Richard Matheson (R) and Scott (Photo by Richard Parsons)
Greetings everyone, Scott here. To those of you who’ve been reading up on the Share the Experience contest, my thanks for all your input and support. It’s been extraordinarily exciting to see the contest go from just an idea to a done deal. I’m extremely grateful to the Audio Publishers Association, and all our participating publishers/judges. No way this could happen without them. As you may know, this past Wednesday saw us smash a champagne bottle across the bow of the contest, and we’re eagerly awaiting these next few weeks, to see just what kind of response we’ll get. Best of luck to everyone. We’ll post the results here as soon as humanly possible (meaning on or about July 10, as detailed on the contest page).
Now, to all of you who subscribe to this site for our commercial enterprises, the Brick By Brick Audiobooks we’ve been putting out this past year, thank you for your patience as I’ve taken time off from my production schedule to see this 10th year anniversary contest come to life. There are more audiobooks on the way soon, many, many more, and we’ll be getting back to them in the very near future. In the meantime, I thought I’d update you all on some recent events, some web postings I thought you might be interested in.
First off, I got a rare and treasured opportunity recently to interview my absolute favorite author of all time: Richard Matheson. Never heard of him? Crawl out from under your rock! He’s the author of a staggering array of classic tales, many of which have been turned into terrific films: I AM LEGEND, THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, HELL HOUSE, THE NIGHT STALKER, STIR OF ECHOES, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, and my personal favorite, SOMEWHERE IN TIME. When you meet him, you can’t help but stare at the man’s head, just marveling at how many amazing tales came out of there, y’know? He also wrote episodes of the original STAR TREK, plus a cool dozen of the best TWILIGHT ZONEs of all time, including the classic William Shatner vehicle, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” Well, I wrote up a print version of the interview for this month’s AudioFile Magazine, who also posted an audio supplement. It’s an edited version of the complete hour-long interview, maybe 15 minutes long, just the first part of what will ultimately be a much longer audio interview that’ll be posted here on this site in the near future. Take a listen and let me know what you think.
Second, I was interviewed by Tracy Pattin of Voicebank recently, who also posted four audio supplements (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). This was a great deal of fun — most interviews I do are done on the phone, but Tracy stopped by my house and we sat down in the studio, then just proceeded to chat about all sorts of audiobook-related topics. We posted the first part of the interview here on the site when it came out, but if you’re looking for the whole thing, you’ll find all four parts here.
Next, AudioFile also posted a roundtable interview, featuring myself, Simon Vance and Katherine Kellgren, all fellow citizens of the planet Arrakis in the DUNE series. Brian Price conducted this interview to commemorate the final installment in Frank Herbert’s original DUNE saga, CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE. You can also watch the three of us, as well as the great Euan Morton who plays Paul Atreides, in a video shot that same day. For my fellow DUNE geeks, er, enthusiasts, there’s a rare glimpse of Frank Herbert’s pronunciation notes for the series, unearthed from my ever-expanding DUNE Glossary and shown onscreen for your viewing pleasure.
If you’re a sports fan, you might enjoy a fun interview I did with Ron Kaplan for his website, Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf. An extremely knowledgeable baseball fan, Ron sought me out after listening to some of the baseball-themed audiobooks I’ve done these past few years, including biographies of Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, the terrific look of the Oakland Athletics’ visionary leader Billy Bean in MONEYBALL, as well as the expose of Barry Bonds’ shameful exploits in GAME OF SHADOWS, the book that blew the lid off the Balco steroid scandal. Ron’s a very cool guy and a great interviewer. The thing I recall most clearly is not wanting the conversation to end.
(Of course, you can check out all of these and more on my Press page.)
I’ll also point you to Slate.com, where, during a recent discussion (or gabfest, as they like to call them), a listener recommended a few titles I’ve done that’re available on audible.com: THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA and UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN. It’s primarily a political discussion, but I appreciate the mention about halfway through and wanted to give hosts Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz my thanks for the shout-out.
Lastly, if you haven’t seen it yet, I have been graced with a Wikipedia page. Since it’s Wikipedia, we don’t update it, although we try to check it once in a while for accuracy’s sake. All I can say is, if you’re a Wiki person, please be kind.
Okay, that’s about it. I hope you’ll stay tuned to this spot for some cool announcements we’ve got coming up. There’s another charitable venture I’ve got in the works, and it’s something I could actually use a little help with, in terms of advice and suggestions, so I’ll be asking people to respond in a small online poll. I hope you’ll take a few moments and participate if you can, I’m hoping it’ll make a difference in the lives of students across the country.
In the meantime, I’m heading back to the studio. Contest or no, I’ve got five titles to record in June, and only so many hours in the day. As always, thanks for listening.
Scott Brick