williams: Thank you for having us.
Elena Fernández Collins: Thank you, I didn’t know that! [laughs]
Wil Williams: Me either! That’s so nice to hear.
Travis Tippens: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been following both of you for a couple of years now, I guess ever since I joined the Podcast Problems Discord server. So I’ve definitely been finding a lot of new shows at the two of your recommendations.
Wil Williams: Oh, that’s so lovely.
Travis Tippens: And so I guess to start things out then, could you both introduce yourselves so that our audience can learn a little bit more about you?
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, totally. So I’m a podcast critic, as Travis said. I’m a journalist. You can find me writing reviews and critiques and personal essays about podcasting and a lot of indie media like Bello Collective, Discover Pods. And I am the host of Radio Drama Revival, which is a podcast that showcases audio fiction podcasts. And we interview their creators.
Wil Williams: And I’m also a podcast critic. Right now, I am the managing editor over at Discover Pods. I’m also the CEO of Hug House Productions and the showrunner of Valence, which is our first serialized long form fiction podcast.
Travis Tippens: You both have incredibly impressive resumes.
Wil Williams: [laughs] Thank you.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: So thank you again for coming on the show. Right. So I guess I want to start things out by just getting your thoughts on kind of what the background is for the medium of fiction podcasting, because I know this is changing all the time– but also, I guess, very first thing: is there an agreed upon best term for fiction podcast? I’ve heard audio fiction and audio drama and several others.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: I’m going to pull something up for you real quick. [laughs] Ely, if you would give your thoughts in the meantime?
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. [laughs] We’re laughing because I know what Wil is going to pull up…
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: …and that’s why I’m laughing. It’s going to be very good. My thoughts on this are that for the general public, right. For just people who are listening to podcasts. Right. People are just talking about them between friends or even people who are promoting their own podcasts, use whatever term feels right for you. OK, like use the term that feels correct.
There are a lot of options out there and you can do searches on things like which ones seem to get the most traction on things like social media. But in the end, you should always pick the one that fits your podcast the best. For the press and like me personally, I stick with fiction podcast…
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: …and then I add any qualifiers that I need to add, like comedy fiction, scripted/unscripted fiction. And I do that because I want to start setting a standard in the press of how to refer to things so that we can more easily do things like search for these things, group them together, talk about them with a critical lens. And that’s why I try to restrict myself, my own work personally, to using fiction podcast.
Wil Williams: So what I’ve pulled up is the style guide I have created for our Discover Pod writers. So a lot of our style guide is, you know, things like definitions of industry terms, punctuation preferences, things like that, things on inclusion. Part of the style guide, the subheader is: Audio Drama versus Fiction Podcast. And I’m just going to read you what I wrote.
Travis Tippens: OK.
Wil Williams: These two terms have resulted in countless debates across several years. Please do not make me have to experience this debate ever again.
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Wil Williams: I am so tired. Follow your bliss. Use whatever term feels best to you. I use fiction podcast because it is clearer to new listeners in my experience. You can use audio drama, especially if your audience is existing audio drama creators.
Either way, please use a parenthetical after the first use of whatever term you choose giving the other word. E.g. “Null/Void (Null and Voild) is a fiction podcast (otherwise known as an audio drama)” / “Null/Void is an audio drama (or fiction podcast)”.
If you make me engage with this debate, you owe me three pictures of baby bunnies to be delivered to me via slack, DM, or email in no more than twenty-four hours.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs] I think you owe Wil like three baby bunny pictures.
Wil Williams: [laughs] No, no, you’re okay!
Travis Tippens: All right. Yes, that is fair.
Wil Williams: I mean I won’t say no.
Elena Fernández Collins: Like, who’s going to say no to bunny pictures. No, like it’s like a legitimate question, like for people to ask.
Wil Williams: Absolutely.
Elena Fernández Collins: Like especially if it’s people in the audience who are trying to find, critique, or lists or references. Right. To things so that they can find more stuff to listen to.
Wil Williams: I think that probably the one guideline Ely and I both feel very strongly about is that fiction podcast, audio drama, and scripted podcast… one of these things is not like the other!
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Wil Williams: Folx, non-fiction podcasts can be scripted. What do you… Do you think that Ira Glass is just talking?
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah.
Wil Williams: He’s got a script, my man. So don’t call it a scripted podcast. I know it’s scripted. You can say a scripted fiction podcast.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, that’s fine.
Wil Williams: Or a scripted audio drama.
Elena Fernández Collins: But that doesn’t mean anything to itself.
Wil Williams: Exactly.
Elena Fernández Collins: It just becomes meaningless. Like there’s a script, great.
Wil Williams: Cool.
Elena Fernández Collins: Tons of podcasts have scripts. And this is a problem that I see mostly in press releases relating to podcasts that have Hollywood people involved in some form.
Wil Williams: Yes.
Elena Fernández Collins: I generally don’t see this issue with indie… Independent productions.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: But I see a lot of writers, reporters who are writing about these things using the terminology scripted podcast, probably because that’s a term in the press kit and… [sighs] It’s meaningless
Wil Williams: It’s meaningless.
Elena Fernández Collins: If anyone knows the meme of like that dude who’s like, “Blood orange, it’s red”?
Wil Williams: Yes. [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: That’s me.
Wil Williams: From Project Runway. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah from Project Runway. That’s me. Like… Scripted podcast. It’s a fiction podcast! [laughs]
Travis Tippens: Yes. I love that. And I think this kind of discussion is what I was hoping for. And not just, “Oh, no, it’s fiction podcast. Let’s go with that.”
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: So thank you for that. I love the background on it.
Elena Fernández Collins: You’re welcome.
Travis Tippens: Yeah. Well, so the two of you have kind of an interesting perspective, given that you’ve seen multiple sides of the medium. What do you think are the unique challenges or advantages that fiction podcasting (audio drama) has on the medium?
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: Thank you, thank you. [laughs] I mean, I think one of the clearest and most immediate advantages that it has for a lot of creators is, while I do think that there is a barrier for entry into fiction podcasting. And I do not necessarily think it’s low. It is, often, much lower than the barrier of entry in a film or a TV show, especially…
Elena Fernández Collins: Mmm. I think the–oh, sorry.
Wil Williams: Yeah, go for it, Ely.
Elena Fernández Collins: Just to make sure this is associated with the right term. The word for this is, I think, there is a very low barrier to publication.
Wil Williams: Yes! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm.
Wil Williams: That is a great way of phrasing that. Yeah. So especially when it comes to genre fiction, where we have some sort of magical element or otherworldly element, et cetera, et cetera. It is usually cheaper and easier to convey those sorts of high genre elements when you don’t have to worry about visuals. You know, you’re not dealing with [Computer Generated Imagery] or even practical effects, which can be obviously very difficult. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Right. Yeah, I fully agree with Wil, here, right. The barrier to publication is much lower than in other places for genre fiction. Like to get published elsewhere… You like to get a book published, you could self publish. And then there’s the problem of marketing for self published books. And for visuals, as Wil just described, the practical effects for genre fiction are through the roof, and so is CGI or anything else. Which is why I think fiction podcasting is having its time to shine.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Right, as more and more people realize that they can accomplish these things with sound just as well, depending on the subject–of course, not everything is made for audio–as they could in visuals.
Wil Williams: And I think that because of that, one of the nice things is that it is often a much more accessible medium to work in for creators who are underrepresented, who have been institutionally and systemically marginalized and pushed to the fringes of other creative endeavors. Which means we’re getting stories that we wouldn’t have access to otherwise, which I think is really beautiful and really incredible and is breathing a ton of new, phenomenal life into fiction as a whole.
Especially because I’ve seen several, you know, audio fiction or audio drama, whatever, creators find careers in other media that they wouldn’t necessarily have as easy access to otherwise. Which I think is lovely. Or even just be like really, really fucking successful in podcasting, which obviously you love to see it. It’s great. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: You love to see it. Yeah. I mean, if we even just take a look at the numbers of diversity in publishing, like written publishing, those numbers are absolutely atrocious, across children’s literature…
Travis Tippens: Yep.
Elena Fernández Collins: …like romance, fantasy, sci fi, across the board. It’s absolutely atrocious. I don’t have the numbers right off the top of my head, but…
Wil Williams: They’re low!
Elena Fernández Collins: …they’re very low.
Travis Tippens: Yeah. And so I think this is an interesting discussion, especially what both of you were mentioning about the lower barrier to publication at the beginning, because I know to a certain extent–I think Ely, you touched on this–if you want to self publish a book, there’s not really much of a barrier to that.
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm.
But you do have a huge challenge with marketing.
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Travis Tippens: So it’s almost like a barrier to finding an audience almost, is what I see it as.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, absolutely. We have this very unfortunate stigma, right, in self publishing, right, that you shouldn’t self publish because it’s not good and you’re not going to be able to get an agent or a publisher later.
Or it’s just people just regard self published books as lesser quality because they haven’t gone through the systemic machine that is a publishing house. And like those things…
Wil Williams: Though I also, I think it’s worth pointing out and Ely, not that I’m educating you here.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Wil Williams: I think it’s worth pointing out that a lot of the stigma against self publication is because a lot of self published authors are specifically women writing erotic fiction.
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm.
Wil Williams: And the eroticism of women is, you know…
Elena Fernández Collins: Yep, you know.
Wil Williams: …stigmatized.
Elena Fernández Collins: Heavily.
Wil Williams: Uh huh.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. And so and also, of course, a lot of the people who are self publishing, including these women who are writing erotic fiction or queer people who are writing erotic fiction, or people of color writing all kinds of other fiction as well…
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: …are all people who don’t have the ability or the capacity to fight the system to get noticed, because that’s a long fight. And so here’s the thing, is that we have this stigma against self published books, but we don’t have the same kinds of stigma against podcasting, even though it’s…
Wil Williams: Even though it’s like virtually, I would say, like similar, you know?
Elena Fernández Collins: It’s very similar, right? It’s your story, right?
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: It’s your story, it’s your narrative, it’s your world. Whatever it is. And you’re publishing it, but it’s just with sound. [laughs]
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: But because of podcasting’s history and how podcasting got started…
Wil Williams: Exactly.
Elena Fernández Collins: It’s not considered with the same… The types of stigma that podcasting suffers are not the same.
Wil Williams: Because podcasting largely comes from the same mindset as broadcast journalism–and we can talk about radio dramas, etc, etc.–it has this sort of intellectualized reputation because it’s associated with old white male journalists on the radio [laughs or even, you know, the next generations of those, which are hip, cool, youngish white men…
Elena Fernández Collins: White male. [laughs]
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Right. And then you also have all of these like the old guard. In radio journalism and in publication who say things like, “Oh, it’s just podcasting, right? It’s not as rigorous as real journalism.”
Wil Williams: Ugh. [laughs]
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: And you get that also with, I’ve seen it in published works where people who publish their fiction as a podcast, whatever kind of type you’ve gone for, a small cast, full cast, just you, whatever, thinking that it’s not serious fiction work.
Wil Williams: Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Elena Fernández Collins: And that’s a problem.
Wil Williams: It is a problem.
Elena Fernández Collins: Because most of the people that they are saying that to are marginalized people of various kind: disabled, people of color, queer people, poor people… Who haven’t been given the chance. No one wants to take a risk on them.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Travis Tippens: So as someone who learned about fiction podcasts coming first from a reader standpoint, and then I got into audio books, and then I was like, “Oh, hey, you know, fiction podcasts are apparently a thing.” And that’s not a huge leap for me to make.
It kind of seems like the publishing industry and the podcasting industry are kind of taking totally opposite directional movements. Where publishing starts out, you have a few big players–I mean, that’s still more or less what we have, is four or five big players–and they’re putting out all of the stories and then self publishing comes around and now anyone can create something.
But podcasting is sort of the opposite where you have anyone can create something as long as they have the equipment and the means in the time to do so. And then now we see some of those big players coming in and trying to say, “Hey, this smells like money to me. Like, what can I do with this?”
Elena Fernández Collins: Right.
Wil Williams: Yeah, definitely agreed. I started listening to podcasts before they were available on iTunes [laughs] And it was a very, very different world. Not necessarily better. A lot of old school podcasters think that it was like the “golden era” and like, kind of, but like not really. It’s still a baby, like 15, 20 years ago. That’s still a baby industry. We’ve got a ways to go before we can start declaring golden periods here.
But it was very, very, very different. Like there were so few advertisers. I remember when, I think I heard the first ad–not the first ad in podcasting, but the first time I heard an ad in podcasting–it was for Stitcher. Stitcher had just launched. And it was like, you know, if you download Stitcher and you listen there, and you listen to it on your iPod [laughs] because you can get the app now on your iPod Touch… Isn’t that very fancy?
You can like win this thing and we’ll fly you out to this place and you can meet these podcasters. Isn’t that crazy? And like, that’s very cool. Very, very different now from where we can all recite, like, ad copy. [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. [laughs]
Wil Williams: Big ass companies. I could list off just a lineage of things that are advertising on podcasts now. And then we also have, you know, like you were saying, these these big players. You know, we’ve got things like Spotify coming in, making originals.
We’ve got things like Audible, making Audible Originals, which I think blurs the line between podcasts and audiobook. And, you know, companies like Wondery, et cetera, et cetera. We’re definitely at a strange and interesting time when it comes to podcasting as a capital “I” Industry and what that means for the financial longevity of it.
Travis Tippens: And I think we can officially say we’ve entered the golden age of podcasting as soon as we finally determine who is the new Netflix of podcasting.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Who invented fiction podcasting today? [laughs] Sorry, for those who don’t know, that’s a reference to a bunch of articles that came out throughout 2019 and 2020, especially 2020 during the pandemic, where a lot of theatre companies during the pandemic joined fiction podcasting because they weren’t able to put on their plays anymore, which I think is absolutely wonderful. But a lot of the articles written about them made it sound like they just discovered this cool new thing that you can do [laughs] did you know?
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: And a lot of like several other articles as well. There were like three in a very short time period that basically claimed that these people had invented fiction podcasting.
Wil Williams: And even like radio drama [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. Radio drama. And I’m just kind of like, uh, y’all? [laughs]
Wil Williams: Honey, take a nap, it’s OK. Ugh.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, I think that the time period that we’re in right now is going to be looked upon like a middle period.
Wil Williams: Yep.
Elena Fernández Collins: I think that we’re in a transition period. And as we all know from the many times that we have studied history, transition periods and middle periods take a long time to go through. It’s not over and done with in a single year.
Travis Tippens: Mhmm. Especially not a year like all of 2020 and 2021…
Elena Fernández Collins: 2020? [laughs].
Wil Williams: …Let me tell you that much!
Travis Tippens: So thank you for providing a perfect segue way there, because my next question is where do you think the industry is headed? And I guess, tangent on that, where do you hope it will head if it’s not the direction you think it’s heading?
Elena Fernández Collins: So this year… so every year Bello Collective, which is one of the places that I write for, at the beginning of the year, they send out a newsletter that includes predictions from the people who write there, from the writers. And this year in the predictions, I said after 2020, I feel like I can’t predict anything anymore. [laughs]
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Because here’s the thing: 2020 came out of left field, because 2020 did something that we didn’t expect, which was make podcasting an even more valuable commodity after a period of time in which it was a devalued commodity.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: So you had people trapped in their homes during lockdown, unable to commute. And so because they didn’t commute, they didn’t listen to podcasts. But then the lockdown kept happening. And the pandemic kept happening. And there’s only a certain amount of time that you can go through all of that and not turn to different forms of media.
Wil Williams: Or even just return to the things that you love.
Elena Fernández Collins: Exactly. Return to the things that you used to listen to all the time, because you’re not doing a commute anymore so you’re not listening to your podcasts, so you need to start making time for them.
And then on top of that, you have all these creators who worked in theater or worked in some kind of filming industry who were no longer able to make their stories happen. And so in 2020, they had to turn to audio and remote recording in order to make it happen.
Wil Williams: And also notably, stage acting.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, stage acting. Like very notably. We had a bunch of, there was like several musicals that came out last year in audio form, like Bleeding Love, we had…
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm. In Strange Woods.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, In Strange Woods. We had Apocalypse Songs from New Zealand, which was actually written for audio, and then they managed to get a grant to be able to produce it during the pandemic. We had several of them that were just like, well, we wrote the stage play that we can’t do anymore. So I guess we’re going to adapt it for audio. And so we could not predict that.
Wil Williams: Yeah.
Elena Fernández Collins: Like, this is not something that was predictable. And so it has definitely had an impact, and we don’t know what that impact is yet. We will not know the impact for a long time. Like we’re not going to know the impact for a while because we’re still in the pandemic. Right? People are still trapped in their homes. Or, you know, if you live in the UK, you’ve got a [laughs] government that’s putting you in and out of lockdown like a fucking Yo Yo.
Wil Williams: [laughs] Yeah.
Elena Fernández Collins: And if you live in the US, I mean, like, woe betide us, right? So I think that the impact that the pandemic and its far reaching consequences will have on podcasting will not be known for a little while. And for that reason, I am very hesitant to be able to predict anything because I’m just kind of like, I don’t know, man, it’s a wild world out there.
Wil Williams: And I think the other side of this, too, is we’ve recently had like a pretty important election.
Elena Fernández Collins: Mhmm.
Wil Williams: And I think that a lot of people don’t necessarily think that legislature etc. will hit things like indie arts, but it absolutely does. So Ely touched on grants, which for things like podcasts, I think that that’s much more common in Australia than it is here.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, it definitely is. Yeah. [laughs]
Wil Williams: But for now I have no concept of what an arts budget for the states is going to look like, you know, as opposed to knowing it will be gutted mercilessly in the last four years. I have no concept of what the economy is going to look like.
We’ve had massive changes in conversations about minimum wage. We’ve had conversations about stimulus checks, etc, etc. I think that economists are obviously predicting what our economic future is going to look like as a country right now. But I also think that to do so is folly. [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: I think that it will be very difficult, at least for most, like laymen… Hey, is laymen a terrible word? I have never looked into the history of this word, sorry.
Elena Fernández Collins: No idea.
Travis Tippens: It sounds like it would be…
Wil Williams: Right?
Travis Tippens: …but I really don’t know.
Wil Williams: It came out of my mouth and it was like, uh, that feels iffy. [laughs] Anyway…
Elena Fernández Collins: Let’s go with audiences.
Wil Williams: Yes, thank you. I think that to most audiences, to try to predict what our economic future is going to look like, is going to be very, very difficult. And because we have a lot of venture capitalists, et cetera, investing in podcasting right now, we have a lot of large companies investing in podcasting right now, that can either turn out to be like super killer and great and make people a lot of money.
Or we could see that diminish a lot rapidly, and then, you know, be left to reckon with the remains of that. Either way, I think the only thing I can really predict is that most podcasters do this knowing that they’re not going to ever make a lick of money, but they’re doing it because they love it. Because they love audio. And I think that those people will always be here to stay.
I don’t think that the medium itself is ever going away, which at least… God, going back to 2014 to 2018, I think everybody was kind of–everybody, in like, the public non-podcast industry sphere–was like, “Eh, these podcast things, they’re going to go away.”
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah.
Wil Williams: Which I think is very silly. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. I want to make a note here on Wil’s commentary, which is actually a very useful commentary, but that’s to make sure that we are not sliding into the Americanization of everything.
Wil Williams: Yes!
Elena Fernández Collins: One of the reasons why I mentioned Apocalypse Songs from New Zealand is because there’s this tendency, the Americanization of the Internet. And unfortunately, because podcast is a digital commodity, it also suffers from this. Where the podcasts that get the most notice, they get the most references. And the way that we talk about podcasting is heavily influenced by American culture and American politics and American whatever is happening in America at the time. Just like everything else on the Internet, right? And it’s very frustrating.
And so it’s important to remember that not everything in podcasting is influenced by the US and that people are going to keep chugging along making podcasts whether or not we see the downfall of democracy in the US. The reason I brought up the pandemic in particular was because it was a global phenomenon, and–it was a global event, sorry–and it impacted everyone.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And because of that, I think that we’re going to see a much larger change across podcasting than we will with regards to the effects of what’s been happening in the US for the last four years.
Wil Williams: Absolutely.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. And I just wanted to make sure that when people… Like the audience I’m talking to you right now, when you’re thinking about podcasting, is then talking about it, just make sure that you are not falling into the trap of Americanization.
Because, yes, the Americanization of everything is occurring. People are still doing that in the sense of like companies and the way that they function, in the way that they treat the market for podcasting, and the way that they think about who to publish, who to talk about in the press, who to give money to, is very heavily influenced by this Americanization.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And I think that one of the ways that we can push back on that is just making sure that the individual is thinking about that and talking about it.
Wil Williams: Yeah. Thank you for that, Ali.
Travis Tippens: Yeah, that was wonderful. Thank you, Ely.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, hashtag who can tell that I’m from a colonized country [laughs]
Travis Tippens: To switch directions for a moment, so since podcasting is kind of constantly in flux and it’s been changing so much over time, which we’ve kind of hit on already, but as critics, how do you approach critiquing a medium that doesn’t really have a standard language for critique yet? I know Ely, you mentioned that you’re trying to formalize how you talk about fiction podcasts, but I guess… Yeah, I’ll just open that up to both of you.
Elena Fernández Collins: Wil, you want to take that first?
Wil Williams: Sure, yeah, I mean, there’s… So I come to podcast criticism through a long, long love of blogging. I like raised myself on things like the AV Club and Vox and Cracked and, you know, all of these like kind of weird super personality-driven media criticism spheres.
And I also am very familiar with the world of film criticism and respect it deeply, but I’ve never really engaged with it quite the same. So I talk a lot about how my work would not exist without Emily VanDerWerff, who is also now a podcaster making fiction podcasts, which I love. She is one of the creators of Arden, but she’s also the the head of culture over at Vox. And she worked on several big projects at the AV Club for a long time.
So when I look for language, I’m actually a really big fan of not using audio-specific language unless it’s literally about the audio. I think that one way to sort of help podcasts gain traction as a respected medium is to treat them the way that we treat any other respected medium. That’s my general approach to using language. There have been a few times where part of the way that we talk about podcasts is that a word will be adopted and then used and then used and then used a million times. I’m thinking of the word “intimate.”
Elena Fernández Collins: Mmmm.
Wil Williams: So [laughs] people talk about podcasts as intimate all the time, and I think that it kind of means nothing. So the other thing that I look for and another thing that I talk about in the style guide that I’ve written for the writers [of Discover Pods] is to try to focus on specificity. If you want to say that a podcast is intimate, why not focus on what that means? What is that sensation like? What does that feel to you? What do you mean by intimacy?
The same goes for immersive. Maybe sometime last year, or a few months ago, I don’t know what time is. It was called to my attention that the way that I used “immersive” when I’m talking about audio, especially fiction… Totally different from how a lot of people interpreted it! And there were a ton of different interpretations. So now I try to focus on what that means, what that feels like.
And I think that that’s generally… A good way to move forward is to think about codified language for sure, but also think about what that codified language means. And if you can be more specific without creating unnecessary jargon, which I do feel is sometimes gatekeeping in how it behaves.
Ely, our linguist [laughs]…
Elena Fernández Collins: Hi, hi. [laughs]
Travis Tippens: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: That’s why I asked Wil to go first, because I’m sitting here like, oh God, I have like five different things about this. Yeah, so I’m a linguist. For those who don’t know, I have a degree and well, almost two degrees in linguistics and…
Wil Williams: You have a degree point seven five [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah a degree point seven five. I’m working on my thesis for my master’s degree.
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: And so I approach my criticism from a lens of a sociolinguist. So specifically, I work in language in the law. So I work a lot with how we interpret laws and how we apply laws to people. Spoiler: unfairly and with a lot of racism.
Wil Williams: Uh huh.
Elena Fernández Collins: But it means that when I approach writing criticism, I approach it from the lens of someone who wants society to move into the direction of making everything accessible for everyone.
Wil Williams: Yes…
Elena Fernández Collins: So I rely a lot on Bell Hooks for this. Bell Hooks is one of my very favorite writers. And one of the things that Bell Hooks talks about is about making your work accessible for the people that you’re talking about.
Because if you write a scientific article about Black women and something that Black women experience, and you give it to a Black woman and she can’t understand what it is that you’re writing about, like if you have that experience, then you’re not writing for the audience, for the people that you’re talking about and you’re excluding them and treating them like a lab rat, which is awful.
Wil Williams: Mhmm mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Don’t do that.
Wil Williams: In a case that needs to be said.
Elena Fernández Collins: Just in case it needs to be said, right? So when I approach my writing, I approach it from the frame of I’m writing for an audience that may not be a podcaster.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: They will not have access to understanding DAWs (Digital Audio Workspaces) and different types of sound terminologies. They will not have access to… and they might, right? They might have access to all those things. But I want to make sure that the people who don’t are still able to understand why this podcast moved me.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And I want-
Wil Williams: And even-
Elena Fernández Collins: Sorry.
Wil Williams: No.
Elena Fernández Collins: And I specificall, like why this podcast moved me. And I want them to understand why this podcast moved me in the way that the podcast was made.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Like, yes, this podcast moved me because the story is very close to me? But also this podcast moved me because of these specific scenes.
For example, where the sound gets very close to your head, and they have close mic’d everyone. And what that means is that the microphones are very close, which means that it feels like someone is talking way closer to your ear than they do in the rest of the podcast. Right? Things like that. Things where I describe what it is that’s happening in a technical sense, but without using exclusionary technical jargon.
Wil Williams: Mhmm. I think that there is this like both really tragic and deeply embarrassing trend in a lot of media journalism. And I would even say more and more too, Pop Culture journalism, where the critics really care about you thinking that they’re really smart.
Elena Fernández Collins: Oh, yeah.
Wil Williams: [laughs] I think that’s gross and a waste of time.
Elena Fernández Collins: Super gross.
Wil Williams: Touching on Ely discussing a DAW, a digital audio workspace, it takes two seconds for a critic to say “(digital audio workspace)” if they say DAW. That doesn’t make a critic less smart. And if anybody reading feels like they’re being talked down to, I’m OK with that. I think [laughs].
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. That’s a you problem, buddy. [laughs].
Wil Williams: I don’t write for people who are going to feel spoken down to or want to speak down to me because I’m explaining something to a wider audience who doesn’t know technical terms. You know? I’ve seen a lot of debates come up recently about really wanting a set of vocabulary and a set of jargon. And we should have our own words. And like, man, first off, I don’t have the time for it. Like…
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: [laughs] There’s a lot of words in my head and I don’t even want them there. I’m happy to not have more. [laughs] And then also like, why? To what end? To what end?
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. So here here in this moment, Wil and I diverge slightly. Slightly. I do think that a critical language is necessary, but I don’t believe that a critical language means technical jargon.
Wil Williams: Yes, yes. Thank you, Ely. That’s a much better way of saying those things. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, there we go. That’s what I thought. I was like, mmmm, I’m going to say that we diverge just in case, but [laughs]
Wil Williams: No no no, no you’re good.
Elena Fernández Collins: One of the things that I think is really important when you’re talking about critical language is that the things that make a critical language important and useful and valuable are the things that reach people and people’s hearts and people’s minds.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And the things that reach those things, it’s not the word “DAW” and it’s not the word “binaural audio.”
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: And it’s not those things. [laughs] It’s not even the word “intimate” at this point, as Wil stated You can say, “Oh, it’s intimate.” Great. Yeah. I’ve been using the word “intimate” to describe The Heart since it started. Like, what do you want me to do about that?
I would hope that the critical language that we are developing is developed organically and with conscious thought that it will be used to reach human beings…
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And human beings who probably aren’t tucking away at sound stations in their homes, right, they’re not doing sound work.
Wil Williams: Right.
Elena Fernández Collins: They’re people who want to experience it. And so the word “experience” is, I think, very important here.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Because an experience is more than jargon. It’s more than specific words.
Wil Williams: Yeah. I think, Ely, you and I are totally united here. I think that the difference in the way we were discussing it comes from, when I hear people asking about critical language and the terms that we use, I think that based on a lot of the conversations I’ve seen, people seem to want a tool box. Things that they can pull out and hammer a nail. Whereas what you and I would really love is to move away from the toolbox and closer to an entire philosophy and ethos in the way that we discussed now.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, absolutely. Because I’m a linguist, probably, I view language as its own ethos.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Every type of every language, even if it’s a dialect or just a language that’s particular to a company or an organization, or a language is particular to a family. They all have their own ethos, and they all have their own spirit. And they all have their own rules, too!
Wil Williams: Mhmm mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: You don’t talk to your family the same way that you talk to your boss!
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Right?
Wil Williams: Ely, one would hope [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: One would hope! I mean, unless your family is also your boss. And then that just gets kind of weird, in my personal experience.
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: It all comes with its own set of ideas. It all comes with its own set of philosophies and paths. And I would hope that when people think about language, they think about something bigger than a toolbox.
Wil Williams: Mm hmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: That’s not to say that you can’t take a toolbox with you.
Wil Williams: Right.
Elena Fernández Collins: Like if you’re feeling insecure about starting, like if we want to encourage people to, like, join the criticism community in audio, one of the things…
Wil Williams: We need more.
Elena Fernández Collins: We need more, right? We know we need more people, please. But if you want to join, a lot of the things that prevents people is feeling like, you know, one of the things that prevents people from joining criticism is feeling like, oh, well, these people know all these fancy words. And I don’t.
Wil Williams: Mhmm mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: I think it’s important to be able to be like, OK, well, you can start by reading these folks. And you can get a feel for the way that they use language, and the way they use certain terminology. Like what terminology do they use in all of their articles, or in both of their articles or whatever, if you’re comparing stuff. What’s the same? What’s different? And you can start collecting those things as kind of a toolkit so that you can start. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: And I think that’s also one of the ways that we create a foundation that’s open for everyone.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Is then people start looking at the way that people talk about audio and looking at the ways that it’s the same in the ways that it’s different. And being able to use those terms in the way that fits what they hear in audio.
Travis Tippens: Yeah, absolutely. This is an absolutely fascinating discussion, too.
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: I do want to move us on to talk a little bit about your own work, though.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, sorry.
Travis Tippens: No, no. I can listen to this for hours.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: Unfortunately, we do not have hours. So I guess first, Wil, could you tell us just a little bit about Valence and Scoring Magic?
Wil Williams: Yeah, absolutely. So Valence is the serialized fiction podcast that I am the showrunner for, and Ely is a part of! Ely is one of my actors. They are very good villains.
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: Valence is an urban fantasy story about a magic user named Liam, who lives in a city that is not New York… Wink, wink. And the story is about him trying to investigate and eventually hopefully take down a corporation that makes devices meant to suppress magical ability. Lots of themes of found family and lots of themes of abuse and trauma. It is a very deeply personal story to me.
And our second season is launching on the 9th (of February). So it’s coming up. Well, coming up as of recording.
Scoring Magic is a documentary about making Valence. So I have always really loved just making resources for people. If it seems like documenting a process could be helpful to anyone ever in any situation, I will gladly do it. I like to do it.
So Scoring Magic is our documentary which goes over everything from how I got started making Valence to the experience of putting, again, like very, very deeply personal moments in the story, to finances, to casting calls, to us launching the first season and just kind of feeling like weird ambivalence. We just kind of track everything that we can in hopes that it will be useful to anyone.
Travis Tippens: Yeah, fantastic. And Ely, could you tell us a little bit about Radio Drama Revival?
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, sure. So Radio Drama Revival has been going for 14 years now. We’re entering our 14th season. And if that sounds like a long time, it’s because it is. [laughs]
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Travis Tippens: Yes.
Elena Fernández Collins: It started on the actual radio with our founder, Fred Greenhalgh, in Maine before moving into podcast form. And I am the third host of Radio Drama Revival after Fred and David Rheinstrom. My first year of hosting was last year. It is… First of all, my team is amazing, Wil is also part of my team, Wil is my producer.
Wil Williams: Mhmm. Our team rules. Our team’s really good. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs] The way that you will hear us introduce Radio Drama Revival all the time is that we showcase diverse, unique fiction audio and their creators. So we love to find some independent fiction that we want to celebrate. We play a couple of episodes on our podcast.
And then in the next episode after that, I interview the creator or creators and we talk about all sorts of things. I talk about audio design, philosophy, writing ethos. I talk about all the things that go into it. I ask some really personal questions.
Wil Williams: [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs] We often also talk about the impact of fiction podcasting on their careers and stuff like that. Like why this? What was important about having it in audio? Things like that. I love talking to creators, it’s a lot of fun. And one of the things that we are trying to do at Radio Drama Revival and I hope we’ll always continue to do, is to uplift marginalized voices in particular.
Wil Williams: Mhmm.
Elena Fernández Collins: Who don’t get to have that platform. So that’s where you can go to find all of our recommendations. There’s a lot of them. [laughs]
Wil Williams: There’s a lot of them, 14 years worth, fact.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, Fred has put up two different feeds that contain the Fed years and the David years that are not contained in the current feed, which you can find on the website if you want to listen to 14 years worth.
Travis Tippens: Yes, and Radio Drama Revival is fantastic and probably a large part of the reason why I think at last count, I have like 584 podcasts I’m subscribed to at the moment. So I blame you. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs] Good.
Wil Williams: [laughs] I think that’s blame we’ll happily take.Yeah. There a problem with that.
Travis Tippens: Well I guess before we go, any final closing thoughts from the two of you?
Elena Fernández Collins: I think that we should give one recommendation for a fiction podcast to the Fantasy Inn audience. I mentioned a couple of names already, but I want to make sure that we get one for these folks.
Travis Tippens: Yes, please. That would be amazing.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah. So I’m going to recommend Point Mystic.
Wil Williams: Yeah!
Elena Fernández Collins: Point Mystic is a horror magical realism podcast created by people of color, Christopher Reynaga and Marguerite Croft, and also their kid, about this small town called Point Mystic where you can’t find it on any map and you end up at Point Mystic when you need to be there. And it’s really beautiful.
The stories in it are about a lot of hard, difficult things that… Definitely go into this understanding that they’re going to be talking about trauma, and things like that. Racism in the newest story, their seasons 2 story. But it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s one of my very favorites. So definitely check it out if you haven’t already.
Wil Williams: Like consistently one of the most underrated horror/horror adjacent podcasts and honestly, like one of the most underrated fiction podcasts out there.
Elena Fernández Collins: Yeah, period.
Wil Williams: It’s so good. It’s so good. My recommendation is one that came out last year. It is Null/Void by Cole Burkhardt. Null/Void is spectacular. It touches on a lot of themes similar to Valence. So it’s like very near and dear to my heart. It is about a person who works at a mega corporation that is like ostensibly kind of a cell phone company, but they kind of do everything.
This person is caught between the very corporate world that they are more or less forced into and the world of people who are very aware of that corporate world’s dark underside and want to examine it and want to prevent some of the awful things they’ve done from happening again. I don’t want to give too much away…
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: This podcast takes some brilliant turns. It is very along the lines of Mr. Robot. And I will say this as somebody who like adores Mr. Robot, Null/Void has like a much clearer idea of what it’s trying to say it and how it wants to do it. [laughs]
Elena Fernández Collins: [laughs]
Wil Williams: It is so well conceived and what it’s trying to do and what it’s trying to say is so thought of in every step, in the performances, in the writing, in the production. It’s just really incredible and captivating. And it’s also just like very fun. Lots of memorable characters. Again, a plot that like goes places. So that’s Null/Void. You might find it as Null slash Void on your podcatchers.
Travis Tippens: [outro music starts] Yes. And a strong second from me on Null/Void as well. I actually got to have Cole on the podcast about six months ago to talk about that show. So anyone listening to this right now or reading the transcript, definitely go and check out that interview as well.
Elena Fernández Collins: We love Cole here. [laughs]
Wil Williams: Oh, yes.
Travis Tippens: I think that’s about all I have for the two of you. So Ely, Wil, this has been a wonderful, wonderful conversation. And I’m so thrilled that the two of you could take time out of your ridiculously busy schedules to make this happen. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Wil Williams: Thank you, Travis.
Elena Fernández Collins: Thank you for having us. It was a lot of fun.
Wil Williams: Yeah.
