PodCastle 792: ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: In the Stacks
Show Notes
Rated R
In The Stacks
by Scott Lynch
On the clock outside the gate to the Manticore Wing of the library, the little blue flame was just floating past the symbol for high noon when Laszlo and Casimir skidded to a halt before a single tall figure.
“I see you two aspirants have chosen to favor us with a dramatic last-minute arrival,” said the man. “I was not aware this was to be a drama exam.”
“Yes, Master Molnar. Apologies, Master Molnar,” said Laszlo and Casimir in unison.
Hargus Molnar, Master Librarian, had a face that would have been at home in a gallery of military statues, among dead conquerors casting their permanent scowls down across the centuries. Lean and sinewy, with close-cropped gray hair and a dozen visible scars, he wore a use-seasoned suit of black leather and silvery mail. Etched on his cuirass was a stylized scroll, symbol of the Living Library, surmounted by the phrase Auvidestes, Gerani, Molokare. The words were Alaurin, the formal language of scholars, and they formed the motto of the Librarians:
RETRIEVE. RETURN. SURVIVE.
Host Commentary
…aaaaand welcome back. That was IN THE STACKS by Scott Lynch, and if you enjoyed that, honestly? Go get The Lies of Locke Lamora on audiobook. It is a delightful puzzle of a novel, and still one of my go to recommendations for audiobooks–Michael Page’s narration is a work of art.
And now, let us pick up where we left a fortnight ago, with a sound that should be hearteningly familiar to any long time listeners…
Dave Thompson
Aaaaand welcome back!
Matt Dovey
Ah! You love to hear it. As you have probably gathered by those dulcet tones I’m back once again with Dave Thompson Anna Schwind and Priya Wood for the second part of our interview following on from our episode two weeks ago. This time we’ll have just heard In The Stacks by Scott Lynch. So, do you want to tell us why you picked this story?
Anna Schwind
Because who doesn’t love full cast audio?
Matt Dovey
Priya doesn’t love full cast audio!
All laugh
Priya Wood
Yeah, and, you know, I, I do think it stands up pretty well which, which is really great. I mean we did that in 2012. And it was… it was a bear. I mean, it was a lot. I think it was our biggest ever, like, certainly our longest ever full cast and you know, I was, I was always a little bit unhappy with them as a, as the audio producer just because I was always struggling to make those, those full casts work with the different mics and the different room tones and all of the, the differences especially because every …all of our narrators were, or most of our narrators were volunteers who did not like have studios. And you know, weren’t doing professional level audio. I mean, we’ve we’ve had some professional level audio people in in the past as narrators but a lot of them weren’t and so, so it was really great to listen to the story revisit it and kind of feel like hey, we did a really good job with that. It sounds you know, I could I could definitely hear that people were on different mics and in different rooms, but the whole thing blends together pretty well. And I think the story and the narrations really keep you in involved with the story and so that the technical stuff kind of fades into the background. And so, yeah, I think it was a it was a good idea, even if maybe at the time I was like, “Oh, god no!”. It came out really well.
Anna Schwind
I agree.
Dave Thompson
It was uh, how long was it though? We asked you to do another full cast story? I feel we were… we waited a really long time.
Laughing
Matt Dovey
That was 13 parts and now I’ve just counted up the cast list. I mean, that is a lot of plates to keep spinning. Oh my goodness.
Dave Thompson
What were you gonna say Anna?
Anna Schwind
Oh, that I think that one of the reasons we chose this one for our reprise, so to speak, is that not only did we like super dark, cannibalistic mermaids, but we also super love a fun story. And this is 100% Fun, pretty much every second. So there’s fun.
Matt Dovey
I think that is something that is in out DNA. We always you know, the world has been a pretty grim and dark place that is reflected in the fiction that’s been out and about and you know, we do more than our fair share of that as well. But there is always that lingering sense of PodCastle is here for fun as well. We need to make an effort to have just a really fun episode. And inevitably, weirdly, they kind of end up being the full cast episodes as well for some reason. It’s one of my favourites. Probably the one that if as and when I depart will be my final pick was “Hey, Rapunzel”, “Yo, Rapunzel” sorry, “Yo, Rapunzel”, which is a full cast already and it’s just so dry and so funny. I think full cast really brings out the humour as well. You just get those different tones from people. And it’s, I mean, as somebody who was a listener when this one first came out, though, I think yes, you did an excellent job Priya. I had no complaints about the sound at all at the time I was enthralled by it.
Dave Thompson
It was kind of amazing listening to it. And especially back then we were talking earlier about how you know how nice it would have been if we had zoom and we could have all recorded it, you know, together or something like that. But like when we listened to it, it was I mean, I remember with particularly with Hobson and Wilson, and they might as well have been in the same room together. They just sounded like they were bouncing off each other so well. And it was so much fun to listen to. And it did like… I think one of the things I love about it yet, like Anna’s right, it was a fun story. But it was also something that really, when I think back of our time a PodCastle I think of you know, a group of people and a group of narrators that we worked with and, and this is not all of those narrator’s but largely reflects like kind of a little bit of a family that we found while we were there during our tenure, so… nostalgia.
Matt Dovey
We’ll take a moment just to feel that heartache. So yeah, David, Anna, between you two, you were I think the longest consistent editor we are would have in our history – five years without any changes. And Priya you were our audio producer for eight years, as we’ve said, which, you know, no one’s topped those runs. So, what do you think the secret to your success and stability? How did you keep your enthusiasm up for all that time?
Dave Thompson
I feel like I need to apologise to people because I used… so when we were doing this I was working in an office job, which, you know, was, was really working like half the time that I was there. And so poor Anna like I’d be, you know, coming up with ideas and spamming her and bugging her and she was busy teaching and stuff like that and, as a teacher now I’m like geez, I don’t know how like I can’t even… I can barely make dinner. I don’t know how Anna was doing like A putting up with me and B…B doing this. So it was incredible.
Anna Schwind
It was like a second job though. It is and really was a lot and I’m sure it still is for whoever’s doing it today. A lot of work. So you have to kind of want to do it. Otherwise it’s totally not worth it.
Priya Wood
And I think we got really lucky that we all worked really well together. And it just it seemed I mean, and I know that Dave and Anna worked more of the time more closely. But I also feel like we really did work as a team in in many ways. And I was really, really, really thrilled to be asked back for this and for these 15 year anniversary for this. Because while I was in editorial, it felt like a team. It really did. And, we just we got along well, we, we worked well together. And I think we all valued each other’s input in some really strong ways that helped keep us both grounded but also having a sense of fun
Anna Schwind
I think everybody had an important basis of respect for the skill set and the understanding of everyone else. And so we could even when we didn’t agree we could sort of talk it through very respectfully. I don’t ever remember having a dispute that was negative or that culminated with a negative outcome. I think we resolved all of our differences. The way you kind of would like people to resolve their differences.
Dave Thompson
Yeah
Anna Schwind
And I think that that led to longevity, quite frankly, because otherwise you get burned out you get frustrated but we were able to communicate, disagree, disagreements or differences of opinion in ways that still let us arrive at a conclusion or decision and also be respectful. That was super cheesy.
Dave Thompson
No, that’s That’s right.
Anna Schwind
I mean, aaah so cheesy!
Dave Thompson
I was just thinking like, you know, behind the scenes with with us there wasn’t any drama, you know, like there there weren’t any just wasn’t any drama. And you know, like if something came up you know, some I don’t know, I would talk to Anna and Anna would talk to me. And was very patient with me letting me vent about stuff, you know, or whatever. But there just wasn’t, there wasn’t any drama, I think behind, behind the scenes with us and we’re like, I remember you know, I’d call Anna up. It’d be talking to her about stories and stuff like that. And that was that was fun,
Anna Schwind
It was! It was.
Dave Thompson
Like, better than working in my office was the second job that didn’t pay anything was way better than the job that you know I had, so.
Anna Schwind
I think we also had a really good division of labour and combined with having each other’s back. So while Dave might normally be in charge of some things and I might normally be in charge of other things. We also were willing to step in and do the other piece if we needed to, to cover that includes Priya as well. Because when we were like that, they would just step up and do it.
Priya Wood
Yeah, well, I think that their respect for what I did and their willingness to ask or or give me like a, you know, like, we’re thinking about this for a full cast or we have to switch this out. What is the best way we can do this? Or, you know, we do need to, you know, we want to hold this story because the narrator needs extra time. So what can we do to switch things around and their willingness to, to bring me into the loop on that and to bring me into those decisions? was something that made me less, less apt to be resistant to sudden changes, right? Because, you know, because we did where we were working together and it wasn’t like, Oh, here’s a change in your schedule. And now you have to like put together this in the next three days. And if I did need to put something together in the next three days it wasn’t because something happened and it was unavoidable. And I didn’t feel bad about it because we were constantly communicating, constantly making sure that that everything was as smooth as possible, and that we had redundancies in place in case those situations happened. And I think
Anna Schwind
*Laughs* The famous backup stories!
Dave Thompson
I don’t know that’s a great legacy that we have the backup story, you know, like record
Anna Schwind
I don’t know if you’re still doing that background,
Dave Thompson
just in case just in case
Anna Schwind
I don’t know if you’re still doing that. But if you aren’t, you should
Matt Dovey
I think I will have a conversation with everybody else on the team shortly.
Dave Thompson
Public domain was a great was a great thing.
Matt Dovey
We do run some public domain ones, maybe we need to just have them and hold them in reserve a bit.
Priya Wood
Yeah. And we got on a really good four week ahead schedule, that for the most part we stayed on and again, and I…this is one of the things that I constantly crow about, about our time there and the fact that we only missed one week in hundreds of episodes and, and so being able to stay ahead and create systems, I think also helped us in the long term kind of stay on top of things
Matt Dovey
Four weeks ahead? I’m jealous of that, good grief!
Anna Schwind
Now you know our secret.
Priya Wood
Backup Stories.
Matt Dovey
We just have backup staff now. We should have enough of us that when two thirds of… two thirds of us are in a panic, the other third can pick it up and deal with it. Having two audio editors actually is I mean, that’s just only Devin & Eric? now that we’ve started doing that but just because it has a lot of labour during the audio, and it’s often very time sensitive. And I think ,it’s starting to become clear how much pressure was on that one role. And so dividing between two just otherwise there’s no backup for the audio producer. The Assistant Editor can step in when and editor can’t or something and two co-editors can have each other’s back. You’ve got to have your audio producers back as well.
Dave Thompson
I think that’s great, because otherwise I can’t even imagine the sense of burnout would occur because it is such a such a demanding job.
Priya Wood
I think there were a couple of times Yeah, I think there were a couple of times where different… different casts, audio people would sort of sub in for others. So I think there were some times where I did a few escape pod episodes. And there may have been a few over the eight years where somebody else stepped in for a couple of mine. And so, we would we would do it that way. But I agree. I mean, I think two, two is definitely a really helpful way to go about that audio production
Matt Dovey
…and then you can give one the full cast to do it and then they can just go away and do all of them while the other can just do the regular ones
Priya Wood
Laughs
Matt Dovey
Did you will have a natural division of work then? Like, were there preferences for what you what you liked doing and the others like oh good because I hate that job or did you just kind of all muck in a bit wherever and just work the problem if one came up?
Anna Schwind
Dave was the good cop and I was the bad cop.
Matt Dovey
Oh, you were rejections where you?
Anna Schwind
Often! and Dave, Dave was the funny one that everyone liked. So he did most of the hosting. I mean if you look back. I maybe hosted half a dozen episodes? And so you’re thinking hundreds of episodes that was usually Dave.
Dave Thompson
Well, we also we also had people, other people, and this was super helpful for me. We had other people coming in to host as well. So, like, I think I did like you know, two or three out of four. And then you know MK Hobson would come in or every once in a while Alasdair would host perhaps or other people would come in and host and I was it was great. Because you know, need that just a little a little bit of a break every once in a while so that was cool. But I think it was, I think it was a pretty natural. Yeah, like we kind of I don’t know… it was a long time ago. But in retrospect, it seemed pretty natural. We found out like, Well, I think we played to our strengths, right? Like,
Anna Schwind
Dude, you are reading my mind. Those are the words in my mind. We played to each other’s strengths.
Dave Thompson
We still got it Anna we still got it!
Matt Dovey
All these years later. What surprised you all about editing a podcastle that you didn’t expect going in?
Anna Schwind
I certainly didn’t expect to be doing it for that long. I mean, the the example in front of us was Anne and Rachel and they did it for two years and done and I was like Okay, two years and done. That sounds good. So, we hung on a little longer than that.
Dave Thompson
Yeah. You know what I can say? I think what I didn’t expect is, you know, I still look back on doing podcastle with a lot of fondness and like, you know, a really meaningful part and I think pretty said this earlier to like a really great time that we had doing it and you know, I still look back is that being like a really special, special time that we have together so… and a lot of great stories along the way. So..
Priya Wood
I think what surprised me, especially in my role as audio producer right, so I didn’t pick stories I didn’t write the stories. But I remain surprised and I remain emotional about my role in sharing the stories, and I think, being on a team that shares so many stories with so many people and that has so many impacts. I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on the EA forums but I remember you know, I… actually speaking of Axiom of Choice, I remember some of the comments for that story in particular, being really heartfelt and sincere in what it meant to people. And yeah, it’s just a really powerful thing for me to think about. You know, again, I didn’t write them, I didn’t pick them. But I helped to bring them into people’s imaginations and I’m really proud of that. And it’s a, it’s a really emotional thing for me. That’s a little surprising.
Dave Thompson
I mean, like, what a great collaborative effort. It was for all of us working together, right? I mean, we really couldn’t have done without you. So
Anna Schwind
That was really well said. Thank you Priya
Matt Dovey
It does feel like a responsibility. I mean, I I’m also not an editor, so I’m just a slusher really, with a microphone. But then I’m conscious that, I’m the person actually presenting the story. It’s my words leading in and leading it out and, you know, I don’t know if you have this as well Dave, but sometimes you sort of you have a sit there paralysed you think I’m not up to this story, the story is more important than I can kind of give voice to, what can I say about it? How can I do it justice
Dave Thompson
Mmm Hmm
Matt Dovey
and sometimes I’ll sit there for a week or two almost, having to let it rattle around my head for the end that they all can do is speak about how it intersected with me. And you know, hope that resonates with people. It does feel like a responsibility. There’s not many markets that really present a story in the way that we present a story. They just put it on a web page. You know, go to it when you want to. We’re speaking it into people’s ears.
Dave Thompson
And that, you know, that was a really rewarding thing for me and I know you feel the same way Matt because you know, similar situation to you. I remember listening to escape pod before podcastle and pseudopod you know, on my commute and like getting turned on and it was my reintroduction to, you know, short stories and just, just really, really loving it. You know, from having Sarah Ely and Ben Phillips and Alastair Stewart and Mur Lafferty. You know, talking to us and presenting the stories in that way… was so, so you know, it felt like you know, I didn’t I didn’t know these people back then. And, but it felt like you did. And that was such a such a super. To me. It was super meaningful as a listener so wanting to you know, continue that was, was really special
Matt Dovey
How do you think, working at podcast changed you then? sort of your work or your life, your outlook? What sort of personal impacts have you felt from it?…..Some very thoughtful faces.
Dave Thompson
it’s a harder question for me to answer because I feel like when we left podcastle I thought I was going in one direction and have kind of zigzaged a totally different way which is which is great. But, But yeah, it’s… it’s how has it affected us? Hmmm
Priya Wood
I think for me, it’s it’s a matter of really feeling proud about an accomplishment that I and a team that I was part of. It’s really given me an extended family that even though I’m not working for, or doing anything, for Escape Artists at the moment, there are plenty of people who I still sort of either sort of talk with occasionally on social media or, you know, I was I was invited to do some stuff with the multiple, the multiple worlds a podcast that I was not able to do much with, but it’s, it’s given me this sense of accomplishment and a sense of community, that even if it’s even if it’s another five years, I feel like the people that I have connected to through this community are meaningful relationships that that I can draw on, even if even if lots of time goes by, so
Anna Schwind
when I think about having done that work, I am constantly surprised. I’m like, Oh, I did that thing. Wow. That’s amazing. So which may be similar to what Priya is expressing
Dave Thompson
I also like, echo what Priya said about feeling like it was super, super meaningful and, you know, important work and just being really really proud of it. You know, like, it’s, I don’t know, it’s, it’s just a real source of pride that we did that for so long. And, you know, told these stories that were I don’t know that they were countercultural, and you know, they’re definitely not everybody’s cup of tea. As we, we got, you know, emails and forum posts about but, it also felt like, good, you know, like, we’re doing something a little bit different, and hopefully, we’re empowering people. And I don’t know for me, it’s like I do feel really proud of that as well.
Matt Dovey
Well, don’t sell yourself short on those stories. Like Priya said, you know, there were a lot of queer stories, a lot of feminist stories at a time where that wasn’t a given in genre. So you know, I think it did, and it is much more common now. So, you know, I’m not gonna say that Pod Castle changed the field or anything but no, it was part of the vanguard.
Anna Schwind
Oh come on! For heaven’s sake!
Matt Dovey
Ok, so technically I did say the word so anyone can quote me out of context if they like
Dave Thompson
You know you could cut out that first bit?
Anna Laughs
Priya Wood
I can do some, some audio editing. I mean, I mean, we, you know, we just listened to was it episode 20o when it originally ran? Two episodes later. Was the rugged track by Lazar got where which is a beautiful story about sort of trans and roller derby. And, and that story has always actually stuck with me like that. Is one of… that is a story that that really was exciting to work on. And I might not have known some of why it was exciting to work on back then. But, but yeah, and I think that that was, you know, again, the variety and the range of stories that Dave and Anna brought over those five years. And I you know, and I say Dave and Anna, and I do think that that has continued I mean, I think podcastle From the very beginning has been a place where you go from one edge of fantasy to a completely opposite edge of fantasy. And we get all of the glorious diversity in between. And, you know, and it’s always fun to see those ones where people are like, Wait, where’s the fantasy?
Dave Thompson
I remember those two
Anna Schwind
I will say that that was insofar as we were able to accomplish it deliberate. We, we would look at stories and be like, if we were to run something just like this, is this different? Is it a different enough? Are we getting in a rut and we were always looking for diversity of viewpoint diversity of characters, diversity of plot, you know, we wanted the stories with a tonne of plot and also the ones with no plot. We just wanted it always to be. We wanted to just keep opening the Overton window like there’s more, there can be more watch there can be MORE!
Dave Thompson
And it was crazy even as an editor I mean, just, you know, I thought I had a fair understanding of what fantasy looked like, but it just expanded. Just expanded my own views of it by some of the stuff we were getting. And, you know, we’d get these submissions and we solicited a bunch of stories from, you know, authors who had already published their stories somewhere else for reprints, but I think the majority of the stuff that we did was, you know, authors sending their stuff and so they just kind of blew our minds.
Anna Schwind
Right! They believed in us, they sent us their weirdest stuff and we were like Yeah sure!
Priya Wood
Yeah the weird stuff. And, and the stories with the longest title.
Matt Dovey
I’m guilty of that! I can’t talk at all. The titles of some of my stories that have been published here some of the titles have been ridiculous. I asked on our supporters Discord if anyone had a question for you, so brace yourselves from Matt RKB GKF, although he may pronounce it much quicker, but I don’t know. What’s the weirdest critter that’s wandered into your workspace or actively working?
Dave Thompson
A possum.
Matt Dovey
Laughs What?
Dave Thompson
Yeah, at school, actually. So that was fun. We went on lockdown because we had a possum running around the campus. That elementary school so
Anna Schwind
Wait, we also had a possum at my elementary campus.
Dave Thompson
Maybe possums just like elementary schools!
Anna Schwind
I don’t know what to tell ya! Ours was in the compost.
Matt Dovey
I was about to say maybe if you followed these possums, you’d have got an army but actually probably not then if that’s where it ended up.
All laugh
Matt Dovey
What are you all up to now that we can all look forward to then?
Anna Schwind
David, I did the same thing, which is hilarious. Like the same thing at podcastle and now we do the same thing somewhere else.
Dave Thompson
Yeah, it was really it was really weird hoe that worked out actually. Yeah, I mean, like, I like I said, you know, teaching now. So if if you have a child in the Los Angeles area
Anna Schwind
Or the St. Louis area.
Dave Thompson
There you go. So
Anna Schwind
they can come be my students. I would love to have them
Matt Dovey
Do you think either of y’all go back to sort of editing or short fiction at any way.
Dave Thompson
I still write sometimes. And I really like that. I don’t think I could go back to edit without, without my without my peeps. So
Matt Dovey
Priya What are you up to?
Priya Wood
Well, I do I teach as well, but I teach older people. And I have so much respect for those who teach young people. But yeah, I teach at the University of Mississippi and in the theatre and film department. The thing that I’ve been most doing is music. So I have a couple full length albums. And an EP, a record under the band named the band name, These Liminal Days. And so, I’m on Bandcamp and all of the streaming services. It’s mostly electronic sort of ambient soundscaping kind of stuff. And a number of my pieces actually ended up in podcastle like way before these albums, but I did a number of, of audio things for podcastle and Escape Artists while I was there. We have a a delightful episode. of shorts that I think it’s called Drink Me or something like that, where we have these sort of fake advertisements for, for different kinds of drinks. That was… I did a bunch of music for that and I did some other things so, so yeah, my creative endeavours are mostly music related these days outside of teaching.
Matt Dovey
Excellent. Where can people find more about your website as well for that one? Oh, just Bandcamp would you recommend?
Priya Wood
Yeah, these liminal days.com We have links to Bandcamp and all of the all of the streaming services.
Matt Dovey
Fantastic. Thank you. Anywhere people should go for you Dave or Anna? or just best to avoid just turning up at your school and just watching you lead a lesson.
Dave Thompson
Or throw a Possum over the fence? No, I think you know, mostly off social media. I think I still have a Twitter account but I rarely ever use it. But if you want to say hi there, love to, love to see.
Matt Dovey
I mean who’s to say if any of us actually have a Twitter account by the time this episode actually goes out?
Dave Thompson
That’s right.
Anna Schwind
I never got on that train. So I’m somehow lucky.
Matt Dovey
You are
Anna Schwind
I never had a Twitter account.
Matt Dovey
You are the mentally healthiest of all of us I would imagine!
Anna Schwind
I just think it was luck.
Matt Dovey
It has been a real pleasure and a delight. Sort of not just talking to you but just sitting and listening to you actually and just sort of watching you bounce off each other and seeing that that camaraderie that you all still have even though it’s eight years since you worked together as a threesome. It’s a trilogy I suppose. Should Can you call people a trilogy? Probably not. At this since you will work together but it still sort of you almost sort of picked up where you left off sort of talking it’s been really heartwarming and really interesting to listen to. So sincerely thank you for making the time. It’s a bit awkward sort of organising these interviews across three or four time zones and yeah, but it’s it’s been really good fun. So thank you for taking the time today and two weeks ago, which is when we definitely recorded the two weeks ago episode. And you know for the five years of work, I mean five years is 250 episodes you must have done its a pretty phenomenal body of work. And I think more than anybody who probably really shapes what podcastle has become and I still make a point of and welcome back, you know, after every story. That’s how you have to do that transition. That’s just the Law I’m afraid.
Priya Wood
And thank you Matt for and everybody at Podcastle now for continuing and for bringing us back to say hi and and including us, even though we’ve been kind of out doing other things.
Matt Dovey
I mean, we wouldn’t have made it to 15 years, if we hadn’t had your five years or eight years Priya getting us where we are. And you know I think we’re flying over higher into the clouds personally, I think as we’re getting that sort of awards recognition. We’ve got that stability of the EA Foundation you know?. The castles foundations are stronger than ever. And you are the people who put down a lot of our stonework early on. So thank you very much.
Anna Schwind
I second Priya’s thank you. And I’d also like to say that I particularly value as a former Archivist of the perspective that looks back as well as looking forward.
Matt Dovey
Got to know where you came from to know where you’re going.
Dave Thompson
Thank you. I also want to say thank you so much just for taking the time and having the patience to work with us over four different time ? and
Anna Schwind
Priya and I are in the same timezone. Priya and I are Twinsies, we’re in the same time zone.
Dave Thompson
Thank you and thank you for everything you do. Where it’s it’s so cool to you know, know that something that we worked on is still running so strong and getting, you know, like you said, y’all are getting all this awards recognition now we’re super proud of you all.
Anna Schwind
Thank You,
Anna Schwind
Go PodCastle Go.
About the Author
Scott Lynch

Scott Lynch is an American fantasy author who wrote the Gentleman Bastard series of novels. His first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora, was purchased by Orion Books in August 2004 and published in June 2006 under the Gollancz imprint in the United Kingdom and under the Bantam imprint in the United States. The next two novels in the series, Red Seas Under Red Skies and The Republic of Thieves, were published in 2007 and 2013, respectively.
About the Narrators
Marshal Latham

Marshal Latham is known around Escape Artists as Swamp and runs the podcast Journey Into…
Norm Sherman

Your narrator is the the King of Kitsch, the Sultan of Strangeness, the Odin of Oddity, the Nadir of nonNormalcy, Mr. Norm Sherman. You’ve probably heard Norm over at our sister podcast, Escape Pod, where he is Editor. And if not there, you’ll surely have heard him over on his own podcast, the Drabblecast, strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners, such as yourself. And if not THERE, well, just about anywhere in the genre pod-o-sphere.
M.K. Hobson

M.K. Hobson recently decided to follow a time-honored authorial tradition and become a bitter recluse. She swore off all social media and left her website to go to seed. At the moment, she exists only as a voice on short fiction podcasts such as Podcastle and Cast of Wonders. She leavens the tedium of her vastly expanded free time with misanthropy, paranoia, and weight lifting.
Anna Schwind

Anna Schwind is a writer, editor, former librarian and Montessori educator living in Saint Louis, Missouri.
For five years she served as co-editor of PodCastle alongside Dave Thompson, and together they found and produced some of the finest audio fantasy fiction available.
While Anna preferred to stay mostly behind the scenes, her writing and narration has appeared a few times over the years.
Dave Thompson

Dave Thompson aka the Easter Werewolf aka the California King is still uncomfortable with the notion of pumpkin beer, but don’t hold that against him. He lives outside Los Angeles with his wife and three children. Together with co-editor Anna Schwind, he ran PodCastle for five years. Dave is an Escape Artists’ Worldwalker and Storyteller, having been published in, and narrated for, all four EA podcasts.
Wilson Fowlie

Wilson Fowlie lives in a suburb of Vancouver, Canada and has been reading aloud since the age of 4. His life has changed recently: he lost his wife to cancer, and he changed jobs, from programming to recording voiceovers for instructional videos, which he loves doing, but not as much as he loved Heather.
Rachel Swirsky

Rachel Swirsky came onboard PodCastle as the founding editor in 2008 and was honored to run many beautiful stories by amazing authors. She would name them all, but would rather point you to the beginning of the PodCastle archive. It’s a Peter Beagle story.
Rachel graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and she’s been nominated for the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and several others. She’s won the Nebula Award twice, once for her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” and once for her short story “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love.” She’s been published a number of times in the first three Escape Artists podcasts: EscapePod, PodCastle, and PseudoPod, and narrated a bunch of episodes, too.
Find her website at rachelswirsky.com, visit her on Twitter, and help her write more stories on Patreon where you can get an original story or poem each month for as little as a dollar.
Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Graeme Dunlop

Graeme has been involved with Escape Artists for many years, producing audio, hosting shows, narrating stories and keeping the websites going. He was born in Australia, although people have identified him as English, American and South African, amongst other nationalities. He loves the spoken word. Graeme lives in Melbourne, Australia with his wife Amanda, and beautiful boy dog, Jake.
Alasdair Stuart

Alasdair Stuart is a professional enthusiast, pop culture analyst, writer and voice actor. He co-owns the Escape Artists podcasts and co-hosts both Escape Pod and PseudoPod.
Alasdair is an Audioverse Award winner, a multiple award finalist including the Hugo, the Ignyte, and the BFA, and has won the Karl Edward Wagner award twice. He writes the multiple-award nominated weekly pop culture newsletter THE FULL LID.
Alasdair’s latest non-fiction is Through the Valley of Shadows, a deep-dive into the origins of Star Trek’s Captain Pike from Obverse Books. His game writing includes ENie-nominated work on the Doctor Who RPG and After The War from Genesis of Legend.
A frequent podcast guest, Alasdair also co-hosts Caring Into the Void with Brock Wilbur and Jordan Shiveley. His voice acting credits include the multiple-award winning The Magnus Archives, The Secret of St. Kilda, and many more.
Visit alasdairstuart.com for all the places he blogs, writes, streams, acts, and tweets.
