Wednesday 8th of March is International Women's Day.

To celebrate, we've enlisted the help of Lauren Shippen, creator of The Bright Sessions – one of the best fiction podcasts on the planet right now!

Lauren has organised a roundtable conversation alongside fellow audio dramatists from The Elysium Project, The Blood Crow Stories, The Alexandria Archives, Lesser Gods, Radiation World, Jim Robbie & The Wanderers, The Bridge, The Penumbra Podcast, and Deck the Halls (with Matrimony!).

Here's Lauren now to set the scene for you …

Women and Fiction Podcasting

Audio drama is experiencing a bit of a renaissance moment. More people than ever are listening, the genre is starting to get mainstream attention, and there are more amazing shows to dive into than ever before.

Women create many of these incredible audio dramas, and the wonderful thing about podcasting is that it exists largely outside of the machine of mass entertainment. It's possible for a good idea and perseverance to break through, without the help of a studio or network.

As a result, it is a wonderful place for female creators to ﬂourish; we have more control over our stories and a way to get them directly to audiences. Fiction podcasting is overwhelmingly male (just like every other sector of entertainment), but this is beginning to change as female writers and creators discover the medium.

In order to highlight the incredible work these women are doing, I reached out to the creators themselves to ask them about their work and some of the challenges they faced.

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I posed three questions to each creator and got some fabulous responses.

Why a podcast? What does the medium provide your storytelling that other mediums do not? What are some of the biggest challenges you face in making your podcast? What advice do you have for other female creators?

The answers to these questions will make up the next three posts in this series.

You’ll notice some recurring themes throughout, but the variety of perspectives and the overall level of thoughtfulness will show you why you should be subscribed to each and every one of these podcasts.

(And, because I can never stop myself from chiming in, I answered the questions myself as well!)

Find links to each chapter below, and be sure to check out Lauren's show The Bright Sessions being featured as our fiction podcast of the week recently too!

The Fiction Podcast Weekly

Fiction Podcast Weekly is an email newsletter, bringing you the latest from the world of audio fiction, audio drama, and sound storytelling.

Are you involved in the medium in any way? Whether that's as a writer, producer, voice actor, curator, or even just a hardcore listener who loves the ‘behind the scenes' stuff. Whoever you are, whatever you do, this is a great way of staying up-to-date with the latest happenings and opportunities in the fiction podcasting realm!

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