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The Mermaid’s Tea Party

by Samantha Henderson

The mermaid barely slowed her breakneck pace as she approached and ran herself halfway up a yellow beach, belly-down and arching her back so her torso was almost upright. At the same time, she flung Cassandra casually upon the sand, half-knocking the breath out of her. Cassandra gulped for air, then scrambled as best she could up the beach, out of reach of the mermaid’s grasp — or so she profoundly hoped.

The mermaid watched her and made no move towards her, a nasty grin on her face.

“I’ll find the tea, and you’ll make us a party,” she said. “Then, maybe, I’ll bring you some food.”

Cassandra stared. Then the import of the creature’s words struck her and she looked around, beginning to panic. The island was perhaps a mile around and very flat, save where white ridges were raised above the surface. A large wave would have swamped it. A few trees she recognized from picture books as palms clustered off-center, a green haze underneath them. There was not much else.

Nothing to eat, certainly.

The sand clung in a fine film to her dress and bare legs, and itched. Miss Murchinson would have been scandalized.

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Host Commentary

…aaaaand welcome back. That was THE MERMAID’S TEA PARTY by SAMANTHA HENDERSON, and if you enjoyed that, well, we’ve a few more episodes for you–Podcastle 170 was Five Ways Jane Austen Never Died; 241 was Everything You Were Looking For; and 363 was L’Etoile Flamboyante. There’s a bunch of flash in our archives, too, and you might also want to hop over to Escape Pod where there’s four more stories–in particular Escape Pod 97, Cinderella Suicide, which gets namechecked by Dave Thompson in our interview. Speaking of which…

Dave Thompson, Anna Schwind & Pria Wood Interview

 

Matt Dovey

And now I’m very excited to welcome back for the first time in a lot of years, Dave Thompson, Anna Schwind and Pria Wood all here for a 15th anniversary interview. Thank you all so very much for coming. First off, do you want to introduce yourselves in turn for those listeners who might not have been around for your editorial run all those many years ago. Dave, do you want to go first?

 

Dave Thompson

Sure. I’m Dave Thompson. Do you want me to say more than that?

 

Matt Dovey

*Laugh* Just a little bit more!

 

Dave Thompson

I’m Dave Thompson. uuuuh Welcome back. I think honestly, I don’t I don’t really know what else to say right now. So….

 

Matt Dovey

We’ll move quickly over to Anna then!

 

Anna Schwind

I’m Anna Schwind and I served as Co-editor with Dave Thompson, welcome back! for many years, a long time ago, and we had a good time.

 

Matt Dovey

And finally Pria

 

Pria Wood

I am Pria Wood. I will show up in the past as Peter Wood on some of the boards and things but I was actually the audio producer for podcasts from about 2010 to about 2018 and serve, and came on board really with Dave and Anna stayed a little bit longer than them. And I had an incredible blast working with them on a project and with all of everybody in the escape artists family. And I was a little sad to go, you know, but it was time but I definitely miss, miss being around people a lot. It’s a great family.

 

Matt Dovey

We miss you too. It’s weird it’s weird for such a big, I mean it’s 100 people strong now Escape Artists, but it still feels like family. Well there’s five casts now. Because there’s Escapepod Podcastle, Pseudopod, Cast of Wonders, and now CatsCast the monthly cat fiction podcast. And yeah, I mean, there’s backend stuff and everything now as well. You know, we’ve got proper like accountants and you know, marketing and so there’s… so many people involved, yet still you bump into anybody else Escape Artists at a con and there’s just that instant sort of connection. Everything is, it still keeps that family feeling. That’s really nice. Right? It’s me that’s immediately going off into a digression. Sorry, having said I’m happy for us to digress on an interview. It’s me that’s going off on one. So first off, why this story The Mermaids Tea Party out of all the hundreds you edited through the years?

 

Pause.

 

Anna Schwind

You wanna say something?

 

Dave Thompson

You wanna go first?

 

Anna Schwind

Either way, Either way!

 

Dave Thompson

You go first!

 

Anna Schwind

I’ll say that we came in wanting that story like we already knew that we wanted it so we’re like, as soon as possible. Can we run this story?

 

Matt Dovey

You took the job in order to run this?

 

Anna Schwind

Yeah, right? Dave? Would you say that?

 

Dave Thompson

Man, I remember like, hmm, before we were doing Podcastle, Anna and I were, you know, we kind of knew each other through the EA board. And we were geeking out about stories together. And one of the stories we were geeking out about was Samantha Anderson Cinderella Suicide, which I must have listened to that story… I lost count. The first time I heard it. I had no idea what it was about, but I loved every minute of it. I was just the language was so incredible. And I like had to go back and listen to it and read it just to really like, really take it all in and I absolutely loved it. And so, I started reading more Samantha Anderson stories and when we were taking on Podcastle, we found this story and we were like this is so great. You know like we need…

 

Anna Schwind

Ooooh Yeeeah!

 

Dave Thompson

like this is if we if we actually do this we need to run the story, and listening to it again laugh it’s still pretty great!

 

Anna Schwind

It’s still Great! It’s still a great story.

 

Dave Thompson

Yeah,

 

Matt Dovey

it’s I think is one of the most infamous in our backlog. I mean, Danny Daly who used to work at Cast of Wonders as assistant editor. So anytime anybody asks her what my favourite story is it’s always this one ‘The Fishy Bitches Story’. But I’ll be honest, I hadn’t actually got around to listening to it before… I was like, Oh, well, I better go over before we have this. It is not what I expected from the title. It’s a very different story.

 

Dave Thompson

And I feel like we should probably, we should apologise a little bit to the listeners because I realise now having to re-review these stories that we took some really long stories. When we we’re editing we tend to like longer stories. And yeah, this one was, this one was long but great. Listening to it again, I loved, you know that it took these two things that were really really popular and really, really cool. Mermaids and pirates or piracy. And just really showed like a really twisted version of them. And I think for me like that was, you know, one of the things that I really loved about it right from the get go, so

 

Anna Schwind

Well I really like how it took some of those tropes of like a survival story and then kind of upended them a little bit like… it’s like, you could say it’s a Robinson Crusoe retelling or you could say it’s a you know, all of that long lineage of castaways on islands and then… but now the mermaids want to eat you.

 

Matt Dovey

I am a sucker for a violent mermaid. It’s…

 

Dave Thompson

It’s great. I mean, how many like you just don’t see very many violent mermaid stories. So… I loved it. And, and something I didn’t realise. I mean, I guess we couldn’t realise when we ran it because we were just starting out but I see like some themes in this story that we kind of went back to a lot with you know, Handsome Jack, especially wanting to, you know, like, create this bullshit version of himself to keep …Can I say that?

 

Matt Dovey

Mmm?  Yeah yeah.

 

Dave Thompson

…to get people entertained? You know, and to create this reality of them then that reality, you know, definitely shifted Cassandra’s point of view too and you know, changed her whole life… literally changed her life, um, literally.

 

Matt Dovey

Yeah, There’s definitely something to be said of the power of stories, doesn’t it when it starts off with that sort of, you know, Arabian Nights, 1001 Nights, kind of, I keep telling stories to keep myself alive. But …yeah, I mean, particularly sort of the era it’s set in and the strictures that were on sort of female presenting people at that point. You know, how they, you know, you’re just the, the loyal daughter who, you know, holds the tea parties and abides by the rules and the civilization and sort of opening up her horizons for actually she could do and be anything if she just chooses to tell that story – To herself – as much as to anybody else. No, it’s it was a facet. It is a brilliant story. I think there’s a reason it always sort of, you know, I mean, how many years ago? so it’s gonna be 13 years ago, but it does still always come up in the recommendations. There is a good reason for it. So how did you all come to be involved with podcastle? Or then were you sort of onboard before taking over the Mast Head or did you just… think it was just Rachel and Anne before you, wasn’t it? Did they just hand it over to you? One day it was them next day it was you and just you three going Oh, God now what?

 

Anna Schwind?

Go ahead Dave

 

Dave Thompson

Why Well, okay. No, we were we were kind of behind the scenes for a little while. We were helping slush for a little while. And I think I started, I started doing some, like, help with hosting …before, and I don’t know, It kind of just kind of just grew from that. So when Rachel was ready to move on, you know, she talked to us and you know, it wasn’t, it definitely wasn’t like a quick thing. It felt like a long thing. But, in retrospect, I guess it wasn’t really that long either. I mean, what? Anna a few months, maybe like from the point she started talking about it to when we took over. So..

 

Anna Schwind

But it was a pretty smooth transition and they did a lot to orient us and we were doing things without being on stage except for Dave’s occasional hosting for a while before we actually took it over. I had also I started actually over, over at one of the other escape artists podcast because I came on at Escapepod I slushed for Jeremy Tolbert, when he was editor. And so then I was already in the family, I guess, as you could say, and then I moved over to Podcastle

 

Matt Dovey

That happens quite a lot, actually, because Rachel K Jones came after you did the same and Summer Fletcher who was our host for just before me for quite a while started off at Cast of Wonders. So it’s yeah, there’s, you know, we like to move around a little bit.  Pria How did you get on?

 

Pria Wood

I had actually at some point, maybe 2008 or 2009. I had answered a call on the forums that Sera Ely had posted about, you know, possible help and possible audio stuff. I had been doing I just sort of started getting more into doing sound design for theatre. And I had responded to this and never heard anything back. And then at one point, I got an email from Ben Phillips, saying that he wanted to talk to me about possibly doing the audio production for Podcastle. And I have to say, having a phone call from Ben Phillips was like, so surreal to me. Because I had been I was living, I had been living in New York. I had been listening to these podcasts for a number of years – A lot – on my subway rides and, and you know, Ben Phillips voice is very distinct.

 

Dave Thompson

It was like iconic, right?

 

Pria Wood

And, so, so yeah, so we brought me on I don’t know what, what… what was your first Dave Anna, what was your first actual edited show you did? Do you remember? I came on for The Twa Corbies  which was episode 82. And that was December of 2009. That was my first one. So, and Rachel was still there till when? When did you guys take over?

 

Dave Thompson

It was a little bit muddied. Like, and that was that was kind of built in I think like, Rachel did a great job, like Anna said, of, like, not just being like, here you go, have fun, but she really walked us through everything. And so, and like I remember she she’d bought, you know a handful of stories before, before she left and we kind of sprinkled some of those throughout. So I actually, have a hard time remembering what our very first story is, but when we talk about podcastle, I feel like this particular story, it was like kind of our like our big, like this is, this is not our vision, but this is like…

 

Anna Schwind

Who we are!

 

Dave Thompson

…what kind of stories we want, you know?

 

Anna Schwind

Like, Ta Dah! It’s gonna be BIG! It’s gonna be Carnivorous! 

 

Dave Thompson

It’s gonna be Long!

 

Anna Schwind

It will be fantastic! And there will be tea! Because who doesn’t love tea?

 

Matt Dovey

So you’ve apologised to the audience for long episodes, I think it’s Pria, you need to apologise to.

 

All Laugh

 

Dave Thompson

Definitely

 

Anna Schwind

There were there were weekly apologies. If it wasn’t like, Oh, this is extra long. It’s like Oh, we did this one full cast!

 

Dave Thompson

I was gonna say, I don’t know. I don’t know if we can talk about it now because I know we’re doing the other story too. But that one, man I do feel bad for that particular one but all those full casts ones were a lot a lot of work.

 

Anna Schwind

It is so amazing that they sound as good as they do. I mean, it’s a real credit to Pria’s work.

 

Matt Dovey

Yeah, I mean,

 

Pria Wood

Aw, thank you,

 

Matt Dovey

if this show works at all it’s through the wizardry of the audio producers. So what I mean Pria for let’s say eight years and we have Peter Adrian Behravesh after and we’ve got Erik Valdez and Devin Martin Now. This whole thing sounds wonderful every week because my god the hours they put in, like I said, especially for a full cast. I mean, we love a full cast. We all do, but they are a lot of work. But yeah, so I think some of my favourite episodes. Definitely the full cast ones though. They just, they just come to life. In another way don’t they? And it’s especially because you end up getting a lot of people involved from the escape artists family as we’ll find out next time. Yeah, they are good so thank you for your loyal years and work Pria it is appreciated.

 

Pria Wood

Well, and I would assume nowadays that things are a little… it seems like because we’ve been doing so much online and you know, the technology has developed a little bit so like even, even like people having kind of, you know, various USB mics is just much more common and a little easier for things to come through. But yeah, it is. I mean, heck, even getting some of those things that we did with the book reviews with having Dave and Anna doing recording Together would have been much easier through zoom or through any of these, these newer things. But back when we did that sort of I think we did them for maybe a year or two where we had the occasional book review from Dave and Anna and yeah, and that was that was kind of tricky figuring out how to record them but, But yeah, this this setup is a lot easier I think.

 

Dave Thompson

it’s definitely a testament to you because we were both you know, idiots with how to record so. Thank you. Thank you so much.

 

Anna Schwind

What button do I push?

 

Dave Thompson

Laugh Yeah, Why am I here? Why do I hear my voice and like Echo right now? it’s not supposed to be like that.

 

Matt Dovey

I just smile and nod and do exactly as I’m told by the audio wizards because I haven’t got a clue. Yeah, if you say that definitely, I believe you. How different were the things in the castle then by the time you finished in 2015 versus when you started in 2010. Did you have any slushers in 2010 when you kicked off. How did it all to grow in those five years?

 

Dave Thompson

We definitely, we definitely increased the slushers. Anne Leckie was really slushing. You know, in hindsight, that is so weird to say Anne Leckie was slushing for us because she was already I mean, she was already amazing. Back when we were when we were doing this and we were, Yeah, she she was an incredible talent already. So, she was slushing and she slushed like a bast I mean, she would just… there’d be 50 stories and that inbox and she’d got through 45 of them and a couple of hours and felt like and I don’t know how she did it, but she was

 

Anna Schwind

It will not surprised. It will not surprise anyone to realise that she had a real eye and a real nose and a real all your other senses for what was it in story like she could tell pretty quickly. So…

 

Dave Thompson

and then we brought up we brought on some other slushers throughout the years and the team, I don’t know, the team just grew, I think I think one way that the team grew to was just you know, I don’t know, we invited different people to host we became really, I don’t know friendly, I guess with with our, our authors to some extent but more importantly, I think because especially back then we weren’t paying them to our narrator so I was always trying to be, you know, super appreciative of our narrators because they were doing so much work for us for free. And they and they were incredible. So

 

Anna Schwind

I couldn’t really believe how talented they were and we were not paying them that was one of our oh this has got to change has got to change has got to change. And lo and behold, it has!

 

Matt Dovey

Everybody now is paid actually, it’s one of the I mean, Alistair often says, you know, this whole company is a miracle. You know, it’s sort of 15 years old on the internet, and still fully supported by just people donating. Which is incredible and feels so fragile, but it is consistent and regular and generous. And for anybody who contributes now even slushers get sort of a token payment. I mean, you know, it’s definitely not a wage or anything, but everybody gets recognised for their work now, which is phenomenal. I mean, I wish we could pay narrators more because it’s when you look at what professional fee a rates are. Very high. And yeah, it’d be wonderful if we could pay more but you know people while we still have professional voice actors who are willing to work for just you know a pittance professionally speaking and you’re so appreciative of it, because I mean, even authors that when you… was it also reprinted when you started where you doing that?

 

Anna Schwind

Yeah,

 

Dave Thompson

that’s something else that we did. We had we had some original stories that at the other podcasts they were doing Pseudopod and Escapepod were doing original stories, but we started doing those and that was it was a lot of fun but also it felt like you know, less of a less of a safety net under us when we were doing those stories but, but we picked ones that we really enjoyed and I think we’re super proud of all of them. So

 

Anna Schwind

and we kind of intended them to be kind of few and far between kind of like, Surprise! this one’s an original. Mostly we were interested in doing reprints. We felt like it’s a different medium. So, and we give authors another payment like it’s reprint payment, but it’s something and so we actually. I particularly, felt like it was a curation job, right? Like, we are going into the big world of all these publications, we’re pulling a few that we think are really great and would *sound* really good and audio because not every story is made to be produced on audio quite honestly. And then we present it in a format that our hope was that it would be accessible to more people to people who don’t, can’t, won’t. Don’t feel like reading or who want to listen while they’re doing other things and not have their eyes in a page. So we felt like it was worth doing.

 

Pria Wood

I have to say, I think sorry. I think that Dave and Anna did some really amazing work in selecting stories that I think a lot of people would be like: This won’t work on in audio. This just won’t work. And in particular, I’m thinking of my favourite story, not because I read it. Although I am so proud that I did get the chance to read it but, Selected programme notes from the retrospective exhibition of Teresa Rosenberg Latimer. by Ken Snare like it’s, it’s a programme notes from an art exhibition and nothing about it seems like it will work on audio. It is about a bunch of paintings. And it’s taken from sort of that curatorial voice and yet it really does. It comes through, it works beautifully. There was also the choose your own adventure story. I forget I’m spacing on the title of that one.

 

Dave Thompson

The Axiom of Time I think,

 

Pria Wood

Yeah. Or the Axiom of Choice,

 

Dave Thompson

The Axiom of Choice.

 

Pria Wood

Which, you know, again, does not really work as like, Oh, this is going to be a great audio thing. But I think those, those two in particular, but I think there are probably others scattered through that they just really had a had a good sense of what would work for audio, even if it might not seem like it should, which I really appreciated.

  

Matt Dovey

What about those stories? Is it that you think did make them work despite sort of, you know, first glance,

 

Dave Thompson

I will say Pria’s reading on the one that was narrated. was phenomenal. I don’t know, I don’t know if that would have worked. And that was part of that was for me part of part of the really fun job … was figuring out who should narrate what story because the narrator’s are all the narratives we worked with were incredible, but they were not interchangeable.

 

Anna Schwind

We spent a lot of time discussing who could narrate

 

Dave Thompson

Who would be great?

 

Anna Schwind

because those were those were very considered choices that we made.

 

Matt Dovey

Yeah, they still are. The amount of effort that goes into finding the right narrator for some stories, you know, you’ve got to find someone Icelandic and out you go to Twitter and ask away and you know, you find people and hopefully you get three or four auditions and you can get because it’s not always just about you know, I need someone who can get their tongue around some of these words that are unfamiliar to a native English speaker, but somebody can bring that sort of understanding and empathy to the story as well. Isn’t it? and really appreciate what is being said there from a cultural perspective makes a huge difference.

 

Anna Schwind

When there’s a rhythm to an author’s writing, right and that everybody innately can translate that rhythm. We but we worked out we held on to stories because we didn’t know who would narrate them. We’re like, we want to read those but we don’t have somebody currently in our stable who can and there were several stories that we held on to for like, months looking for the right person.

 

Dave Thompson

And I feel like too, you know, it’d be like, we’d shift that balance right to make sure that that Narrator could read that story, right Pria?

 

All Laugh

 

Dave Thompson

So, something else I remember about things that have changed, Matt, is that I feel like when we started doing Podcastle, there were a lot of, a fair amount of genre magazines out there. But something that started happening when we were doing Podcastle was that a lot of those magazines started creating their own podcasts, which were, which were really great. But typically, they didn’t have the wealth of they had professional narrators, but there were usually a few and they didn’t have the wealth of narrators that we, the wealth of volunteers back then that we did and that was something special that I think help helped us stand out a little bit.

 

Anna Schwind

I agree the depth and variety of voices. And what it created was the situation where people would have favourites and then you know, once every three months you would hear your guy that was your favourite or your gal that was your favourite and it would be an extra – Woo hoo!

 

Matt Dovey

I always perked up any time Wilson Fowlie turned up as a narrator. He’s got such a lovely voice. And he still is. He’s back every sort of three to six months still narrates for us on the regular he’s production stuff, actually now is one of our production concierges in Escape Artists

 

Dave Thompson

He is?

 

Matt Dovey

Yeah, he’s still very much in the family.

 

Anna Schwind

I didn’t know that that’s exciting. Thanks for sharing that.

 

Dave Thompson

I remember like you know, we were talking about getting to know these narrators and I remember getting to meet Wilson in person and, and we were out camping one summer and he came to visit us and it was such a cool, cool experience to hang out with him. And he was a person to like, we’d be like, ooh, like, we got to find, you know, a great story for him or ooh, this story would be really, really perfect for him. So sorry, I’m probably digressing. But

 

Matt Dovey

No, that’s I’m all for it. Believe me. I love hearing all these anecdotes and stories because when I started listen to podcastle was during your era, I got a job that got like an hour’s commute each way so I just asked on the forum anybody got any podcast recommendations? Yeah, Podcastle was one of them, and was probably then a big part of me going, Hey, I should try to do short fiction writing and reading more properly. So, I’m probably here because you were here, you know, 13 years ago. So funny how the world turns. And what changed your decision that you made during your tenure are you most proud of so many things you think you can still see in our DNA today?

 

Dave Thompson

Anna?

 

Anna Schwind

Oh, well definitely paying narrator’s we were like, can we please do this? This seems like a moral necessity and people would be like, but financially… and we’d be like, But can we please? And so that went round and round for a while, but we kept saying it over and over again. And we think that even though it didn’t turn the tide for us, that it did turn the tide. And so, we feel proud of having said it, you know, many, many more times than anybody wanted to hear it.

 

Dave Thompson

Yeah.

 

Anna Schwind

Work has value! Let’s pay people! come on!

 

Matt Dovey

It is sunk into the bones of EA now, I think so. It did have the effect.

 

Anna Schwind

Dan da dah!  Say a thing enough times…

 

Dave Thompson

That’s right. So many conversations…

 

Anna Schwind

Every staff meeting, we’d be like, so hey narrators

 

Dave Thompson

“David. Anna, do you have anything you want to contribute? Uh,  We would like to talk about Narrator Pay….”

 

Anna Schwind

Every time! So even though we couldn’t pay you guys, narrators we were totally pulling for you.

 

Pria Wood

I also think that they did a great job of really increasing and committing to queer perspectives in the stories over the time. I just read this and or I just listened to Rachel’s first piece interview that you did, and how she had mentioned that part of why she left and this is not a secret to anybody in the Escape Artists. Part of why she left was some, particularly the sexism that was directed towards her and that continued I mean that that continued throughout Dave and Anna’s time as well on the forums and and other other spaces. But I think looking back and you know, I didn’t crunch numbers or anything but just of the stories that we ran. That was real wealth and diversity of, of queer perspectives and, and it was really something that I think EA as an entirety has, has embraced and is strongly in favour of and, and not just in favour of abstractly but takes actual action to bring marginalised people of all kinds from, for all reasons. But I do think looking back into those stories that Anna and Dave had a lot to do with bringing a really diverse set of stories to us throughout the years.

 

Matt Dovey

And we always say sort of Podcastle has been a feminist magazine since it’s inception. You know, we’ve, we’ve never shied away from it and you know, part of being a feminist is trying to uplift everybody as well. You know, realising the ways, the patriarchy harms everybody, not just women. So, you know, that is absolutely in our DNA. And I do think I mean, yeah, when Rachel said that, in that interview that kind of broke my heart a bit like, how is the world still this shitty to people? It’s just stories in your ears for free and you’re still getting your knickers in a twist about that, my god. But I think I said to Rachel that we would say I think we have finally won that battle. We’ve driven out anybody who’s going to whinge about it and we’re just got the good people. I mean, I’ve been on the twit… running a Twitter account for over five years now longer than I’ve been on the host side and the anytime we run an Artemis Rising call, you’d always get that Oh, when’s the men only submission period or this is sexism? Yeah. That has finally died a death Now. We tend not to get that kind of complaints any more. So I think we’ve, you know, we’ve self-selected our audience by banging the drum long enough, I think. Good to know.

 

Anna Schwind

Say a thing enough times!

 

Matt Dovey

Was there any changes you made that didn’t perhaps work out? I mean, you sort of mentioned the book reviews earlier?

 

Dave Thompson

Yeah, those didn’t work out so great.

 

Matt Dovey

With all this slush to read let’s throw in some novels in as well!

 

Dave Thompson

Yeah, we had a great time doing that.

 

Anna Schwind

That’s true. We had a great time. But I don’t think like we weren’t super committed.

 

Dave Thompson

Yeah, and and it was, you know, I don’t know. It was fun. We had a great time. I mean, I got to read that. You know, several, several books for free, which was great. You know, I got to read the first dagger and coin book for free and I got a copy of the first expanse novel. So it was like, it was cool. So you know, on top of all the slush that we were reading too, or story recommendations that Anna and I were shooting towards to each other. So yeah, so that’s that’s something that maybe didn’t. didn’t.

 

Anna Schwind

It didn’t stick. Yeah, we did it for a while. It was okay for a while. It’s okay to try things out. It’s okay. Not to stick. I mean,

 

Pria Wood

Yeah, I think there were even I think there were even a couple that I think I did one and I think we even had a book review by somebody else. I can’t remember who it was because I did one for City in the City. The China Mieville novel. So if you if you go back into the into the crevices and cracks of the castle, you’ll find my, my thoughts on the City in the City

 

Dave Thompson

You did one for Unseen Academicals to write or a Terry Pratchett book, is that right?

 

Pria Wood

I didn’t I think some that was probably the other person and I don’t even remember who it was. See if I can find them

 

Dave Thompson

You know, my bad just edit that part out.

 

Matt Dovey

If you’ve listened to the Ann Leckie interview saying those words as a guarantee that we’re going to keep it in I’m afraid

 

Dave Thompson

Great

 

Pria Wood

Yeah, no, it was actually it was as Bill Peters

 

Dave Thompson

Bill Peters!  Damn.

 

Anna Schwind

Oh! Bill Peters.

 

Pria Wood

And that was actually the first review that we did. And that was March of 2010 Podcastle review. Podcastle reviewed one: Unseen Academicals

 

Dave Thompson

That’s like a shy hearing all these names and all these people. It was such a good I mean, it was such a good experience. Such a good experience. How long were we doing it for five years?

 

Matt Dovey

Five years. 2010 to 2015 I think is the data.

 

Dave Thompson

It was incredible, incredible five years and I was saying before like when we started doing it, my daughter was five or six. You know, I had I had a two year old son and then you know, now she’s going to college and we you know, had a baby while we were doing Podcastle So it’s just you know, what a what a cool like timestep and listening to, listening to these stories was definitely brought back lots of nostalgia and good memories and feelings and stuff. So…

 

Matt Dovey

Well, that seems like a very good spot to end today’s interview, I think isn’t it? It’s a lovely note to end on, but happy news for everybody who’s listening. We will see you again in two weeks. It’s definitely how long we’re going to wait before we’re talking again. Absolutely. Two weeks, not 20 minutes. Thank you all for coming back on.

 

Anna Schwind

Dave’s still killing it with the outro.

 

Dave Thompson

Still Got it! Still Got it guys!

 

Anna Schwind

There you go. Come on back any time!

 

Dave Thompson

Without a script now! Whoo.

 

Matt Dovey

We know how we’re gonna have to start the next interview off actually I think. Wont we? Theres a particular

 

Dave Thompson

I’ll be better next time.  I’ll be better next time.

 

Matt Dovey

Yeah, no we’ll talk about that in a moment.  Thank you ever so much for coming back on and being involved because you know, we are where we are today because you were where you were 15 years ago, you know, 13 years ago. So, it is wonderful to have your voices back on the podcast. And I’m very excited to have them back again, another two weeks. So thank you.

 

Dave, Anna & Pria

Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah.