The Drabblecast

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The Drabblecast
Hosting	Norm Sherman
RSS	http://rss.mac.com/normsherman/iWeb/Site/Podcast/rss.xml
Updates	Weekly
Debut	February 21, 2007
Genre	Short Stories
Website	http://www.drabblecast.org/

The Drabblecast is a weekly magazine podcast that offers "strange stories for strange listeners." The Drabblecast began on February 21, 2007, and publishes new stories each Wednesday. Drabblecast has garnered praise from its authors and colleagues, most notably Steve Eley from Escape Pod.^[1] The stories are usually narrated by the multi-talented Norm Sherman, who often provides many voices for each story. Unlike many other podcasts, the stories often feature background music and sound effects. Norm begins each episode with humorous insights, sketches, or songs.

The Drabblecast offers many different types and genres of fiction. The podcast often features 100-word stories coined, "drabbles." In addition, every few months, the Drabblecast has a "Trifecta" episode which features three short 500-word stories. Finally, 1500-2000 word stories are most often featured on the Drabblecast. The stories feature many genres, though science fiction, fantasy, and horror, are the most prevalent. Also, the feature stories often have some unique quality (strange or gross) that makes them "drabbly."

The Drabblecast staff is made up of three co-editors, Norm Sherman, Luke Coddington, and Kendall Marchman. The trio joined forces to create the critically lauded Black and White Animals Trilogy, in which humanity discovers that all black and white animals are secret alien weapons planted long ago.

The podcast is non-profit, and is totally funded by listener donations.

1 Drabble Items
2 Distribution and Rights
3 Drabblecast Forum
4 References and External Links
5 References

[edit] Drabble Items

The Drabblecast features many reoccuring sketches and reports, including:

Check 'Dis is a "Drabble News" segment. Norm usually reports about strange and/or unsettling world news. Natural oddities like the Colossal Squid, Hogzilla, and Belostomatidae are Check 'Dis favorites. Drabble news also investigates mysterious illnesses with unusual causes, e.g, meteors, inhaling pig brains, and the botfly.

Drabble Poetry Corner features poems submitted by Drabble authors.

Bbardles are the Drabblecast's way of saying thanks for very generous donations. Norm Sherman, a master of the awkward and strange, creates and performs an original song. The generous philanthropist selects the style and content of the tune.

Super-Animal Death Match is an annual event hosted by The Drabblecast. Common animals with uncommon super powers vie for ultimate power. The champion of the death match absorbs one of the powers from the runner-up. Last year's winner, Telephant (an elephant with the power of teleportation and now flying thanks to the defeat of Deathmole) looks to be an early favorite in this year's contest. The animals are beautifully illustrated by the talented Bo Kaier[1], who returns again this year with new hopefuls.[2]

Drabble Contests are periodically featured on the Drabblecast. These interactive contests look to get listeners involved, while rewarding creativity. Past drabble contests include: The Drabble Haiku Contest and The Nigerian Scam-Spam Contest.

[edit] Distribution and Rights

The Drabblecast is distributed under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial no-derivatives license. In other words, The Drabblecast is free to everyone and can be redistributed, but not sold or changed. There are many ways to hear the show: at the Drabblecast website[3], iTunes, or feedburner. The stories remain copyrighted by their respective authors. The Drabblecast contracts with the authors for non-exclusive audio rights.

[edit] Drabblecast Forum

The Drabblecast Forum[4] is the place to go to discuss all things Drabble. There you can comment on featured stories, as well as anything else on the podcast. In addition, many message boarders love to hangout and talk about really, really weird things.