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BURNING WORDS: Podcast Reviews, August 2007

by Tamara on August 01, 2007

Introduction
Welcome to Burning Words: Podcast Reviews, a monthly column reviewing short prose podcasts featuring fiction or creative nonfiction.

What is a podcast? It might be thought of as the 21st Century equivalent to the old time radio show. Using the latest technology, listeners can download these radio shows as media files to their mp3 devices and computers and, with a single click, listen at their own convenience, either through headphones or through a speaker. Most podcasts are free and can be downloaded through various directories such as iTunes and Podcast Alley.

Note: All podcasts reviewed in this column were downloaded to either an IBM ThinkPad or a Creative Zen V mp3 player for listening and review.

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AUGUST 2007 PODCAST REVIEW
Title: Bound Off: Literary Audio Podcast, Short Stories, Fiction
Overall Rating: 9.5/10
URL: http://boundoff.com/
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BoundOffShortStoryPodcast
Language: English
Genres: Short stories in the literary tradition.
Email: inquiry@boundoff.com

Background
Bound Off was first broadcast in early 2006 via a 1-minute introductory podcast. Its podcasters, short story writers Kelly Shriver and Ann Rushton of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, expressed their desire to expose readers to a new way of encountering fiction. Using the format of the literary magazine as their model, they have put together a monthly podcast featuring all sorts of short literary fiction. All 18 episodes, each containing anywhere from 2 to 4 individual stories, can be found at and downloaded easily from their website. Readers can also subscribe to Bound Off’s feed.

General Review
I think that Rushton and Shriver have done a fine job of capturing the essence of the contemporary literary journal in the podcasting format. They’ve selected a broad scope of work which is quite accessible in content and narrative. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the pieces (subtle humor is a strong point for them), and for other pieces, I simply stopped what I was doing in order to more carefully listen. The work varies in its quality, but I didn’t find any stories that weren’t well executed.

Bound Off is nicely spare in its format: more or less, it involves a simple introductory note and the stories themselves.

Perhaps the only criticism I have: a couple of the stories were read aloud by their writers. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, while Rushton and Shriver do a pretty nice job of reading work for the podcast, their writers sometimes do, as well. The challenge for me? A couple of the writers had rather thick accents, and I had to really concentrate to understand what they were saying. Still, once I fell into the groove of their delivery and pronunciation, I was fine.

I would say that the challenge with the accents will probably only be a problem for the more passive listener, who might be used to listening to music that they’re familiar with than to words that are unfamiliar altogether. Listeners for fiction need to be a little more tuned in to catch the entire story, and especially tuned to new voices where accents might make the work even a little more challenging to hear if one is, say, driving or gardening or doing some other activity simultaneously.

In fact, it’s my feeling that, when listening to fiction, it’s worthwhile to listen to longer pieces twice, as to not miss out on any of the wonderful language crafted in a piece. We, as readers, have the benefit of going back over the words to draw out their full range of meaning, but with listening, some things can be lost in the act.

The accent concern is a small criticism, though. The only other criticism is more an observation, that sometimes there were words that were mispronounced by the readers, and while this is not uncommon or even undesirable (see Caveat, below), the lingering effect of hearing a word pronounced quite differently from the way you’ve always heard it means you’ll be thrown out of the story for a second or two and might need to replay the text following the goof to make sure you get every last bit of the story. Again, a small criticism.

For these reasons, I give this podcast a 9.5/10 rating.

Caveat
If anything, I like the idea of literary podcasts in general being a bit less airtight than their printed counterparts. But average listeners might need to adjust their expectations. To do so is entirely worth the effort. Hearing the voices, the accents, the bobbles—these are the things that remind the listener that a story isn’t just a selection of words, but an extension from a fellow human being. Heartfelt storytelling must be delivered with a human context of some kind, otherwise all we get are airtight tales and sterile plotting that sanitizes the very guts of a piece out of existence entirely, leaving the reader to ask: “So what?” (Overly “workshopped” writing suffers from this most dramatically.) I say, revel in the imperfections!

I’ve listened to eight of the stories in Bound Off and feel confident that the rest of the podcast episodes will live up to this review. In fact, I hope to listen to more of these stories while doing my yardwork or driving long distances in the near future because, heck, Bound Off’s work so far has made these two tasks far more tolerable, and I’ve come away inspired to write my own short stories.

Below, I’ll simply highlight four stories I found memorable.

Episodes reviewed

NOTE: Always check content ratings for individual episodes of all podcasts; some may not be work-safe or family friendly.

“La Vie du Jour” by Steven Gullion; read by Dave Robinson
[air date: 3.15.2006; 11 min]—This story will appeal to anyone interested in life after death, reincarnation, or other end-of-life possibilities. The humor is witty and the language fairly crafted; a summary ending that sets up a twist might be considered a little predictable, but still, this is a fun story worth hearing. Dave Robinson captures the tone of the story well in his reading.

“Parade for Hendrik” by Stefani Nellen; read by Stefani Nellen
[air date: 3.15.2007; 14:45 min]—I loved this story. This is one where the author read the piece and I needed to adjust slightly to her German accent, but oh, it’s a terrific story about a funeral and the people who attend it. Definitely worth listening to twice. I’d even advise it. There are some excellent lines and notions introduced in the beginning of the story which might be lost in the first listening but which can be more fairly appreciated in a second reading, to which the story stands up.

“Boxes” by Belea T. Keeney; read by Dave Robinson
[air date: 6.15.2007; 9:45 min]—This is a heartbreaker about two grown children of a father who has passed away. It’s refreshing to listen to the strains of the relationship between sister and brother as they discover (or rediscover) the man who was their father. The sibling relationship is not one popularly covered in fiction. I found the language lovely and plot sincere and emotionally evocative.

“The Poet’s Head is In My Lap” by Elizabeth Ellen; read by Ann Rushton
[air date: 3.15.2006; 8 min]—Here’s a work that sounds more like a poem (perhaps a prose poem?) than a story, which is just fine, considering the content. There is a surreal quality to this work and a kind of quiet desperation that will make you want to stop everything to listen to it. Ann Rushton’s reading serves the piece well.

© 2007, TKS

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