Monday, August 17, 2015

"The Ultimate Canadian Love Story" and the new voices in writing advice (literally)

If you think YOU have a good high concept, you should see the one about moose that are slowly evolving into Canadians. (Meese?  Mooses?)

Yes, this is actually a legit thing, although it depends on how you define legit.  Kingdom Pen Radio is about to debut with a bang - several bangs, actually.  Radio host Daniel Thompson - a.k.a. Leinad O'Neil - in conjunction with Kingdom Pen has started a podcast series hitting a wide range of writing-related topics.

And, apparently, a lot of other random things.

Here's my informal review of the show's first episode:

The thirty-minute debut is packed full, with admirable studio quality considering that it is a startup podcast series. To approach it from an entirely technical perspective, the editing was excellent; the background music occasionally hindered rather than enhanced the dialogue, but it was a minor point.

The show's style was characteristic Daniel; confusing and hilarious at the same time, it wandered but also hit a few points.  The debut feature was one of the Writers Who Don't Do Anything, a Canadian chap by the name of Ezra Wilkinson.  While this was a basic, tone-setting episode - there isn't much advisory substance to it - it did hit some fundamentals about writing and had at least one serious moment, as well as a very interesting discussion about the Hunger Games.

Where it really shone was in being absolutely ridiculous.  I won't spoil the beats, but the show entertained like a drunk Scottish brawler in a poetry contest.  There were a few moments of golden creative comedy - the evolution of "Canadia" being one of them - and those pretty much carried the whole episode.

This isn't a podcast to stop your life for.  But if you have a few spare moments and have a tolerable resistance to radioactive weirdness, this is absolutely worth checking out.

Oh, and did I mention that these episodes often feature free stuff?


Yeah, that's right.  Free stuff.

There's a lot of craziness ahead, including podcasts with actual authors, such as Kerry Nietz and Bill Myers.  Yes, you read that correctly.

And there is a rumor that I might be a guest on one of these podcasts.  I can neither confirm nor deny. I can also neither confirm nor deny that it may feature some free stuff.

Here's what I can confirm: this podcast series is going to be a lot of fun.  Click HERE to check out the home page of Kingdom Pen Radio!