Just an update for anyone reading the IBRT blog.

We completed our first three-week writer's conference yesterday, and it was a solid success. Twelve people particpated over the three weeks. I think at least five of them are serious about continuing as writer's. A few already have scripts in the works.

We'll be meeting at the Espresso Lane over the next few Tuesdays at 7pm, if anyone is interested.

Now, I think I need to think about getting back into the studio soon. Time to go to work.

-Jeff

I found myself rather full of ideas today, and it seemed like a good to do was blog about it. That, and I haven’t updated this blog in a very long time.

Last month, I entered a contest at PRX.org, the website the IBRT uses to distribute their works to public radio stations. The site is running a contest currently to, ‘Find Public Radio’s Next Big Star.’ It’s an American Idol-type thing designed to create a marketable public radio show. The grand prize is $10,000 and the chance to produce a show stations will actually want to air. I entered a good little two-minute audition that suggested I might like to host a show featuring radio drama. And the thing is, it appears to be going over.

I have 13 comments on my entry so far. They can’t tell you how you are getting rated, but if the comments are any indication, it seems like I am doing okay. Out of five or six hundred entries, ten move on to the semi-finals. I find myself very comfortable with this possibility, and the $500 pre-prize it would mean.

What seems to resonate with people about my entry is my insistence that audio drama has a future, and the fact that I gave reasons for feeling this way. There is so much to talk about here, the false death of the art form, the increasing relevance of audio in an iPod world, the fact that personal listening devices might well represent an artistic potential, instead of limitation. I had to get some of it out, and that’s what blogs are for.