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Behind the Havok Story Podcast

During our Facebook Launch Party for our Season Two: Stories That Sing anthology, we solicited questions from attendees. One of them, or rather three-combined, had to do with our magnificent Havok Story Podcast. So we decided—

You stink at this, Ling, so I’m taking over.

Phenny here, with our almost-as-amazing-as-me Podcast Narrator, Magnus Carlssen.

Magnus, Rebeka Borshevsky wants to know how you select stories for the podcast? How many do you plan to put into audio format? And how did Havok find you?

She also said, “I’ve loved listening to the stories!”

Let the man answer, Ling. But yeah, she said that too.


Magnus Carlssen
Magnus Carlssen

Thanks for the questions, Rebeka! So pleased you’ve enjoyed the podcast so far. The story-choosing process is a highly secretive ritual amongst the Havok podcast team, involving coded messages, blind voting, ballots burned in a ceremonial stove (think White Smoke Over the Vatican), and a very liberal portion of the time-tested, tried-and-true method we call, “I Like That One Just Because.”

There are actually a lot of factors that we consider when choosing stories for the podcast. We try to include stories from all the daily genres, and we take into consideration whether we’ve featured the author previously in the podcast or in an anthology. As an actor, I consider things like the narrative style, the flow and tone of the dialogue, and pronunciability of the names and places in the story! I often wish that we could release new episodes more frequently—there are just so many great stories that we would love to feature!

And that brings us to your second question: how many stories we plan to produce.

We’ve an endless supply of material, as you know, so our plan is to continue releasing episodes on a biweekly basis pretty much indefinitely. We have a lot of ideas for things that we’d like to try in the future, like collaborating with other voice actors or music composers. I’m pretty confident that the podcast has a long and happy life ahead of it.

As for how Havok and I came to collaborate together, it’s a funny story. I actually wanted to work with Havok for a long time before we ever had a conversation about it. I was producing some of the Season One stories on my own last year (with permission from the authors, of course), and sometime around last November I was trying to track down contact information for an author. I emailed Havok to see if they would help me, and in the course of the conversation, Teddi Deppner casually said, “Don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling,” and hauled out a grenade launc—

I mean, she said, “Actually, would you be interested in collaborating on a podcast?” (Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m in a dream, or living the dream…) Anyway, we talked, I thought about it for approximately 1.5 seconds, and we shook on it. Virtually, of course. With appropriate social distancing.


He’s funnier than you are, Phenny!

It’s not a contest, Ling.

We have 5 podcast stories for your listening pleasure with a 6th one coming out this weekend.

Don’t forget to tell them about the anthology!

I wasn’t going to, O bossiest of dragons.

You can also read the best-of-the-best from Season Two: Stories That Sing. Even if you don’t want to read it, you should buy a copy just for the gorgeous phoenix on the cover. I don’t remember posing for that, but they captured me perfectly anyway.

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