Episode 02: The road to writing – Homestead on the Corner
CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of drug use, discussions of historical homophobia, transphobia, and censorship, mental health struggles and the COVID-19 pandemic
On today’s episode, Van Winkle and Virginia sit down with four incredible writers from the audio fiction community to discuss their unique paths to writing their own shows.
Newt Schottelkotte (they/them) – Where the Stars Fell, Inkwyrm
–https://newtschottelkotte.com
Jordan Cobb (she/her) – Primordial Deep, Janus Descending
–https://www.jordanvcobb.com
Cassandra Tse (she/her) – Apocalypse Songs, The Bone Thief
–http://www.redscare.co.nz/
Casper Oliver (he/fae/they) – Jar of Rebuke, Thesperience Productions
–https://linktr.ee/casperoliver
This episode was made possible by our supporters at Patreon.com/homesteadcorner and ko-fi.com/homesteadcorner.
For more information, additional content, and episode transcript, visit homesteadonthecorner.com/podcast
Transcript
CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of drug use, discussions of historical homophobia, transphobia, and censorship, mental health struggles and the COVID-19 pandemic
Van Winkle (00:00):
Good morning everyone. This is Van Winkle,
Virginia Spotts (00:02):
And this is Virginia.
Van Winkle (00:03):
And we are here with
Newt Schottelkotte (00:05):
Newt Schottelkotte,
Jordan Cobb (00:06):
Jordan Cobb,
Cassandra Tse (00:07):
Cassandra Tse
Casper Oliver (00:07):
Casper Oliver,
Van Winkle (00:09):
And you are listening to the Homestead on the Corner Writing Podcast.
[Main Theme]
Virginia Spotts (00:27):
All right, well, let’s get into it. So our first question is about your background as a writer. Do you do because of work, education, a hobby? How’d you get started?
Newt Schottelkotte (00:36):
Yeah, so I, I don’t know if you can tell about the everything, but I come from a theater background, <laugh>.
(00:42):
Um, I got my start in high school. I was in my freshman year when I first started writing for audio fiction. And the first time that I ever wrote anything that was not audio fiction based was my junior year, uh, which is when I wrote my first play. But I got into writing for audio fiction specifically. It was because, uh, it was about 2016, 2017. There was, and still is, uh, to some extent a really, really low barrier to entry into publication for the industry. I lived in Ohio, so I had literally nothing else to do, uh, but go to Target <laugh> and contribute to the opioid crisis. Two things that there are to do in Ohio, unfortunately, <laugh> and I got a bunch of the kids in my theater program at my high school together. We made a show, it’s called Inkwyrm, but that is sort of how I learned to write through the medium of audio fiction mainly.
(01:36):
So it has definitely influenced just how I make my scripts, how I design characters and scenarios and, and just about everything. But it also really got me into the habit of writing character first, since audio fiction, I think is such a character driven medium, it’s the thing that you hear the most. I’m, I’m someone who pays really, really close attention to dialogue. Um, I’ve, I was the kind of person growing up who, whenever I read fan fiction, I would immediately notice if the characters were not talking in the very specific way that they talked in that medium because of stuff like word choice and use of contractions and how long they spoke, stuff like that. Stuff that is…stuff that you can really perceive easily when you work in audio fiction, because again, so much detail is communicated through how these characters talk, the words that they choose, the way that they speak, the length of time that they spend speaking when they’re with other people, do they talk first. It’s all this kind of stuff that I’m just used to picking up
Jordan Cobb (02:36):
Like many writers, I got started through fan fiction actually. Um, I started writing in seventh grade, uh, when my cousin introduced me to fan fiction, and she was very into Naruto, and I read a couple fics and I was like, I could write this. Having never watched Naruto in my entire life, <laugh>.
Virginia Spotts (02:57):
Oh, incredible.
Jordan Cobb (02:58):
Yeah. Uh, and then people were like, wow, uh, you’re really good at this. And, you know, you got these characters just right. And I was like, Hmm, maybe I should start watching the show for like, actual real character inspiration. <laugh>,
Van Winkle (03:11):
It was like fan fiction of other fan fiction,
Jordan Cobb (03:13):
<laugh>, truly just, oh, absolutely bonkers. Um, but that’s where I, I started writing. Um, and then once I got to college, I actually got a minor in, in creative writing as well, because I really just fell in love with prose initially, and I switched to writing audio fiction. Um, my senior year of, of college, I was taking a voiceover course, and this is a little embarrassing, but during the voiceover class, I was thinking about one of the script writing courses that I had to take. And I was like, oh God, what am I going to do for this thing? And I came up with an idea for the script and I went, huh, you know, I, I’m sort of learning how to do voiceover. I’ve been listening to fiction podcasts for a solid year now, and I grew up on audiobooks. I could probably make one of these, and that’s how I transitioned into writing audio drama <laugh>.
Cassandra Tse (04:11):
Yeah, I mean, I think I started writing, you know, as a, as a kid just kind of making up stories a lot the way that I think most writers sort of do. Um, just kind of, I remember when we got a computer and I discovered Microsoft Word as a program <laugh>, and was like, there’s a place where you can just write things down. It was extremely exciting, <laugh>. Um, and yeah, then I came to playwriting, which is my main sort of form that I work in. Uh, when I was in kind of beginning of university, I started writing some plays, and I wrote my first play, and produced it with my theater company when we made our theater company, in 2013, 10 years ago, when I was 20. Um, so that was my first play, which was a, a musical co-written with my friend Bruno, who’s a composer. And then, yeah, from then that point onwards, I’ve just sort of kept writing, and then branched out into some other sort of forms. So I’ve done a little bit of stuff for tv and then, as you guys know, done some audio drama as well, which kind of feel like sister forms to, um, script writing. I did like some dabbling in short fiction and poetry, but, yeah, writing, I guess script forms is really the thing that I most love
Casper Oliver (05:18):
Growing up. I’ve always been a storyteller, and it was a mixture of just kind of creating stories and verbally telling them to my friends or to my younger cousins. And as someone who’s always loved… like it, it kind of started with anime and manga and then into video games and then into TV shows, like outside of anime. Um, and I, I’ll admit, I never saw myself doing script writing. My beginning with writing was actually more novel-esque style, but I always struggled with it. And so I was like, well, I like to write, but I’m not great at it. And then one day I was like, you know what? I wanna make this podcast. I’ll just write it. And I started script writing. I’m like, aha, here we go. Um, <laugh> a lot easier. It’s very different. And I’m still learning like that, that “aha” is not me saying “I am a fantastic script writer.” It’s more that this is far more rewarding. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, my experiences, like college has been a theater major, and I didn’t get around to script writing classes before. Quarantine made me back outta college for a bit, um, someday, I hope. Uh, but yeah. And now I do a lot of writing, whether it’s for zines or podcast scripts or TTRPGs, and it’s really fun. I just needed to branch out of that novel style writing to learn that that wasn’t the only option for writing.
Jordan Cobb (06:49):
Yeah. I mean, uh, my script writing history background comes from working on writing scripts, writing monologues through high school for my theater class. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then I’m a, I’m a theater major originally. Um, so, you know, constantly going over scripts and screenplays just for class and then having to also write them, because my degree was very focused on like, we’re gonna teach you how to say the words, but you also need to know who you are as an artist, and that involves working on your own pieces and writing things for yourself. Um, they wanted to give us a very whole, whole worldview of what theater is so that you don’t walk out on stage and think like, I’m the most important person in the entire world because I’m the actor and I’m standing under the spotlight. Okay, well, who hung the spotlight? You know? Who helped, you know, direct you onto the stage so that you didn’t bump into all the other actors who are also backstage, who made the costumes, who filled those seats? Um, it’s, you have to know where you stand in all projects. So yeah, they were, they were very big on also teaching us to, to find our own voice, both when we’re speaking, but also when we’re writing. Uh, so that’s where, that’s where that comes from for me.
Virginia Spotts (08:15):
So what’s the story that made you want to be a writer, and why did it make you wanna be a writer?
Newt Schottelkotte (08:20):
I’m about to put my legal name on blast so hard, and I do this every time, but it’s fine. Uh, Pacific Rim, <laugh> <laugh>,
(08:28):
I paid $200 to the state of Ohio, didn’t name myself after the little scientist from Pacific Rim. It’s gonna follow me for the rest of my career. But I watched Pacific Rim my sophomore year of high school when I was 16 years old, and it was the first time that I, I’d ever seen a, a movie that was big and colorful and all of the characters just flew off of the screen. <affirmative>, but also it told a story about the power of humanity and was deeply anti individualist. And it was cool. And it invented the freaking Mako Mori test, and every single person was necessary to this story. And it taught me that you can do these big, fun, I hesitate to say self-indulgent because everything in that film feels so necessary, but also it is just so fun that I can’t imagine it wasn’t at least a little bit for everyone. Stories that still have heart and meaning and powerful themes and important things to say about us as people.
(09:31):
Um, so much so that when I was picking out a, you know, a name for myself, I was like, okay, well this character specifically from this story has changed me very deeply as a person. Um, and I, I want that to kind of be my keystone for the rest of my life, because I’m someone who believes that that names are, are a very powerful thing. I don’t know if you can tell, uh, by the fact that I’m writing a religious fantasy show right now, <laugh>, but definitely Pacific Rim is the thing that, that really codified my thesis as a writer, which is tell your story, make sure that it’s important, make sure that it has something powerful to say. But never, ever forget to have fun.
Cassandra Tse (10:21):
I don’t know if I have a specific story that in general, I’m like, ah, this is, I can track my progress. Like to, like, this is the thing that changed my life. Like, I definitely read a lot and saw a lot of theater a lot as well growing up. Like I was lucky in that my, my mum and my dad, um, and my mum in particular, uh, are both sort of theatergoers and theater lovers. So I saw a lot of plays from childhood. Like, we’d go and see all of the local children’s theater company staff and we’d see like all the big musicals when they were in town. Um, so I kind of had a lot of exposure to theater early on. And that sort of, I think why I kind of leaned towards playwriting, and yeah, was interested in, in that form after also, you know, working as an actor in the way that most of us kind of come to all of our art forms as actors first <laugh>, I think a lot of the time.
(11:08):
Um, but yeah, I can say that I, that the earliest documented piece of writing from me, I can find, I think when I was about four, I have a sequel to The Story of Ping, which is a picture book. Um, it’s a classic, I think it’s for probably like the sixties. I think. It’s like, my dad had a copy and then he read it to me when I was a child, which is about a duck called Ping who is, uh, he’s got, wants to go on the boat, but he goes to feed and the farmer’s like taking them round to different places to feed. And then Ping doesn’t wanna be the last duck on the boat because the last duck on the boat always gets a smack on the bum. Uh, and so <laugh>, he escapes and goes on an adventure. Um, and so I wrote a small story, which I’ve got a terribly spelled, uh, story about how Ping went to Malaysia and met a panda bear <laugh>. And it starts, and then it ends like halfway through. Cause I ran out of energy, steam or ideas <laugh>, and it just… It just becomes that scribble of when kids, like, when you’re pretending to do writing, and it’s just like <laugh>. So it’s the beginning of the story, and then it’s just like, oh, full of language. Well just fill the end and it will make sense.
Virginia Spotts (12:17):
<laugh>, it’s like when writers put parentheses, like, insert joke about this here only it’s the four year old version
Cassandra Tse (12:23):
All to come, uh,
Virginia Spotts (12:24):
<laugh>.
Van Winkle (12:24):
Yeah. Insert Act two.
Cassandra Tse (12:26):
Yeah. I can’t remember where I found that. It’s somewhere in my parents’ house somewhere. Um, but it’s in my like book of, you know, stories and writings and you know, the drawings, collections that you have at age, like four or five <laugh>. Yeah,
Virginia Spotts (12:38):
That’s precious.
Casper Oliver (12:40):
Yeah, there’s a few, um, one of them was, like many queer horror podcasters, one of them was Welcome to Nightvale mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, that, that was kind of my, one of my introductory podcasts. And it was like one of the first times I saw a canonically queer character with queer joy. <affirmative> That wasn’t just queer angst. Um, and so that was very influential for me and just, it was the first time I saw that casual diversity. <affirmative> You know, and growing up in like small, rural, middle, like Midwest America, I was not used to seeing that. And that inspired me to push myself as a writer and like, no, I need to learn more about experiences outside of myself because these stories deserve to be represented. Um, and then kind of took a little bit of a backseat, and then it was something about the SCP website, where people would make these like kind of fake, uh, anomalies and kind of cryptid-esque things. And that’s actually kind of where Jar of Rebuke started, was an SCP O.C. Um,
Virginia Spotts (13:47):
I see…. That makes sense!
Casper Oliver (13:49):
Yeah. Jared was an SCP investigator, and then I was like, hold on, I could make this like a Midwestern Gothic, because as someone who grew up in the Midwest, there’s not a lot of… like, there’s Southern Gothic and then there’s like Pacific Northwest Gothic <affirmative>. But the Midwest is just as eerie and creepy. Uh, and has the, I mean, Unwell is huge for a reason, you know <affirmative>. Yeah. Um, and I mention unwell all the time, need to listen to it. It’s on my list. This is me talking to myself, holding me accountable, <laugh>. Um, so I, I would mostly say Welcome to Nightvale and the SCP Foundation Wiki really pushed me to write the way that I am writing now. Uh, as a kid I was mostly inspired by like, you know, “the series that shan’t be named” and the Twilight Series, and like other books that, like kids my age were reading.
(14:43):
Um, and, but again, I struggled with that format of writing, and so I <affirmative> come to this and it’s like, ah, yeah. Also, I wanna give a shout out to creepypastas. Um, I’m not super into them anymore. Just grew out of it. But getting into creepypastas, it also inspire me to actually try writing horror myself. <affirmative>, I’m, I’m a weenie, I don’t like horror movies. Um, but I love, like being a haunted house actor. I’m a murder mystery actor for a living, and I love queer horror podcasts. Make it make sense. Cause I can’t, um, <laugh>
Jordan Cobb (15:15):
Probably a million of them. Um, I was a very aggressive reader as a child. Um, so I was consuming, a lot of fantasy books, a lot of YA books. I, I’m trying to think of if there was one specific story. Oh, I know what it was. Inkheart. Um, just the idea that a story could be so intensely vivid that it could actually step off the page and into the real world. I thought there was absolutely nothing more magical than that. I have been chasing that Inkheart high since I was, maybe since I was like nine.
Van Winkle (16:01):
Gosh, I wanna say, I think I have been too, now that I think about it.
Jordan Cobb (16:03):
I mean, it’s, it’s just, there’s, there’s such a reverence in it for, for storytelling and storytellers, but also the characters and how, you know, books just tend to take on a life of their own <affirmative>. And, and I think it’s something that kind of gets a little bit overlooked these days, and that’s probably why I’ve spent so much time chasing that same high of, of trying to find stories that feel like they could just walk off of the page. Um, and, you know, like learning to read the words just right. It’s probably also why I narrate audio books these days. <laugh> Is one of my other gigs. Um, I mean, anyone who’s heard my work, it will be like, ah, yes, this makes sense for you. Um, but it’s probably why I liked it so much is that it’s a book aimed at young adults that doesn’t shy away from the adult side. You know, how life and reality and how fantasy stories kind of work that you know <affirmative>, it’s not always smiles and rainbows and elves and happy endings. Sometimes things are dark and scary, but you push through them and ideally you can find something deeply beautiful on the other side, even if that has to come with the bittersweet.
Newt Schottelkotte (17:25):
I am the kind of person that usually likes to begin with the end in mind. <affirmative>. Um, I have the very last scene of Where the Stars Fell written somewhere in my Google Drive right now. And it will probably not change very much, um, because I come from the person-who-was-deeply-influenced-by-Gravity-Falls-School of, I like to put little details, bits of foreshadowing, bits of dramatic irony clues, et cetera, throughout the entirety of my story. Um, there’s a plot beat in the, either second to last or last episode of the entire show that has been foreshadowed multiple times, the entirety of Where the Stars Fell. No one has caught onto it yet, but it makes the relisten value, which is something that I’m also really passionate about when consuming media, very, very cool. Because I firmly think that if spoiling the twist of a movie makes that movie worse or unwatchable to you, then the writer has not done their job.
(18:25):
And I also think that if knowing what’s going to happen makes the movie less fun than also the writer has not done their job. Because a good mystery story, like, for example, Knives Out, knowing what’s going to happen and being able to watch multiple times and pick up all of those clues and those little things that maybe didn’t make sense the first time, but now do, that’s so much fun. And it gives the, the reader, or the listener or the viewer or whatever, such a sense of deeper engagement and interest in this story because it makes you feel like you just got a little bit smarter with all of the things that you can now see because you have this information. So I, I very much try to begin with the end in mind.
Cassandra Tse (19:06):
For me, the things that inspire me are less intellectual and more sort of like emotional choices. More about like, yeah, people in particular moments of emotion in their lives. Um, and that’s something that I’m kind of interested in. I feel like I, I write… it’s quite interesting, I look at back on my work and I, I don’t write too many things with villains in them. Um, which is really interesting, not because I have it and I have written some villains and I’ve really enjoyed writing them, um, <laugh>. But I think I, I feel like I, I take a lot of investment in my characters. I really fall in love with my characters as a writer. Um, and I, I kind of don’t hold them at an arm’s length. I really sort of like try to think about their psychology and like, you know, it’s often the sort of sense of like, oh, this poor person, <laugh> <laugh>.
(19:55):
Um, not because I’m like, oh, I’m putting them in this terrible situation, but just like, I sort of see their full psychology. I’m like looking at this, you know, character and going like, oh, this is the, the thing they’ve always needed to do, but they’ve never been able to do for themselves. Or like, what sort of central… um, yeah. That I, I try to sort of think about them until they feel like a person in my head, till they feel like a three-dimensional character. <affirmative>, um, that has like an their own narrative arc. When I’m starting from like, okay, I have a sort of idea of a thing, like an event or a situation, and then I wanna explore sort of different characters’ thoughts around it. I think just as you live inside them for a really long time, um, it gets harder to see anybody as a villain <laugh>.
(20:34):
Like, I don’t know, I think… Yeah. Maybe it’s, um, yeah, maybe it’s the sort of just the sort of type of story that I’m trying to write. Um, I I sort of get so, so lost in sort of exploring them and feeling empathy for them. I don’t know. I love like one of the big books that really, um, I guess did change my life really sort of was, uh, a fundamental part of my childhood, is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Um, I just really love that book. I read it when I was, it was one of those, um, I got it as a birthday present when I was 11. And it’s like the girl Franci in the book is 11 at the beginning of the book and it flashes back to before her birth and all the way till she’s an adult leaving home.
(21:13):
Um, and it’s set in the turn of the century, turn of the 20th century, um, back in, in Brooklyn, New York. Uh, and it was just really like the way that that book, it’s got this kind of omniscient third person narrator, um, in that you can see inside Franci’s head, but you can also see inside her mother’s head and her father’s head and her brother’s head and her grandmother and the people across the street. And you get this real beautiful depiction of like a community. Um, and I think it’s one of those books that’s just stuck with me so much cuz I will just remember things from it. Like little snippets from it will just come into my mind and I will be reminded of stuff from this book. Um, and I think what’s beautiful about it is that it is, yeah, this, this coming of age story and like, even though there are some people who are bad in it, it’s so interesting seeing everyone’s perspectives and also how people can be at odds with each other, but both wanting the best thing <laugh> and just, and being incorrect about what’s the best way to, to get there.
(22:10):
Um, and yeah, I think it’s, it’s so beautifully empathetic. It’s such a humanitarian book. Um, it’s truly wonderful. It’s lovely.
Casper Oliver (22:19):
My favorite video games of all time are all horror games. American McGee’s Alice, Alice: Madness Returns, Off by Mortis Ghost. All of these are horror games, but they aren’t made to scare you like games like Dead Space and stuff. Um, it’s to make you think about like identity and you know, how we treat victims of crimes <affirmative> and how we perceive, you know, the actions of others. And as someone who’s neurodiverse, and I say proudly more in the sense of I’m not ashamed of it, um, like clinically psychotic, seeing a well-done psychotic character like Alice Little was formative for me to be like, “I can be the hero? I don’t have to be the killer?” Because I don’t wanna hurt anybody. In fact, I’m more scared of being hurt. And, you know, and it’s like I can, so seeing myself as the hero in a horror sphere was like, I’m not a terrible person because I see things that aren’t there. You know?
Virginia Spotts (23:17):
That’s super cool. Yeah.
Casper Oliver (23:18):
Yeah. So that’s one of the cool things that can be done with horror and also queer history and horror has huge overlaps because for years it was the only genre we were allowed to openly be it
Van Winkle (23:29):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Because it was kind of transgressive by nature. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Virginia Spotts (23:33):
Yeah. Or like Halloween being the only day that trans and gay people could just go dress whatever they wanted to <affirmative> and nobody could say anything. Yeah.
Casper Oliver (23:42):
Yeah. And, and that’s why like a lot of people talk about like, why were there so many gay villains in like old eighties horror films? And it’s like, because there were gay people making those films and they wanted to tell their stories, but like, the industry was like, well, we can’t have queer people being the hero that’s going to encourage this behavior so he can be gay as long as he kills someone or dies in the end, right? And so they would take what they got, they’d be like, okay, fine, I’ll have this, you know, gay guy in this movie, but he’s gonna have to die because if he doesn’t die, I can’t put him in the movie. And that’s tragic and really upsetting, but wow, how far we’ve come that we can actually have gay heroes now. But we are only able to have gay heroes now because we had gay villains then.
Newt Schottelkotte (24:36):
I mean, I’m very lucky in that I started working in this industry years before the pandemic started, so <affirmative> when this stuff hit and I decided that I wanted to start making like an actual proper effort to build a career here, I already had that foundation. I already had a bunch of people who knew my name, who knew my work and, and who were like aware of a thing I did in high school. What?? <laugh> Don’t do that. No. Look into the light and don’t blink <laugh>. Um, but I mean, I also think that a lot of it came from the fact that I am, I consider myself a very driven person. <affirmative>. Um, and I just had so much freaking free time on my hands cuz I was just sitting in my dorm all day. All my classes were pretty much online. <affirmative>. Um, so for the first year of college it was just like, okay, let me just throw myself into my work because that’s the only way I’m gonna get to talk to people. <laugh>.
(25:31):
Um, and then as I got into my second year and now my third year here, which is my last year, um, because “something, something, the only other thing to do in Ohio is take a lot of AP classes.” Um, <laugh>, I was able to start like recording in person with all of the people on campus that I had cast. And a bunch of my actors pulled me into the theater program because they told the heads of it that they had a sound designer friend. Um, and as will happen in theater, their ears perked up and they went, “Ooh, a sound designer!”
Virginia Spotts (26:06):
“Fresh meat.”
Newt Schottelkotte (26:06):
“Come into this audio booth real quick. Do not mind the bricks. Anyway, um, you’re gonna do all our stuff now,”<laugh>
Van Winkle (26:12):
Yep. Yep. <laugh>. That, that’s how I got, that’s how I got pulled into the theater program in Mammoth. And that’s how I met Virginia and most of my actors as well.
Newt Schottelkotte (26:21):
<laugh>. Um, but I hadn’t really done much sound design for theater, um, until I got to that point. I’d always primarily been an actor or a director or a writer <affirmative>. Um, and getting back into theater, being able to get back into that creative space, was really what actually gave me the college experience that I had really been wanting. Because it’s so communal, you’re working with other people, you’re working with a lot of different personalities and it also meant that like I was seeing other human beings every single day and not just like my internet friends and also my colleagues, because I’ve always sort of struggled a little bit with: Newt, who my friends know and who the people outside of work know me as, and then the Newt that I am in professional spaces. Because when you start out very young, you sort of have to take on a more adult persona to <affirmative>,
(27:13):
Let’s be real, be taken seriously. And as I, as I have gotten closer to graduating and as I have sort of had to combine those two things now that I’m going out into the world, and so much of this stuff will be in person now, it’s been very, very good to have a space where I can just be a silly dumb college student and hang out with my friends and not have to think about like, oh, am I going to get taken less seriously and be seen as like just some dumb kid by the people that I work with if I talk my age and act my age? So having this space in college to get to slowly bring those two things together while also just having friends that know me as the person that I am when I wake up and, and go to rehearsal has been so nice.
(28:03):
And it’s also lovely to just be able to write for people that I see every single day. Like one episode that I just got out of a session today has like six, no, five different inside jokes, <laugh> between me <laugh> and, and one of my friends who’s also an actor in the program that could be cut in a professional setting. But I love having them there. I love the fact that I now have two pieces of art to my name that are little time capsules <affirmative> of who I was at. Incredibly important stages in your life. Um, so yeah, it’s been weird. Um, it’s been having to do a lot of self-discovery in a vacuum, but I think that at the end of the day, I’m glad that I got to meet the people that I did and make the connections that I did and, and grow my career as I did. It’s certainly nice to have a job straight out of college. I’ll tell you that. <laugh>.
Virginia Spotts (28:53):
Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Van Winkle (28:54):
Sounds nice.
Virginia Spotts (28:55):
An established job.
Van Winkle (28:56):
I wouldn’t know. <laugh>.
Casper Oliver (28:58):
It’s also one of those things that I’ve noticed, like a lot of theater kids, they go into theater, um, either one of two ways. The misguided view that this will make you rich and famous. <affirmative>, I am so sorry if you’re listening to this, it, no, I you have been fooled by the American Dream. Reread The Great Gatsby and see how that went for them. Second <laugh> um, a lot of theater kids will go into it because they want to perform, they want to tell stories, they want to create. But a great thing with podcasting is it kind of, it’s not a, “everyone can make a huge success” because there are still barriers and like, you know, if you’re struggling financially, it can take a lot of time and energy that you can’t give it because it doesn’t pay. You know? So there’s a lot of, you know, barriers to still cross, but it is more accessible than like film and stage.
Virginia Spotts (29:52):
Yeah, yeah.
Casper Oliver (29:53):
Because you can kind of make it yourself and just share it from your home versus having to go out, drive for hours to audition and deal with the bureaucracy of theaters and like theater boards. And as someone who has performed in, Floridian Community Theaters <affirmative>, uh, it can, it can be tough to feel like it’s worth it, you know? Um, so it’s really cool to see like all these theater kids being like, damn it, I spent all this money on an education. Fine. I’m gonna go put some use to it. I’m gonna make a podcast.
Van Winkle (30:28):
<laugh>. Awesome. Thank you so much Casper. It has been a delight to talk with you about all this. And uh, yeah, hope everyone goes and checks out Jar of Rebuke and all the other amazing stuff you do.
Virginia Spotts (30:38):
Take care of yourself, everyone. We’ll see you soon.
Van Winkle (30:39):
I’m Van Winkle.
Virginia Spotts (30:41):
And I’m Virginia
Van Winkle (30:41):
and you are listening to: Homestead on the Corner.
Homestead on the Corner 