Category Archives: updates

Major Update: The Long Road Back

Download Subscribe
The following is a transcript of the audio file above

Hello! It’s been a while. The world is changing, and so is the status quo here at AWP, and that means that there’s news on the Antithesis podcast front.

Free Will cover

Seven and a half years ago, I moved house. The noise from a very abusive family in my apartment complex had slowed my podcast production to molasses speed. Instead of an episode every week (more or less), my full-cast audio slowed to a crawl. It took a hiatus around the house move because, well, there was a house to unpack, but things started coming back online the following spring, hitting a full-cast production apex during the fall and winter of 2013 when Crudrat got underway and Antithesis took a temporary back seat.

Except, it didn’t turn out to be temporary. In the midst of Crudrat production, we found that life in the San Francisco Bay no longer made sense for a small studio and publishing house, and we de-camped to the Oregon Coast for a small office on a quiet street right across from the beach.

Production resumed, and on the aftershow for Episode 9 of Free Will I excitedly announced that the podcast was back, and back for good, because I’d recorded most of the rest of the book so there was nothing standing between me and the endgame.

The universe, it seems, has a perverse sense of humor. The week after that podcast, a family member went into the hospital for long-term care for what we thought was a terminal condition (thankfully, it turned out not to be). A few weeks after that, one of my business relationships broke down irretrievably, necessitating a lot of extra work to disentangle things. A few weeks after that, my father in law announced he was dying.

The podcast was the casualty. Unlike with The Every Day Novelist, Antithesis takes a lot of production time–often ten to twenty hours per episode or more, once all the production management is factored in. And I kept pushing it down the stack.

My father-in-law’s death was followed swiftly by my own parents needing help transitioning into retirement, which occasioned yet another house move and an ensuing period of itinerancy, which isn’t the best recipe for success when you’re running a small business. To survive, our little production house spent almost all its resources on doing work for other companies and other authors. We did good work, but very little of it was ours, and very little of it touched you all who were with us through all the full-cast podcasting years.

It’s been a seven-and-a-half year ride. It’s been three and a half years since the last Antithesis episode dropped. A lot has happened along the way in the world of Joss Kyle–to say nothing of the real world.

And today, finally, after all these years, I am working on the production for the Free Will podcast. I have the narration for six episodes in the can, and at least most of the actors’ voices.

The next several months have a lot more excitement happening for me, as I’m finally moving home again, to a ranch that I’ve bought during my long exile, and building a house and (more importantly for the podcast) a permanent office for AWP. There are definitely going to be production interruptions, and it’s not fair to keep doing start/stop/start/stop with this story, not with how invested you are and with how the story is about to really pick up steam. So, with all that in mind…

I am going to start podcasting Antithesis again when I have twelve episodes finished and tagged and queued. At that point, there will be enough queued to put me through the summer when all the building happens, and into the fall when we will resume our production season. If I can get farther ahead, so much the better, but there will be at least twelve new episodes finished before the first one hits the feed.

That way, you can get the story you’ve been waiting for.

Thank you for being here, even after all this time. It means more to me than you can know.
And remember…
…it isn’t whether you win or lose, it’s how you rig the game.

Dealing In, ep10 pt1


Download Subscribe

Welcome to the first of several Down From Ten Feedback shows. This one is episode eleven of the Dealing In series of feedback shows, where I and several friends answer your emails and talk about whatever comes up. This time, I’m joined by Metamor City and Down From Ten cast member Chris Lester, New York Times Bestseller Gail Carriger, and producer/actor/cartoonist Kitty NicIaian. What do we talk about? An incomplete list, in no particular order:

Poirot
Stargate SG-1
Sir Apropos of Nothing
The Name of the Wind
Stephen R. Donaldson
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
The Gap Cycle
Cozy Mysteries
Agatha Christie
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Law vs. Morality
Unconventional relationship structures
Stranger in a Strange Land
U.S. Regionalisms and prejudices
Polyamory Weekly
Free Will (announcement)

Parsec Finalist!

Well, ladies and germs, it’s official:

Predestination is a parsec finalist. Officially we’re up for “Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team,” and, while it’s only *one* of the nominations I was hoping for, if i had to pick only one this would probably be it. Why’s that? Well, this one has the advantage of being a shared award. I don’t know how many physical awards they give out, but if they give out multiples one is definitely going to Danny Schade, whose music made the world complete.

Thank you — all of you — for a hell of a first year doing this. Next year is, I hope, going to be even more exciting — I’ve gots me some plans!

Dealing In, Episode Six pt 2


Download Subscribe

Hey everyone, the final half of episode six of is here. Chris, Kitty and I plow through the rest of the piled-up mountain of feedback for the story through Episode Seventeen. This one’s an hour and fifteen minutes long. My cohorts and I deal with more worldbuilding questions, the issue of Fan Fiction, how terrorism and tyranny are related, and, and we take on the most spoliery listener question so far. Enjoy!

Topics Mentioned:
Caleb Carr’s The Alienist and his nonfiction book The Lessons of Terror book on Terrorism
Down From Ten
The Metamor City Podcast
J. Michael Straczynski
Digital Magic by Philippa Ballantine
09.09.09
The unsustainable nature of totalitarianism.
Sculpting God’s “Lilith”

Dealing In, Episode 3 (feedback show)

Download Subscribe
Chris Lester, who plays Rison on Antithesis and is the author/producer of the Metamor City Podcast, joins Kitty Nic’Iaian and myself for drinks and carousing as we go through the feedback you’ve all sent in since last week. This one’s a must listen.

Mentioned at length is the unparalleled Nathan Lowell, who plays our own Bill Shelley. Find his audiobooks here.

Finally, be sure to check out the t-shirts gradually filling up the swag store. Now you can proclaim your membership in the Resistance, and proudly!

Welcome, Sigler Junkies!

You’ve successfully found the blog for my podcast novel Predestination and Other Games of Chance. It’s a science fiction espionage thriller, which means that you can expect intrigue, suspense, conspiracy, violence, sex, blackmail, organized crime, politicians, defectors, and tradecraft all wrapped in a character-driven story.

This is a full-cast, full-production podcast novel. Danny Schade wrote the original score, and you’ll find many other familiar voices here: Philippa Ballantine, J.C. Hutchins, Chris Lester, Steven H. Wilson, and many other gifted voices from across the podosphere have helped bring this story to life.

You’re already a Junkie. Now, join The Resistance. This is more crack for your ears. Subscribe here.

Enjoy!
-Dan Sawyer