Thursday, January 04, 2007

My iPod and Me

I splurged just before Christmas and got an iPod. The little-ish 4 gig Nano. It's black. It's fully of fingerprints. I loved using it while I was NaNo-ing. Putting my music on shuffle and re-discovering it was fab.

Then a friend introduced me to podcasts. I hemmed and hawed, but eventually jumped in with both feet. On the one hand, I regret it. I'm obsessed with finding new shows. On the other hand, I'm amazed at the kind of shows that are available to me.

My Subscription List

  • 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of the The Byzantine Empire -- I haven't started listening to this one, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Western Civ I. Ah, the college memories.
  • AmericanWriters.com: Creative Writing Podcast -- Fab. A 30 minute or less show about writing. The podcast, Tom O., is somewhat irregular in his posting. The shows are chocked full of value. He delves into the unknown essence of a story "What makes a book good?"
  • Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writers Podcast -- Ten minute interviews that give a cursory update of best selling authors.
  • British History 101 -- Again, another one that I haven't started listening to. But this is familiar ground to me, from my English Lit days.
  • Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing -- A must listen as the weekly show explains a common grammar mistake, in 5 minutes or less.
  • Holly Lisle On Writing -- This may be a now defunct podcast. Holly hasn't posted since the summer.
  • Princeton University Podcasts -- Again, another one unlistened to. The 90 minute lectures are a bit daunting but I'm hoping that it will serve as research for my writing, if not just being interesting.
  • Pullman, Paolini, Pierce Interview -- A short series that contains two of my favorite authors - Pullman and Paolini. I'm looking forward to hearing their points of view on various writing aspects
  • Radio Diaries Podcast -- Every day, real people are given a micro recorder for anywhere from 3 months to 2 years. Their recordings are editing to a 30 minute or less show. Absolutely fab. It's a great way of learning about how different Americans are across the country.
  • The Random House Audio Podcast -- No clue. (By the way, it's really easy to add interesting sounding podcasts but not actually listen to them.)
  • The Writing Show -- Interviews by Paula B of authors, publishers, bloggers -- really anyone who has anything to do with getting books into a reader's hands.
  • Writers on Writing -- Author interviews. An indepth interview with a variety of authors. The sound quality is bad for some of the early shows, but the breadth of authors is fantastic.

I have my eye on a few others. There's an over abundance of Harry Potter podcasts that look interesting. A variety of comedian podcasts are of interest to me. I do find that I don't like the ones with lots of sound clips. Intro or exit music is fine, but the weird sound effect thing turns me off.

What podcasts do you listen to?

1 comment:

Tom Occhipinti said...

Stacie,

I just wanted to thank you for mentioning my show on your blog.

All my best,
Tom Occhipinti
AmericanWriters.com --
Creative Writing Podcast