When image generation became available in ChatGPT, I felt curious and intrigued. I wondered if it could replace the licensed stock images I had used for my stories2music website. Each audio story’s web page had its own related graphic. Kate and Michael Gallagher’s True Love Imagined collection had 17 vignettes with a mishmash of stock images that worked, but they weren’t really Kate and Michael. If I wanted to replace them with specific ones, I’d have to decide what they actually looked like, so the images would be consistent. I knew how I saw them in my imagination, but getting ChatGPT to generate that image would be challenging. All I had were words.

I decided to try something different in the prompt. Instead of a generic image prompt that described how they should look, I gave ChatGPT the actual character bio pages I had created for their story bible that contained their appearance, birth year, education, occupation, facts and backstories about them. I wasn’t sure if that would actually work, but it did, and I was stunned because they were exactly how I saw them in my imagination. They now had faces and bodies. That did something to the writer in me. This must be how screenwriters felt when their characters moved off the script and became real in a film.

Now that I had the “master” images of Kate and Michael, ChatGPT could generate the rest of the vignette images for the website. Again, I decided to use a different prompt method. Instead of choosing which part of the vignette the image should represent, I gave the entire vignette text to ChatGPT and let it decide which image to create. The images it generated were so spot on that I was a bit stunned. I expected generic images of posed characters, but ChatGPT created scenes that were more like movie stills — cinematic and filled with emotion, drama, tension, and love. That got my attention.

You can see other website images here.

That’s when I decided to add their images to the novel’s story bible. Their character bio pages now had their images and so did the other major characters in the novel.

I also generated some three-panel images that showed their occupations. Kate was a successful mystery writer with a background with horses, and Michael was a photographer/graphic artist. After I generated Michael’s brother Daniel and sister Lindy, who worked with him at their non-profit interactive multimedia company, I did an office shot of the three of them. That image got me thinking about generating scenes from the chapters.

By this time, I had the master images of all of the main characters, so I could generate actual scenes and make their novel a hybrid illustrated novel.

That meant I needed to think about how to stage the scenes. I decided to let ChatGPT read the chapters instead of providing a descriptive prompt. Then we discussed the details for the best location, camera angle, close-up or long shot, attire, facial expressions, body language, blocking, room design, etc. ChatGPT became a kind of artistic collaborator. We generated an draft image, talked about what didn’t work, and continued to generate revisions until it was right. I felt like a film director designing my vision for the scenes — and ChatGPT delivered.

This is also where I learned that ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily interpret spatial language precisely. Figuring out the right prompts to help ChatGPT make these iterative corrections was daunting. For example, in the Vermont Inn room scene, the two dogs in their beds were initially placed along the right side of the bed, so Michael couldn’t get out of the bed. I wanted the dog beds along the end of the bed. However, ChatGPT didn’t understand “end of the bed.” I kept trying to explain where “end of the bed” was — closer to the fireplace, opposite Kate and Michael, on the rug— but it didn’t solve the problem. After several attempts, we stopped and discussed the prompts. We discovered that “foot of the bed” was the right description, which it then executed well.

Building these scene images took much more time than the bio images because I had to correct mistakes (such as six fingers on a hand) or move something to another place in the image. I also assumed that ChatGPT would keep the image the same and only make the one change I suggested, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes the time of day would change, or characters would shift positions, or eyes were no longer looking where they should be, or the entire scene would change. Sometimes subsequent generations would alter Kate and Michael’s faces, so I would have to load their master images as a reference and run it again.

ChatGPT could also get stuck and not generate any changes on the next iterations. I would have to open a new window to get a clean slate for that image. Plus, it could take up to five minutes to generate each image. The process was painstakingly slow to get the final images, but it was worth it.

Next, I decided to flesh out the novel’s story bible by adding location images — Aunt Jane’s riding school, the office, tack room, stables, grounds, the horses — and objects, residences, etc. At one point, I started generating images of Kate and Michael’s married life that would occur in book 2 of the novel series. It was based mostly on “A Grateful Heart” vignette. This helped me see who they were going to become in book 2, so I could write them toward that in book 1.

I realized then that I had unintentionally created a novel version of the visual bibles used in filmmaking — comprehensive master reference documents that defined the aesthetic, mood, and visual language of a film before it began production. I tended to write cinematically (check out CS Lakin’s website), and ChatGPT’s images were so cinematic that I kept experimenting until I had built their visual world.

That changed the way I wrote. Sometimes the generated scene had unexpected items, body language, facial expressions, camera angles, dress, appearance, or blocking, so it changed my understanding of that scene. I could even generate scenes before I wrote them and then let the images guide my writing. Having something tangible to see made it easier to describe the scene.

For example, look at this scene below. I gave ChatGPT the “The Ordinary Day” vignette and let it choose how to generate the image. It looks like a movie still, doesn’t it? Without my specific prompting, ChatGPT chose and generated the “hold” — that deliberate pause where actors lock eyes or stand together without speaking. The space between them, such as the moment before a kiss, is charged with a palpable tension. This was the moment that Kate and Michael met and the moment they recognized each other as soul mates, despite the strong resistance they would have to overcome to actually get there. The image was stunning. It changed how I saw that scene and how I rewrote the vignette for the chapter.

I began this experiment because I wanted better images for my website. I ended up giving my two fictional characters their visual identities and then building their visual world around them. But somewhere along the way, the process reversed itself. The images began affecting the writing. Sometimes an image showed me something about a scene that I hadn’t quite found in the words yet. It is an intriguing and surprising way to approach writing the novel.

I started with words and used them to create images. Now, sometimes, I start with an image and use it to find the words.

Listen to their audio stories at http://www.stories2music.com/

All images were generated with ChatGPT by OpenAI.

© 2026 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Audio publishing expert Michele Cobb agreed to do an interview about audiobooks for a feature article assignment for my Multimedia Writing/Reporting class at Palomar College. The feature article was posted on the s2m blog as “We’re All Ears for Full-Cast Audiobooks.” She has graciously agreed to allow me to post her full interview from April 16, 2019, updated in 2026.

Kathy: When did audiobook publishers first start producing these full-cast audiobooks and what caused this change?

Michele Cobb: Full-cast productions have always been part of the audiobook world. In the tradition of the BBC radio dramas, companies like L.A. Theatre Works, Full Cast Audio, Galaxy Press and Graphic Audio have been creating works in this tradition for decades. The full-cast productions by these companies often incorporate music and sound effects. In the past few years, as the audio format has grown in scope in the publishing market, traditional book publishers who stuck to a single-voiced or non-interactive multi-voiced production previously are finding the room to experiment since sales revenues can support more complex and costly productions. These types of productions can also attract new listeners and press, so it makes them appealing to do in a variety of different ways.

Kathy: Radio dramas are experiencing a huge renaissance — both the old radio shows of the 30s and 40s and new, modern productions — due to podcasting. Do radio dramas influence how full-cast audiobooks are being produced now and are the same techniques used?

Michele Cobb: The techniques used to produce full-cast audiobooks are similar to old style radio drama in many cases. What’s changed is the technology. In the old days, everyone was together in the same room recording, and the Foley artist did the sound effects as part of the production. Today, actors can record separately, or the sound effects can be added as the digital world of sound files makes editing much easier. There is more rehearsal required when the group records together, of course. The script preparation is key for any audiobook production and definitely in the case of full-cast audiobooks. Who is playing what role? What sound effects are being added? Are text alterations being done to remove “he said” or directions like “he said angrily”? All of this must be carefully laid out in advance and then crafted by the director in a way that is not required in a single-voiced record.

Kathy: Radio drama scripts use a specific format that cues the listener about the environment, which characters are speaking and what actions are being done (sound effects also help with these cues). Novels are not written to cue the listener in this way. Are full-cast audiobooks rewritten as radio scripts to provide these cues, or are the audiobooks just read by a narrator and voice actors as is? If so, is it harder for listeners to understand what is happening?

Michele Cobb: It depends. Some books are rewritten [we would consider this a dramatization of the book]. In the case of audiobook rights, one must have obtained the right to do this type of adaptation. Sound effects and music can be added, but re-writing a book makes it a different property. Many full-cast productions being done today are original works that are crafted specifically for this format.

Kathy: Millennial audiobook listeners want vibrant, diverse, engaging, and interactive experiences. How is this new target market influencing the audiobook industry’s move to full-cast productions?

Michele Cobb: With more people regularly listening (both through podcasts and audiobooks) there are a wider range of tastes to appeal to and for whom to create content. It’s not cost effective for every book to be done as a full-cast recording, so publishers are experimenting to see what works for them and for the audience. Not everyone likes a full-cast recording and not everyone likes a single voiced recording, so by offering some of each, there are choices. With publishers reporting over 750,000 active titles in 2025 there is room for a little bit of everything.

Kathy: Radio dramas are often called “Theater of the Mind.” The radio drama format enables listeners to experience immersion and transference more thoroughly. Do full-cast audio dramas create more immersion and transference into the story than narrated books? If so, why?

Michele Cobb: In my mind, either audio experience can create immersion in the story. They are different experiences, and finding the best experience for making the text available in audio is part of the art of creating great audio products. There are some titles that lend themselves beautifully to a single-voiced recording, but an adaptation of the same story into a full-cast recording can be equally as compelling if it’s done well. Publishers carefully consider how they want to record a particular title that best suits the story. And, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done in two ways equally well. The Harry Potter titles are a good example — different but great as either the single voiced record or the full-cast production. Storytelling existed as an oral tradition long before the printed word came about and when listening to audio these days we get the opportunity to have the storytelling experiences of our ancestors delivered to us in the way that we prefer anytime and anywhere. That’s exciting!

Michele Cobb is a partner at Forte Business Consulting, which provides PR, Sales, Marketing and Business Development services for the publishing industry. She is also Publisher of independent audiobook company MMB Media and co-founder of Voices to Know.

Listen to the stories at www.stories2music.com

Read more articles on the stories2music blog.

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Image of Michele Cobb is used with permission and was expanded for the banner image by ChatGPT by OpenAI.

Permission was granted to post this interview on Medium.

© 2026 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Did you know it took J.R.R. Tolkien 16 years to write Lord of the Rings, Margaret Mitchell 10 years to write Gone With the Wind, and J.D. Salinger 12 years to write Catcher in the Rye? Check it out on Electric Literature’s “Inforgraphic: How Long Did Famous Novels Take to Write?” Sometimes, it may take years for a writer to understand who the characters really are and what stories they want to tell.

I realized that I was one of those authors (no, not famous or immensely talented—grin), but it took me 36 years to develop two characters for my current novel. My reason? The characters weren’t ready. We’ve all heard about authors who say their characters sometimes take over and direct the story or even refuse to do something the author wants (known as illusion of individual agency). What if my characters had to wait 36 years until the right time, the right medium, and the right story to converge, so they could be who they were meant to be in the story they wanted to tell? That is what I experienced in my journey of finding the Gallaghers for my current novel.

My characters Kate and Michael Gallagher first appeared in my writing in 1990. They started out as a series of short stories that my boyfriend Frank and I wrote to each other. The collection was originally called Thoughts on Our Life Together. He wrote these sweet, realistic vignettes about our future together, but my response stories were different — dramatic, emotional, intense . . . and fictional. They clearly weren’t about us. They weren’t even about our future life together. They were about two fictional characters, their intense and challenging life together, and their epic love story. Sad to say, it was not our epic love story, Frank’s and mine, and when the relationship ended, so did the vignettes. For 20 years, whoever they were, they sat forgotten in a file cabinet.

The Audio Stories

In 2011, when I started teaching myself how to use Audacity sound editing software, I experimented with one of my stories: “The Boy Who Was Loved by the Wind.” I narrated it and then added some film production music as background music. I was astonished when the music matched the words in the story so perfectly it could have been written specifically for it — much like film music is written to match the movie scenes. This intrigued me, so I looked for more of my stories to use.

When I dug through my files, I rediscovered the Thoughts on Our Life Together collection. Four of those vignettes became the start of the True Love Imagined collection for my stories2music audio story project. However, when those four were completed, I had to use my other stories to keep the project going, so they waited again — just two people in four stories who loved each other in a most extraordinary way.

Then something unexpected happened in 2017. I changed the way I created the audio stories. Instead of matching music to the stories, I started listening to the music first to see what stories the music generated in my imagination. I would then write the text to match the emotions in the music (see “A New Genre of Audio Story”).

One day, I came across Robert J. Foster’s “Warm Summer Days.” This orchestral piece was so lyrical, so exquisitely beautiful — almost painfully so — that I couldn’t stop listening to it. As I played it over and over, I suddenly saw two characters in my imagination, sitting together in a meadow, eating strawberries. In one moving, sacred moment, she declared her love for him in the most simple and profound way. As I continued to listen to the piece, “The Meadow” vignette fully revealed itself. And there they were — the two characters from the 1990 vignettes — falling in love with each other.

I sat still for a long time. This vignette felt different from anything I had written before. It was “translucent and glimmering” because the film music was. But there was more. I experienced narrative transportation into the vignette — the same immersion that happens when reading a story or novel. The music somehow accessed that same part of me, and I sat inside this scene with them, watching them interact like I was watching a movie in my imagination. It was captivating. They were captivating.

The next vignette, The Ordinary Day, emerged from James Copperthwaite’s “Follow Your Path” orchestral piece. This one took me by surprise because I would never have written such melodramatic literary tropes as “falling in love at first sight” or the notion of “soul mates.” But there I was again, narratively transported into this new vignette, watching the two characters embody both tropes with such complete sincerity and mutual surprise. I felt less like the writer inventing their story and more like an observer watching them recognize their soul mates. I was just as astonished as they were at the discovery. I have never experienced characters like this before. It changed me as a writer.

It felt like one of those epic literary love stories, but it wasn’t cheesy or idealized or romance novel-ish. They somehow transcended a typical love story because those first four 1990 vignettes weren’t about the romance. They lived through a fire that destroyed their barn and stable, rescued a horse caught in barbed wire in a storm, and survived their first fight that ended in a tragic accident. Those stories changed them and made their love real long before these two new vignettes were written. They not only experienced the “oh so gentle kiss” from “The Meadow,” they survived hard times together. That wasn’t idealistic love; that was true love. Something was going on with these characters that intrigued me. And that’s when the concept of “True Love Imagined” emerged for their audio story collection. It was true love . . . but it was imagined true love.

The Screenplay

It wasn’t until I took a screenwriting class at Palomar College in spring 2021 that I discovered who Kate and Michael actually were. I adapted and expanded one of their vignettes — “The Fight” — into a short screenplay. The class assignments forced me to write their backstory and to give them names — so Kate and Michael Gallagher became “flesh” so to speak.

The short screenplay was intense, dramatic, and heartbreaking. It exposed a weakness in their marriage and caused a fight that resulted in a tragic accident, a harrowing helicopter rescue in a storm, and a tense hospital scene.

When Kate’s heart stopped and Michael begged God to take him instead of her, I was struck by how much he loved her — he was willing to trade his life for hers. I didn’t plan to write it that way or even imagine it that way. This is how Michael loved Kate. This is who he was— and in the novel, he will step in front of a bullet for her. That is what people do when they love each other — they lay their lives down if necessary.

After the screenwriting class, I continued to write the vignette audio stories about their life and eventual marriage, but it wasn’t until I took a fiction writing class at Grossmont College in 2025 that I began to think their story could be a novel. The class assignment required us to find a news article and then write a fictional short story based on it. I found two related articles: “These Racehorses Were Meant to Disappear” and “Horse Racing Cleaning up its Act with Watchdog Monitoring Racetrack Safety, Anti-Doping Rules.”

The Disappeared Horses

I wrote a spin-off story about what would happen if the corrupt racehorse owners/trainers/vets discovered that their racehorses had been rescued instead of slaughtered, found out where they were, and sent thugs to get them back. In this story, a younger Kate appeared — carrying the trauma from an equestrian riding accident years earlier that killed her horse, estranged from her aunt, and forced back into the saddle during a storm to save those rescued horses from the thugs.

The moment I saw her in my story, I knew. This was Kate before she had met Michael. This was the Kate he would one day fall in love with — a woman with a deep wound who had survived it and made a success of her life. This was the Kate who would experience “The Ordinary Day” moment of soul mate recognition yet fiercely resist loving him until he stepped in front of a bullet for her. But the timing still wasn’t right for the full novel story to emerge yet.

In the spring of 2026, I took another fiction writing class at San Diego Mesa College. For one assignment, I wrote about Kate’s riding accident, her recovery, and her courage while competing in a horse trial again. That’s when everything clicked in place. The entire plot unfolded fully formed like it had been waiting for this moment to reveal itself.

When Kate and Aunt Jane rescued those horses on that stormy night in “The Disappeared Horses” short story, they reconnected after 10 years and got caught up in the secret racehorse rescue/horse slaughter pipeline mystery. When Jane’s sudden divorce threatened to close her riding school, Kate decided to stay in San Diego and help save the school. She met Michael when his company was hired to do the educational development. Now, their vignette love story could unfold in the midst of this dangerous “disappeared horses” thriller/mystery, the digital renovation of Aunt Jane’s riding school, and “The Fight” screenplay’s harrowing helicopter rescue of Kate. All of the stories about them now fit together in this novel.

It took 36 years from the first Thoughts on Our Life Together story in 1990 for me to find the Gallaghers, understand who they were as characters, and what their story would be. They grew over the years from the four original stories to the audio story vignettes, to the screenplay, to “The Disappeared Horses” short story, and to the mystery novel. Kate and Michael Gallagher now had a life of their own. And I have a deeper appreciation for writers who take a very, very, very long time to write a novel. 😊

Listen to their audio stories at http://www.stories2music.com/

If you’ve had a similar experience, I’d love to hear your story. Post a comment!

Images were generated by ChatGPT by OpenAI.

© 2026 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Since 2011, when I created my first stories2music story, I have watched my production process evolve. When I first started out, I was teaching myself how to use the sound editing software, Audacity, so there was a lot of trial and error and experimentation. The one constant, however, was the uncanny “coincidence” of how the film music clips consistently matched the stories perfectly as if they were written for the stories. The music reflected the emotions or the actions of the words exactly (see “Can You Hear It?“ blog post).

As I produced more stories, I became more aware of the music grammar–-what the music was actually saying. My ear became more educated, and I began to hear areas where the music didn’t quite match the words so perfectly. For example, in “The Boy Who Was Loved by the Wind” audio story, I noticed that one part of the story did not match the music. It was the section where the boy was on the ship at night. This was the original text:

“As each day passed, the Wind grew lonely, and she longed for the boy’s company again. And ­sometimes, in the still, dark hours of night, the boy would hear the Wind rustle the sails, or feel her gently rock the boat. In ­those honest hours, he would weep because his heart heard her­ gentle, constant wooing, but he could not, would not, believe ­that he needed her anymore.”

The italicized text above painted a different picture of the boy than the later version. It made him seem remorseful and sad, but the music in that section told a different story. It was not gentle and touching; it was still angry and vengeful. The music said that it was not yet time for the boy to repent. The boy was still prideful and self-sufficient. He didn’t want the Wind’s love; his heart was stubborn and defensive. There was a disconnect between the words and the music. The music required the story to change.

So . . . I listened to the music carefully many times until I saw in my imagination what the boy should be doing at that part in the story. This is how the story changed:

“By day, she blew hard against his sails to slow his progress. At night, the boy would hear the Wind moaning through the sails and feel her anger as she pounded the waves against the boat. In those dreadful hours, he would steel his heart against her pain. He was a man and had no need for childish memories. But still these night terrors robbed him of his sleep.”

Now the words matched the intensity, dread and angst of the music. At the point in the story where it said, “no need for childish memories,” the music actually sounded like childish memories–-lighthearted, playful and childlike.

Listen to the story here and see if you can hear how the words now match the music — even the little “childish memories” bit. Timestamp for the section: 5:31–5:58. The “childish bit,” which is very fast, occurs at 5:53. (Best to use headphones to hear the right balance of music and words.)

This is just one example of how the film music can actually guide a story. The music was expressing a certain emotion, but the words were not. I had to make a choice to cut that music section, replace the whole music piece, or listen to what the music was saying and rewrite the story to match it. Changing the words made the story more powerful because it set the boy and the Wind against each other, extending the conflict. This led more logically to the boy’s rejection of the Wind in a later scene beat. The boy’s remorse and sadness now occurred at the end of the story, where it belonged. The music knew better than I did how the story should be written. I just had to listen.

Listen to the stories on the stories2music website.

Read more articles on the s2m blog site.

I’d love to hear your comments.

ChatGPT by Open AI generated the banner image.

© 2018 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

If you’ve read my other posts, it should be clear by now that stories2music audio stories would not be what they are without the film music. It is an integral part of the storytelling. Part of this has to do with the type of music I use. The short, orchestral film production music fits perfectly with the stories. But where did the music come from? The journey of discovery was amazing.

When I was teaching myself to do sound editing with Audacity, I chose to narrate one of my short stories, “The Boy Who Was Loved by the Wind.” I then decided to experiment with adding background music tracks in Audacity. I remembered seeing a YouTube video made from one of the lost films of Mitchell and Kenyon depicting everyday people in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The video had this hauntingly beautiful background music, so I located the video and found out who had written the music. It was a piece called “Arco Noir” by composer Richard Allen Harvey.

I had no clue how to find a copy of it, so I went to Amazon.com to see if it was available. I found several CDs by Richard Harvey because he is a movie composer, so his short orchestral pieces for movies were compiled on various CDs. I listened to all of the pieces and then purchased four that I thought would work well for my story. I inserted the four pieces of music on a separate tracks and then listened to the narration over the music. I was utterly astonished. The music fit the story so perfectly it could have been written specifically for it.

I decided to create a website to put the story online so that my friends and family could hear it. However, I discovered that the music had to be licensed to be online (or sold); purchasing the CD of Harvey’s music is not the same thing as licensing the music. West One Music in Britain, co-founded by Richard Harvey, was the company that licensed his music. I later learned that APM Music handled the U.S. licensing. Bruce Amdur was my representative at APM Music, and he gave me an educational pricing deal so that I could put that first story on a website for listening but not for selling (there are different types of licensing; website licenses were the cheapest).

One good perk was that I had access to ALL of Harvey’s orchestral movie music for experimentation. For some reason, Harvey’s music fit my stories perfectly, so most of the stories use his music. APM Music no longer carries Harvey’s music because West One Music eventually opened offices in the U.S., so I began to work with Ian Ross as my account rep. I still use APM Music to license other-than-Harvey music.

A quick Google search will list various music licensing websites, but I like the ones that provide music for TV and movies. Both West One and APM Music have great websites, and they have huge music libraries with all types of music, not just film music. Music pieces may also have several variations, such as shorter durations or with certain parts removed (such as choral voices or percussion). With an account, I am able to log in, search by various criteria and even save selections to project collections. The best part is that I can download the music for free, so I can experiment with it.

Once I decide on a music piece, I gather the information about it from the website and email Ian or Bruce to request a license. I am emailed an invoice and can pay online. Then I can legally post the stories with their music on the s2m website. Both Ian and Bruce have been so generous to me. Without their support and discounts, the stories would not be possible.

Music licensing companies license music for all types of projects such as TV and film, video and online games, radio ads, TV ads, documentaries, theatrical or public performances, radio dramas, podcasts, wedding videos, multimedia projects, training materials, digital storytelling–basically any commercial, business, educational or personal use. Music licensing is very important because music use has limitations under Copyright and Fair Use. You can be sued for using someone’s music without licensing it.

Each piece of music is called a needle drop, and each one had to be licensed separately. Each licensing company has its own set of license types–all at different prices, uses and durations. Some licenses are for “in perpetuity,” but some licenses must be renewed periodically. It’s important to work with an account rep. to work out the terms of the licensing agreement and to understand what the license allows you to do with the music.

If you are an individual like me who is doing projects as a hobby, the downside is the cost. The s2m stories have web-only licenses. They can be posted on a website, and people can listen to them for free, but they cannot download them. They cannot be put on a CD or sold in any format. “Sale” licenses are more expensive and often have limitations as to how they are sold (web download vs. CD) and how many units can be sold. I am also allowed to post my stories on YouTube, but I always have to include the music licensing information for the YouTube adminstrators, so they will approve my posts; videos with unlicensed music get deleted!

Overall, I have been very fortunate to find good music licensing companies and good account reps. for my stories. The discouraging part is the cost of the licenses. It is tough to save up the money for the licenses, so many produced stories remain “pending” and cannot be put on the s2m website until licensing is obtained.

Note: This is an important ethical issue for people using music in their projects. Composers should be compensated for their work, especially since music AI is getting sophisticated enough that it can take work away from composers. Be ethical and considerate when you use other peoples’ work.

Resources

• APM Music
• West One Music
• Everything You Need to Know About Music Licensing
• A Guide to Music Licensing Fees
• Music Licensing: What is Considered Fair Use?

Listen to the stories at http://www.stories2music.com

Read more articles on the s2m blog site.

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Banner image was generated by ChatGPT by OpenAI

© 2018 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Imagine turning on the radio on Halloween in 1938 expecting to hear a radio drama, but instead it is a news broadcast announcing that Martians had invaded New Jersey — and they were incinerating people with heat-rays! Police stations, newspapers and radio stations were inundated with calls from terrified people (Schwartz). The Mercury Theater on the Air broadcast of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio drama caused mass hysteria because it was presented as a realistic news broadcast (Schwartz).

“No one involved with War of the Worlds expected to deceive any listeners,” but Orson Welles “conceived the idea of doing a radio broadcast in such a manner that a crisis would actually seem to be happening . . . and would be broadcast in such a dramatized form as to appear to be a real event taking place at that time, rather than a mere radio play” (qtd. in Schwartz).

It worked, and listeners believed it was true because the script, voice actors, music, and sound effects made the news broadcast sound so real that it immersed and transported the listen into the story. That is the power of an effective radio drama.

I became interested in audio dramas because I produce audio stories with film production music and sound effects for my stories2music (s2m) project. In 2011, while teaching myself how to use Audacity sound editing software, I had an unexpected surprise. I narrated one of my short stories and then added some film production music clips as background music. I was amazed at how the music matched the story so perfectly that it could have been written for it. I was just experimenting with background music, but it enhanced the story and made it more vivid and compelling. This intrigued me, so I experimented with other stories, and the music did the same thing in all of them. I might have just lucked out and found the perfect music for every story, or something unusual was going on with the music and the stories.

The music also affected me in an unexpected way — it reached out and grabbed my emotions; it told me how to feel about the story. It captivated me, and swept me away into the story. Narration alone didn’t have the same emotional pull, but the added music did. When I started adding sound effects to some stories, the world of the stories became much more real in my imagination. “An audio story with added sound effects . . . immediately generates more vivid, detailed, and lifelike visual images in the mind of the listener” (Rodero, See It). This realism caused me to experience immersion and transportation into the stories. I had to find out why this happened and how to make it happen in my audio stories.

A Tiny Research Study

In 2019, I did a mini research study for the final project of the History of Multimedia class I took at Palomar College. I wanted to find out if the inclusion of film production music and sound effects in an audio story enhanced the vividness of the images created in the participants’ imaginations and more effectively maintained their attention. For my tiny survey, I had participants listen to one of my audio stories three times: one with just narration, one with narration and music, and one with narration, music, and sound effects. They completed part of the questionnaire after each version and explained how each version affected their imaginations.

The narration-only version generated normal story imagery — the words were descriptive enough to paint the scene in their imaginations. The music affected their emotions and told them how to feel about the story; this increased the intensity of emotions that they felt for the characters and the situation (one participant cried). However, the sound effects made the story world real and transported them into the story; this version changed how the participants had originally perceived the story.

For example, one participant said the mud falling on the casket sounded heavier than she had originally imagined, and she reasoned that the rain made the dirt muddy and heavier, something she did not imagine originally. One participant had a stronger sense that the grieving woman was leaving the cemetery in the carriage because of the departing carriage sound effect. That same participant said that he somehow missed the idea of “fierce rain” in the narration-only version, but the sound effects of the rain brought that to his attention, so his view of the scene changed dramatically. He could visualize the woman standing in the pouring rain at the grave site.

Although it was a small study, it confirmed what I had experienced and what the research was telling me. Therefore, I wanted to explore more methods of audio fiction, which led me to radio dramas.

Theater of the Mind

In my interview with William Dufris, he said, “Whatever allows the listener to become fully immersed themselves and not even question what’s going on-–that’s our goal. The listeners should never be jolted out of the listening experience by having a question that pops up in their heads about what is happening. That should never, never happen. The listener should always remain immersed in the story.” This raised an important question: how does one immerse the listeners and keep them immersed?

Part of the answer is in the format of the radio/audio drama itself. Unlike passive, visual media such as movies or theater, where viewers don’t use their imaginations, a radio/audio drama is a “purely acoustic performance” that “depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story” (TheaterCrafts.com). This is called the “theater of the mind” because the “action takes place entirely in the audience’s mind, guided only by the voices and sounds that they hear. . . . the story is told with the power of human voices and all the additional support of sound effects and music to create an intensely emotional experience” (The Radio Theater Workshop). According to Rodero, “audio is one of the most intimate forms of media because you are constantly building your own images of the story in your mind” (Wen).

However, this format alone doesn’t guarantee immersion. “The creation of mental images needs active, voluntary attention from the listener” (Rodero, See It), so the audio drama must use dialogue, skilled voice actors, music, and sound effects in such a way as to create immersion. Just because it is an audio drama, doesn’t mean it is an effective one. “Sound design makes all the difference. A well-written and produced audio drama will enable the listener to become immersed in the story. Immersion happens by creating images in the listener’s imagination” (Dufris). Narrative transportation is “the experience people have when they become so engaged — or immersed — in a story that the real world just falls away. Transportation is important because it focuses the attention of the audience, elicits strong emotional reactions and generates vivid mental images” (Green).

Vivid language is another way to cause transportation. “Vividness through crisp ‘imagery and or sound’ is more likely to capture the interest and attention of the audience” and cause the audience to “lose a sense of awareness of their physical surroundings and be transported into the world in the story” (Neimand). According to Ek, “The better the story can keep a listener’s attention and stimulate their imagination, the easier it is for the listener to create mental images . . . Thus, a successful soundscape in an audio play is rich, realistic and consists of many different components that serve to enhance the listener’s imagination.”

Sound effects also create immersion. The “main function of sound effects . . . is precisely to create an audio reconstruction of reality, imitating reality’s actual sounds so as to create in the listener’s mind a specific image of the phenomenon that it is intended to represent” (Rodero, Interview).

Sound effects have four functions: objective, subjective, descriptive, and narrative (Rodero, Interview):

• Objective function example: using running sounds to indicate that a character is running rapidly.
• Subjective (or expressive) function example: using the sound of rain to create a sad emotion.
• Descriptive function example: using sounds to identify the spatial dimension (location) such as wave sounds for the beach, bar sounds for a bar, or car sounds for a parking lot.
• Narrative function example: using sounds to structure the narration to indicate the beginning, middle and end of the story — e.g., the sound of a train far away, fading out, could be an end-of-story sound.

How sounds effects are used “to make it more life-like . . . is important to be transported to the scene. If I don’t perceive that the story is real or is life-like for me, I’m not going to feel inside. I’m not going to get this immersion, so it’s important to get this feeling with sound effects” (Rodero, Interview). This really reinforced for me the idea that sound design is crucial for an effective audio drama.

My First Radio Drama

Now that I had a better understanding of audio dramas, it was time for me to learn how to do one. In fall 2021, I took Acting for Radio and Voice Overs class online at San Diego Mesa College with Professor Jesse Keller. The final project for the class was a short radio drama. We were placed into groups, and each of us had to select, or write, and produce a 3-to-5-minute radio play with a minimum of three characters. We had to write a radio drama script because we would also have to do voice acting for each other’s projects. We would then edit, mix, and add music and sound effects for our own projects. We met online in a Zoom meeting to record each other’s projects using the SoundTrap software. I was in the Blue Group with Eric, Sera, Caroline, and Kevin.

The Script

First, we had to write our own scripts or adapt an excerpt from a radio drama, stage play or even an animated movie clip. Radio dramas have a basic structure of a beginning, middle and end, so we had to choose an excerpt (or write one) that had this structure. Like stage plays, radio dramas tend to use “. . . the long-standing dramatic structure that involves exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution” (Cloud Radio), so incorporating these elements was important as well. I decided to adapt one of my stories2music stories: “The Rescue” because it fit the above criteria, was very dramatic, and had lots of sound effects.

In the story, Michael and Kate (married) are driving home at night when a thunderstorm hits suddenly. They are driving on a dark, two-lane road when a flash of lightning shows a panicking black horse in a pasture running toward the barbed-wire fence. They try to stop it by honking the truck’s horn, but it doesn’t work, so the horse crashes into the fence and gets tangled up in it. They stop, call the vet, and then work together to extricate the horse from the barbed wire. Once the vet arrives, she takes the horse to the clinic. Before they leave, Kate hears horses whinnying, so they run to the barn and find horses abandoned without food or water. They call their friend Jeff to bring the big horse trailer and take those horses to the vet as well.

My next task was writing the radio drama script. Fortunately, I had recently taken a screenwriting class at Palomar College, so I had some experience writing dialogue. However, I soon learned that a screenplay, which is mostly based on description, is very different from an audio drama play, which has no description except what the dialogue and sound effects reveal (unless there is a narrator). According to Salao, “Radio drama has the same building blocks as a stage play. The difference is that since these elements are executed as radio dramas, they can’t convey visual information, so listeners need audio cues to help them imagine an accurate picture.”

I did have some experience writing a radio play script for another assignment in that screenwriting class, so I had some idea of how to format the script in BBC radio drama format, but it proved more difficult than I had anticipated to convert the descriptions into sounds or dialogue. I had to imagine the story as “sound only,” so I could determine how to help the listener understand what was happening. The old-time radio dramas often had narrators to set the scenes — and some new ones do, too. Dufris’ viewpoint about narrators gave me something to think about (and I decided not to have a narrator provide description):

When we did Locke & Key, I preferred to have a script that actually detailed everything in a way that didn’t require a narrator to give guidelines to the action that’s unfolding in an audio drama. Sometimes, it’s really difficult to do this all the way through an audio drama. Lacking that visual element, certain actions can take place that are tricky to convey without some sort of explanation as to what has just transpired or is going on.

Thinking in Sound

I still needed help thinking in “sound,” so I listened to Dick Jordan’s YouTube video “Imagine This: A Story Told with Sound Effects” where he demonstrated that it could be done. I was amazed that I could put together the pieces of the story from just the sound effects, and it helped me “hear” how sound could tell the story. It changed the way I saw my story. I had a better idea of how to think in “sound” and convert descriptions into dialogue and sound effects.

For example, in the original story, the setting is described this way: “A flash of lightning lit up the dark, night sky and filled the air with a buzz of electricity. A loud, rumbling thunder rattled the truck windows and was followed by a sudden, fierce rain that obscured our view of the two-lane road” (Matthes, script). In my radio drama, the dialogue and sound effects had to set the scene:

2. SOUND: LIGHTENING CRACKLE. RUMBLING THUNDER. SUDDEN FIERCE RAIN. WINDSHIELD WIPERS TURN ON

3. MICHAEL: This rain is really coming down hard. It’s so dark I can’t see the road.

Radio Drama Characteristics

Radio dramas also have four characteristics: character, action, dialogue, and time and place (Salao). As I learned about each one, I was able to implement them in my script.

Character

According to Salao, “Radio drama often has fewer characters than stage productions because it’s difficult for listeners to keep track of characters when they cannot see them. It’s also harder to distinguish characters by voice alone. This requires characters to have distinctive voices.” My radio drama had three characters: Michael and Kate (married) and Dr. Taylor (veterinarian). It was fairly easy for the voices to be distinct enough to be distinguished by voice alone, but I also had to make each character speak differently — their choice of words had to be distinctive to their characters.

As “director” of my radio drama, I had to make casting choices from members of the Blue Group. Caroline and Sera were the two other women in the group. Caroline had a thick French accent and tended to be loud and over-dramatic, so I choose Sera, who sounded more like Dr. Taylor. Her voice had a calmness that an experienced veterinarian would have in an emergency situation.

Kevin and Eric were the only two male students in the group, so one of them had to do the voice of Michael. Eric was the better choice because his voice and manner sounded more like Michael, but Eric did not have much confidence as a voice actor yet, so he didn’t want to perform in our Zoom meeting. I had to use Kevin. “One of the bad practices for voice overs and radio dramas is when you’re acting and playing a character [and] you get too aware of yourself and aware of your voice and are actually trying too hard to do something” (Keller interview).

This is what Kevin did — he over-acted and played Michael a bit too young and flippant, which didn’t fit the character or the tense situation of the trapped horse. His voice didn’t match the serious tone of the scene. I later emailed Eric and asked him if he would record Michael’s lines and send them to me. He agreed, and his version of Michael was spot on, so I used Eric’s version. Choosing the right voice actor makes a difference in how the character is portrayed. The voice matters.

Action

“Since you cannot see what is happening in the story, actions must then be communicated through dialogue and sound effects. Characters in radio dramas frequently describe what they’re doing or what they’re seeing” (Salao). There was definitely action happening in my story, so I had to figure out how to show it.

For example, this is the description from the original story: “Another flash of lightning and peel of thunder sent a lone, black horse into a panic. We saw him flee across the pasture toward the highway — and the barbed-wire fence that enclosed the pasture. We frantically honked the horn to get him to stop or to go in another direction, but we were too late” (Matthes, The Rescue audio story). In my radio drama, the characters and sound effects had to tell the listeners what was happening:

6. KATE: Did you see that? Is that a horse running toward the fence? Point the headlights in the pasture!

7. MICHAEL: Oh my God! He’s heading straight for the barbed-wire fence. Maybe this will stop him!

8. SOUND:FRANTIC HORN HONKING.

It was a painstaking process because each part of the story needed to be analyzed to determine what to include and how to use the dialogue to show the action.

Dialogue

“Dialogue is perhaps the most important element in a radio drama. It conveys the setting, the character’s thoughts and emotions, their actions, and how they react to what’s happening around them” (Salao). In the last part of the story, Dr. Taylor drives off, and Kate hears whinnying coming from the barn. Kate and Michael run to the barn in the sloshing rain. This scene uses dialogue to show the new location, the state of the barn, and the abandoned horses as well as Kate and Michael’s compassion and concern for them. Their response is to help.

4. KATE: That’s weird. The barn door is open.

5. MICHAEL: I’ll get the lights.

6. SOUND: LIGHT SWITCH CLICKING ON AND OFF.

7. MICHAEL: Power must be off.

8. SOUND: HORSES NICKERING.

9. KATE: Looks like there are six horses in here. No food or water in the stalls. One stall door is broken. Must be how the black horse got out.

10. MICHAEL: Water is turned off, too. No hay or food in the bins. How could someone just abandon them like this?

11. KATE: They’re in bad shape. I’ll call the vet.

“Dialogue is also essential in identifying audio effects. Without visual context, the sound of an engine can easily be that of a car, a truck, or any type of vehicle. When a character, through dialogue, identifies the sound as that of a car, it helps you form a better picture of the scenario” (Salao). For example:

3. KATE: Stop the truck!

4. SOUND:TRUCK SLAMMING ON BRAKES AND SKIDDING.

or

2. KATE: Carefully snip the wire and gently pull it from the wounds.

3. SOUND: SNIP, SNIP, SNIP OF BARBED WIRE SEVERAL TIMES.

“Dialogue can also convey the proximity of a character. Voice actors often stand near the mic or away from it to differentiate being near or far from another character. A character’s voice can also be made to sound hollow and mechanical, to sound as if it’s coming through a phone” (Salao). Although phone calls were used twice in my radio drama, it wasn’t necessary for the listener to hear what the other person was saying on the phone, so I chose not to include that technique. Kate, Michael and Dr. Taylor were in close proximity to each other, so distance didn’t need to be shown.

Time and Place

“Time and place are told through a combination of sound effects, music, and dialogue since there are no stage settings to do so. Radio dramas can evoke these scenarios better than stage plays as they only need audio elements and your imagination. It is possible to create multiple sets and quickly switch between them by utilizing certain sounds and music elements” (Salao).

In my radio drama, time and place were told through sound effects, music, and dialogue. We know it was a stormy night from the rain and thunder sound effects. We know it was a dark road at night because Michael told us: “it’s so dark I can hardly see the road.” We know they were by a pasture because Kate said to point the truck’s headlights into the pasture to see the horse. Resolution music signaled the end of the first scene when Dr. Taylor drove off. Urgent music signaled the new scene, and the sound of Kate and Michael’s footsteps running to the barn indicated that they were moving to a new location. Their dialogue described what they saw in the new location in the barn.

Music

I initially used the background music from my audio story throughout the whole radio drama because that is what I do in my flash fiction audio stories for my stories2music project. I wanted to see if it would work in radio dramas as well. The music did fit the tension and action, in my opinion. However, Professor Keller said I should try a version where music was added only at key points: the beginning, during an emotional or tense moment, to show the end of a scene or the end of the piece.

There are several ways that music can be used in radio dramas according to Thraille: theme music, stings (a short phrase or chord), diegetic music (music that characters hear like a radio), and non-diegetic music (mood music that the characters don’t hear). I decided to use excerpts from the background music. I used the brief opening section for the theme music at the beginning. For the non-diegetic music, I used a “resolution” excerpt to indicate the end of the rescue scene. I used a tense/urgent excerpt after that when Kate heard the horses in the barn. Once they were in the barn, I used an emotional excerpt to reflect their feelings about the horses. I used the theme music to end the story. I used the theme music to end the story. I did not use any stings or diegetic music. Professor Keller was pleased with my efforts. I, however, prefer the one with the background music throughout because the music actually matches the scenes perfectly — just like the audio story.

My radio drama fulfilled the required criteria. The story had exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It utilized techniques for character, action, dialogue, and time and place. It used two types of music in key areas and added emotion and drama to the scenes. It used sound effects to create reality, action, and location.

Listen to the stories2music stories at http://www.stories2music.com

Read more articles on the s2m blog site.

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

ChatGPT by OpenAI generated the banner image and “The Rescue” story image.

© 2023 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Writing for sound begins with a simple but transformative shift: the audio story is composed for listening first, not for reading on the page. The writer must consider how language will be heard by a listener who cannot see the text.

Writing for sound asks different questions than page-based writing:

• How does this sentence sound when spoken?
• Where does a pause strengthen meaning?
• What information can be suggested through tone or sound rather than explained?
• How quickly should new information arrive?

These questions shape the writing long before sound design or narration enters the process.

In addition, sound-based stories are experienced sequentially in time. Although listeners can pause, rewind, or fast-forward, audio is still processed moment by moment. Unlike written text, which allows for rapid visual scanning and spatial reference, audio stories require narrative sequence over time. This temporal reality reshapes how stories are written, paced, and revised. Writing for sound is about shaping language so it is coherent, vivid, and immersive when heard, even on a first pass.

What It Means to Write for Sound

Writing for sound means composing the narrative text with listening as the primary mode of engagement. In addition to the story’s meaning, the writer must convey rhythm, flow, emphasis, and clarity in spoken language. Every sentence must carry forward smoothly, without requiring the listeners to stop, question, or reorient themselves.

Research in audio cognition and communication has shown that listening relies on different processing strategies than reading. Scholars such as Dr. Emma Rodero have emphasized that audio narratives require distinct cues and structures to support comprehension and sustained attention. Stories written for sound must therefore anticipate how listeners track information, emotion, and narrative progression through the ear.

Language Shaped for the Ear

When a story is written for sound, language itself is shaped differently. Sentence structure becomes more intentional. Word choice matters not only for semantic precision, but for sonic quality — how consonants strike, how vowels carry, and how phrases flow together.

This does not mean avoiding complexity. It means crafting complexity so it remains intelligible and resonant when heard.

Writing for sound involves attention to:

• Cadence, so spoken language feels natural rather than strained
• Clarity, so meaning is grasped without visual reference
• Emphasis, so key ideas are audible rather than buried
• Repetition, which reinforces meaning without redundancy

Reading aloud becomes an essential part of the writing process. Awkward phrasing, overloaded sentences, and unclear transitions reveal themselves immediately when heard. Audio stories, therefore, are not simply stories that are narrated — they are written with the soundscape in mind.

Pacing and Temporal Design

Sound-based stories unfold in time, making pacing a compositional element rather than an afterthought. The writer designs how quickly information arrives, where intensity builds, and where space is needed for reflection. Sentence length, paragraph breaks, and transitions all contribute to pacing once translated into sound. Silence, too, becomes meaningful. A pause can allow emotions to land, tensions to build, or meanings to resonate. Writing for sound means planning for these moments rather than leaving them to chance. In audio stories, momentum is not driven by constant sound or heightened effects. It is driven by flow — the sense that the narrative is unfolding as it should.

Sound as a Narrative Partner

Writing for sound assumes that voice, music, sound effects, and silence are not decorative layers added later, but narrative partners. The writing leaves room for sound to carry meaning alongside language. This requires awareness that:

• Voice conveys tone, intimacy, and emotional continuity
• Music can shape mood and transition
• Ambient sound can anchor space and movement
• Silence can heighten impact

The story is written with the expectation that sound will participate in meaning-making, not simply accompany it.

What Breaks Immersion in Audio Stories

Writing for sound also requires awareness of what disrupts immersion. Once a listener is drawn into an audio story, even small breaks in rhythm or clarity can pull them out of the experience. Insights from radio drama techniques are useful here — not as models for how audio stories are written, but as reminders of how fragile immersion can be. In his interview for stories2music, the late William Dufris, an audio producer and voice actor, spoke candidly about how mispronunciations, halting delivery, or uneven flow immediately draw attention to the delivery rather than the story itself.

That observation applies directly to writing for sound. Language that reads well on the page can still be awkward or disruptive when narrated. Dense exposition, convoluted sentence structure, or abrupt tonal shifts can momentarily remove the listener from the narrative world. Writing for sound involves anticipating these moments and preventing them. The goal is continuity — the sense that the story moves forward without calling attention to its mechanics.

Listening as an Editorial Practice

In the revision process, the writer must trust the ear as an editorial guide — listening for moments where attention drifts, meaning blurs, or rhythm falters. Over time, this practice reshapes instinct. The writer begins to hear sentences before they are written and to sense when language will flow or stall in the ear.

Writing for Sound at Stories2Music

At stories2music, writing for sound begins even earlier in the creative process. Many audio stories are written from the film production music itself, rather than adding music later. In this approach, sound is not an accompaniment — it is the generative force behind the story. Music establishes emotional tone, pacing, and narrative movement before the first word is written. The story grows in response to rhythm, texture, and mood, allowing language to align organically with sound. This process ensures that sound is not layered onto the story after the fact but is inherent to the storytelling from the beginning.

For example, in the “One Life” audio story, James Copperthwaite’s “Memories of a Love” film production music includes intentional pauses between musical phrases. Those pauses created natural breathing spaces within the soundscape, and the writing and narration were shaped in response to them. Sentence length, pacing, and narrative transitions were influenced by where the music paused and where it held tension. In two places, the music paused with an almost questioning quality, and the word then was intentionally used to mirror that uncertainty. In this story, sound did not simply accompany the story — it established the architecture of the storytelling itself.

Writing for Sound as a Distinct Craft

Writing for sound is not a secondary skill or a technical afterthought. It is a distinct narrative craft — one that treats listening as central rather than incidental. It asks the writer to think beyond the page and toward the listener’s experience as it unfolds in time. It requires attention to rhythm, pacing, and clarity, as well as an awareness of how language, voice, music, and silence work together in the ear. When audio stories are written with sound in mind from the beginning, they invite deeper imaginative and emotional immersion. That is the goal of writing for sound.

Listen to the stories at http://www.stories2music.com

Read more articles on the s2m blog site.

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Resources

• Writing for audio: a beginner’s handbook
• Crafting Immersion: Decoding the Soundscape of Aural Storytelling
• World-Building With Sound: 10 Audio Tips for Fiction Writers
• Inside the Podcast Brain: Why Do Audio Stories Captivate?
• How Does Audio Shape Storytelling?
• The Rise and Power of Audio Storytelling in the 21st Century: A Critical Review
• Why Do We Listen to Audiobooks? The Role of Narrator and Music
• Stimulating the Imagination in a Radio Story: The Role of Presentation Structure and the Degree of Involvement of the Listener
• “See It” on a Radio Story: Sound Effects Shots to Evoked Imagery and Attention on Audio Fiction

ChatGPT was used collaboratively for research, source concept summaries and extractions, and the synthesis and development of my ideas. The banner image was generated by ChatGPT by OpenAI.

© 2026 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Stories2music has always explored storytelling across multiple sensory modes (music, text, and images), but now it’s exploring an emerging genre: the hybrid illustrated e‑book. Three new companion e-books are not merely illustrated texts or picture books. They are multimodal experiences when paired with stories2music’s audio stories, offering a richer, more layered way to engage with the stories.

The idea behind hybrid books isn’t new, but their possibilities are expanding. According to Steiner, hybrid books are defined by their “multisensorial qualities that include listening, reading, and looking at pictures.” In these works, image, text, and often audio combine to create a unique storytelling experience that no single mode could achieve alone.

From Audio to Hybrid

The original stories2music concept was born when I paired my short stories with carefully selected film production music. What I thought would be simple background tracks turned out to be something far more integrated (See “A New Genre of Audio Story”). The music matched the pacing, emotion, and dramatic structure of the stories so perfectly they could have been written specifically for them. That’s when stories2music became a new genre. I wasn’t just adding music to narration. The music and words were co-telling the story. In time, I began writing stories to match the music itself, listening for emotional arcs in a score and allowing those dynamics to guide the story text.

In addition, I included a visual image to the stories’ web pages that hinted at the story’s tone and topic. It also gave the listener something to look at while listening. But I soon began to wonder: what if visuals could do more than preview a story? What if they could participate in the storytelling, just like the music did?

Discovering the Hybrid Format

That question led to a new experiment with imagery using ChatGPT’s image generation feature. I revised the companion e-book for The Boy Who Was Loved by the Wind by replacing the licensed stock images with new illustrations created in collaboration with ChatGPT. For each text page, we created a four-panel visual spread, similar to a graphic novel but without speech bubbles.

Only after completing the revised book did I realize what we had made. These weren’t just illustrated books. They were hybrid books — works where visual and verbal elements are both intentional and interdependent. According to Cybirdy, “Hybrid books exist in a space between graphic novels and illustrated fiction. They are not defined by pictures supporting text, but by two storytelling languages working side by side.”

With this in mind, I designed the new The Toymaker’s Gift book as a hybrid illustrated e-book from the start. The images weren’t decorative. They were part of the narrative. The e-book could be read on its own or while listening to the audio story, enhancing the experience for readers who process visually or multisensorially.

That’s how the concept of hybrid illustrated e-books became a natural extension of stories2music’s audio stories as visual-textual companions. The images and text interact in the e-books in the same way narration and music interact in the audio stories. This convergence tells the story across more than one mode: word, sound, and image.

For the True Love Imagined companion e-book — a collection of flash fiction stories about Kate and Michael’s love story — I was finally able to give faces to the characters. Once the character images were set, ChatGPT was able to generate one specific image for each story for the website and e-book. Although readers tend to create images of characters in their imaginations when reading, somehow providing these images enhanced the stories. I do plan to expand the number of images per story for a future edition now that I know about hybrid techniques.

What Are Hybrid Illustrated e-Books?

Hybrid illustrated e-books combine narrative text and visual art in intentional, mutually reinforcing ways. They’re not children’s picture books, and they’re not comics or graphic novels. According to Coombs, “Illustrated fiction for adults is seeing a resurgence as authors and publishers recognize the power of visuals to elevate genre, mood, and voice.”

In hybrid e-books, visuals do not merely decorate. They collaborate. A reader moves between words and images because both offer parts of the story. When paired with an audio story, this three-way relationship between text, image, and sound deepens the emotional and interpretive layers.

In The Boy Who Was Loved by the Wind e-book, for example, the images act as visual counterparts to the story’s metaphors. In The Toymaker’s Gift, they make abstract ideas visible. Across all of the companion e-books, these illustrations help make the prose visible, revealing emotional undercurrents that words alone might not fully express.

These hybrid e-books were designed to accompany the stories2music audio stories. Although the audio isn’t embedded in the books themselves yet (though EPUB3 and WhisperSync technologies would make it possible), they still function as multimodal companions — books that invite readers to engage more than one sense at a time.

Why Hybrid Matters

Why does this kind of storytelling matter? Because stories aren’t just read. They’re experienced.

Multimodal storytelling acknowledges that people connect with stories in different ways. Some are moved by words, others by music, others by visuals — and many by the interplay between them. Hybrid illustrated e-books extend a story beyond the page and into the space where meaning is made through multiple sensory and emotional channels. According to Steiner, “Hybrid books are merged audiovisual literature . . . inviting a reader into multisensory storytelling that blends aesthetic experience with narrative meaning.”

That’s what stories2music has always been about. First, music and text. Then, image and text. Now, the convergence of all three. With each new story, the possibilities continue to unfold.

________________________________________

Purchase the companion e-books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kathy-Matthes/author/B078G5862S

Listen to the stories at http://www.stories2music.com

Read more articles on the s2m blog site.

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Resources on Hybrid and Multimodal Storytelling

• The Rise of Illustrated Fiction: Art Meets Story in Adult Literature
• Illustration in Books for Adults: Elevating Reading Across Genres
• Hybrid Books. Merged Audiovisual Literature for Children

ChatGPT was used collaboratively for research, source concept summaries and extractions, and the synthesis and development of my ideas. With my prompting and corrections, ChatGPT created the illustrations of the included examples from those e-books. The banner graphic was also generated by ChatGPT by OpenAI based on “The Toymaker’s Gift.”

© 2026 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

Fred

Hi, this is Fred Greenhalgh, head of audio at Realm. Realm is one of the world’s only fiction podcast studios and networks dedicated just to audio fiction. What once upon a time we would call radio dramas, audio dramas, Realm embraces all those types of materials with a single voice things and other kinds of storytelling, podcasts, and other audio versions of getting things out into the world.

I joined Realm after, boy, more than 10 years of running my own podcast things. I cofounded Dagaz Media with Bill Dufris. I founded my own FinalRune Productions in 2007, thereabouts, ran the anthology podcast reader on [Radio Drama] Revival for a couple 100 years. On the journey of doing this, recorded Stephen King saying the F bomb in “Locke and Key.” I’ve done X-Files alongside Bill Dufris with Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny. Made other sorts of things. Made Elf Quest working with the original creators “Dark Tome,” “The Cleansed” and now with Realm making dozens of shows a year for ourselves and creative partners. I was one of the producers on “Harley Quinn and the Joker: Sound Mind” which just came out on Spotify, was a number one show. Unseated Joe Rogan for five days — kind of fun — and also am a podcast host for Undertow, which is an anthologized dark fiction podcast that Realm has and directed/produced several known shows on the Undertow feed, including Blood Force this past fall.

So anyways, I love this stuff. I’ve been making it for a while, and it is my pleasure to help you out with this.

Kathy

Great! Thanks, Fred. So let’s get started. How do audio dramas tell the story through sound?

Fred

So what I really love about the art form is the ability to sort of hack the brain and project images onto your mind through the ears. And so what you do, I mean, obviously, being told a story by a parent or person who loves you is something that I hope you’ve had this experience of having it being really deeply ingrained on you through your life and certainly through oral tradition. You know, we know that people have been telling stories for perhaps 100,000 years, certainly 10s of thousands of years, and telling stories is like the superpower that humans possess. It is our ability to pass information, literal information like this plant will kill you. This animal will kill you. This thing happens at this time of year, so you should do this. All that that happens through stories is quite important.

And then, of course, the sense of meaning and existence in the universe is really an important part of what stories do for people, so audio dramas are just sort of that invented for a modern era. So I’m sure early people, you know, made sound effects and they banged sticks, banged rocks, projected their voices around campfires and did things to sort of help conjure and experience through sound. And so in audio drama, we’re just doing the same thing we, you know, there’s many different ways of doing it.

For example, with Realm, I directed a show last year, which is primarily a single actor, but it’s built out with this immersive sound design and music. So it, again, it feels like a “movie in your mind.” OK. And yeah, and that could be a storyteller sort of telling you first person the story. Something happened to them, or it can be a full audio drama along the lines of like, a more film experience where you’re hearing dialogue that should feel very naturalistic and very much like and this happened, this happened and we’re just with people, experiencing a thing and going through a story. That’s, that’s really it.

It can be devilishly difficult because, especially if people are coming from a visual background, realize how much, particularly in film. For example, you’re relying on the camera to sell images to you, or to like establish subtext, or to sort of tell you how you should feel about a thing in visual, and so conveying that on audio is a challenge and that’s sort of what the art is all about, is sort of like how do you sound design in a way that actually adds to it?

How do you come up with stories that are well suited for sound like is it really important that there’s like a flying pterodactyl with seven limbs, or is there some other way we can imagine this monster that works? Or do does the audience need to know what color that pterodactyl is? I don’t know.

Kathy

Since audio dramas are “theater of the mind,” how do sound effects help immerse the listener in the story? Are they necessary?

Fred

There’s a strict definition of this, which is: what is an audio drama? To me, there’s a slight thing where people say, what’s the difference in audio dramas and audio books? To me, the difference is the actual underlying text, whereas in an audio book, if you read the text that is an experience. If you read an audio drama script, it is the script, and if you read it, it’s like the blueprints to the building, not the actual building, so that is to say that is a person reading a thing without sound effects truly an audio drama? I don’t know that it is, but that can be a hot take.

Do sound effects help? Again, there’s a good and bad versions of this, okay, like I’ve seen scripts where it sort of is a very didactic like them to the sound designer, like this happens clop, clop, clop. This happens plop, plop, plop, and it’s like sort of like an instruction paint-by-numbers to the sound designer and better scripts in my mind typically give the sound designer enough that they can help kind of build that world and understand what’s happening and then are trusted to kind of build a lived in world.

And so certainly there’s like sort of bad things where it’s like a single person telling your story. And then Jane walked up the stairs and knocked on the door, and there was a gun went off, and you would be like clop, clop, clop. [Knocking.] Pow! Aaaah! That would be bad, but there are ways where either we can do that same moment of, oh, I don’t know. Is Jim still here? [Knocking.] Jim? [Knocking.] Jim? Kapew! Oh my God! Jim! Door, door open! Door open! And we get the same thing without the voice over element, but if we’re do the voice over element, maybe we don’t need all these like extremely literal sound effects. Think about sound effects in a more non literal composition type arrangement where they’re underscoring the emotional direction of the story as opposed to the literal kinetic energy of a moment. So I hope that it’s helpful.

Kathy

Is there a process for sound design for audio, such as what sounds are used, when they used, where they were placed?

Fred

I will say this when I talk to/interviewing sound designers, I think there’s at least three different schools of thought on this.

So there’s a kind of people who are very good at field recording, or and perhaps a close cousin to that as the traditional like Foley for films, and so people who are really good at capturing sounds in the world or making sounds that they capture and putting them into worlds. That’s one kind of school, and that’s like sort of can adhere very closely to film. We’ve got something that takes place in the Old West, we’re going to get sounds of like wind and tumbleweed and stuff that’s going to be that kind of thing.

There’s a kind of sound design that’s like the invention of sounds using in-the-box post-production software taking, and it could often start with like actual organic real sounds and then like manipulate them in all sorts of weird ways. Krotos software, for example, has this thing called a reformer, where you can say, I’m just going to make a weird, I’m going to go with my mouth, and I can run that through a plug in and add like, but I actually want to make that same sort of like wave form but with like the sound of it beating an onion to death with a Jaguar growl mixed with like the waves slapping, and somehow you’ve now ended up with a completely new sound. So that kind of like invention of new sounds through other underlying elements using technology as sort of a different school of sound design.

And then there’s a sound design which is like scoring, where it’s sort of using sonic elements, drones, beds, ambiences in a music like way, and all three of them can be used and can be used together and intertwined in various ways, but those are at least three different philosophies, and I’ve met sound designers who are good at all three or one, or some combination thereof.

The best sound designers for this field are able to think in sound, and you can don’t have to tell them. Like you say, “OK, this is seen in the kitchen and this thing happens” and they read that scene and think: What kind of house is it? Is it got creaky floorboard? Is it a modern house? Does it have a clock? And if there’s a clock, what is that clock saying? Did someone put a kettle on and forget to turn it off? And what are all these little minor elements to help drive the story is there like sort of actual story-based use of those elements, and that’s the good stuff. When you’re using sound, and not just for like literally what you need to communicate to the audience, so they can follow point A to point B, but so you can actually both make them feel like this is a lived in world and is scuffed up and real and also is dramatically serving a purpose in the story to help the listener understand that characterization tone, that sort of thing.

Kathy

Are there good and bad practices for sound effects in audio dramas?

Fred

Yes, bad is when they’re there because it’s in the script, and script told you to put it there, and you’re not really thinking about why it’s there. It’s not really mixed in the environment. There isn’t really an environment to mix it in. It’s just sort of like sound, but it’s not affecting you. Technically, it’s a sound effect, but it’s not a sound affect.

I mean, good sound design, like you shouldn’t notice it. This is the devilish part of a good sound design is like any good design in general. Like you shouldn’t notice it. If you notice it, it means you’re not following the story. You’re not riveted. You’re not in it. So good sound effects, you say: I listened to this. I turned it on, hit play, and I couldn’t put it down. And then we’ve succeeded.

Kathy

What are three pieces of advice would you give about using sound effects in audio dramas?

Fred

Make your own stuff. People go out and they like, I mean, I love freesound.org, fine. Everybody uses it. If you just want your stuff to not sound like everybody else’s, make your own stuff and it’s just get outside your house. Like go into . . . OK, I don’t condone any potentially dangerous behavior, but I do find myself in, like, sort of like abandoned areas on the edges of places at weird times of day, hearing sounds without humans around.

I also collect sounds with humans around, and you may find me, if you see me in New York City, I’ll probably have a handheld recorder in my pocket. That’s, you know, about the size of an iPhone, sitting quietly in a train station, you know, recording those sounds, so I think it actually it starts with good listening.

I think you you’ve got to listen to the world, and I think if you do this a lot and you get the bug, you really start to like, hear the world and really work on active listening as a skill. And once you get that skill of active listening, then it becomes easier to sort of walk about the world and be like, oh, you know, that’s a sound that’s unique. And I do have two terabytes of hard drive of sound effects on my hard drive back at. But I’ve never heard this.

[making sound] sound from this thing right now, so I’m going to record that, and you get more and more creative ideas because they’re just out there experiencing the world, collecting things, hearing things, engaging with things and have fun.

A really fun exercise if you are sort of new this want to try it out is just try telling a story just with sound effects. I did a course just after the pandemic started in 2020, and one of my favorite and I and I took students. Was free. It was online 5 weeks. And everyone in that course was asked to make a thing, and one of my favorite pieces from that was someone who had — it was rather dark — but it was a piece where a story was told no sounds, no dialogue, only sound effects. And that’s like, how do you do that? And it was done really quite compellingly. It was like a footstep sounds. It was a creepy small house, that sort of thing, so try doing that. Try listening to sounds and see what stories emerge just from the nature of the sounds alone, without even needing to use words.

Kathy

Anything else you want to add?

Fred

Well, you would also ask me about writing, and I think this is where writing and sound design if the script doesn’t work, sound design can’t save it. And one of the things at work that I’m experiencing personally as I’m in a position where I’m seeing kind of like screenplays that are trying to become audio dramas is there’s a lot of emphasis on trying to say, well, how do we take the screenplay and make it work in audio and lot of emphasis on the like visual set pieces and turning them into audio set pieces, kind of like fundamentally rethinking the idea of, it’s not that we like, can’t sound design almost anything can imagine, it’s just certain things like the sound design isn’t going to like help the story problem something was doing, so I think, good sound design comes out of good writing because the writing will inherently be sort of sound design friendly in the first place, which is to say — boy, it’s like a whole new lecture — but it’s like if you’re going to have a monster, what kind of monster has a lot of sounds? Like, that’s why I chose werewolves for Blood Force because first off, I mean, they’re good werewolf movies out there, but there’s a risk that they are going to be really cheesy looking, and it’s expensive. And it’s hard. Once you see the monster to really like, still believe that they’re as scary as you want as you as you as a filmmaker want the audience believe they are; whereas, if you can keep it in sound, there’s still that like sense of like this creature in my bed always, so you know, so, so werewolves were like, well, they howl. They snarl. They can be stalking you, and when they bite, it’s very, very quick, so what a great monster for sound for audio drama.

What would it be a not good audio drama monster? I mean, vampires work too. I mean, vampires talk and flap around when they’re in bat form, I suppose. But like a, you know, 20 foot tall, tentacled monster — probably not. And you’re like [monster sound] and I’m going to eat you, and people are running from it, and it’s just not going to be any good. And if you like, or if you have like, say, like a scream type movie and like someone’s running from a serial killer be like, oh, I fell over. Oh, they’re gonna get me. Climb up, get up, get up, get up, run, run, and you’re just, it’s not going be very believable, and you’re not gonna be entertained for very long. It’s just gonna be kind of kind of boring wall of sound, as opposed to actually scary. So,good sound starts with good script. That’s my parting words.

Go make stuff. That’s what I encourage you to do. If all you have is an iPhone, you can record stuff on your voice memo app. Figure how to get on your computer, play around with it, have fun, and make stuff. Bye.

Kathy

Bye, Fred. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience about audio dramas. Talk to you later!

You can also listen to his interview on the s2m podcasts.

You can read more articles on the stories2music blog.

You can listen to the stories at www.stories2music.com

US-based audio pioneer Fred Greenhalgh is best known for bringing location-recording techniques from his indie film background to the production of immersive audio movies. He’s Head of Audio Production at Realm, overseeing their original scripted fiction programming (20+ shows a year) and partner productions, most recently the #1 Spotify Podcast “Harley Quinn and the Joker: Sound Mind.”

Fred’s career started with his original series, “The Cleansed,” which led to him catching the attention of Audible, and ultimately the opportunity to team up with audio legend William Dufris to develop “Locke & Key” as a faithful 13.5 hour location recorded audio movie feat, (Tatiana Maslany, Haley Joel Osment, and Stephen King), before following on with “The X-Files: Cold Cases” and “The X-Files: Stolen Lives.”

Check out his audio movie: The Elf Quest

He and his family live in an off-grid home in rural Maine that he and his wife built. They have many goats.

Read more articles on the stories2music blog.

Listen to my audio stories at www.stories2music.com

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Image of Fred Greenhalgh is used with permission and was expanded for the banner image by ChatGPT by OpenAI.

Permission was granted to post this interview on Medium.

© 2024 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.

You can also listen to the interview on the s2m podcasts.

Prof. Keller

Hello there, this is Jesse Keller. I am a writer, director, filmmaker, and professor of filmmaking at San Diego Mesa College, where I also teach acting for radio and voiceover.

Kathy

Since radio dramas tell story through sound, how is voice acting different from other types of voiceovers?

Prof. Keller

Really, the answer to that question — voice acting as opposed to other voiceover types like audio books or like commercial performance or narration for documentaries — voice acting, the difference is the acting. And the techniques that are involved, are techniques that are relevant to any actor, so if a voice performer is interested in voice acting in the sort of radio dramas, theater of the mind, or voice acting for animation, that sort of thing, it’s good to study acting. It’s good to learn about how to build a character, how to learn, how to pursue objectives as a performer, how to think about playing an action. These are all techniques and terminology from the world of acting, of stage acting, screen acting, and they are designed to help the performer sort of live and experience the reality of the moment for the character. So I would say that’s the difference between voice acting and other types of vocal performance.

Kathy

Since radio dramas are theater of the mind, how can voice acting help immerse the listener in the story? Are there any techniques that are important to use?

Prof. Keller

That relates to what I just said. The way that voice acting helps to immerse a listener in the story is exactly the same way that acting on a stage or in a screen, you know, in a screen performance helps immerse the audience in that story and that is by playing, by acting the reality of the moment to play a moment with high stakes your character cares deeply about whatever is going on. Stakes, stakes are important. Then actions and objectives your character wants something. Every character in a piece wants something and goes about getting it somehow. That’s the action. How does your character go about getting the thing that they so badly want?

So these acting techniques are, they’re really sort of central to voice acting and performance as well. There’s really not a lot of separation between how you might approach playing a character on a screen, playing a character on a stage, or playing a character in front of a microphone with only your voice.

Kathy

What are some good and bad practices for effective voiceovers in radio dramas?

Prof. Keller

The good and bad practices. Well, first off, you need as a good practice — and more so than if you’re playing something on stage or on a screen and in front of the camera — the good practice is you need to engage your imagination because if you’re delivering a performance for an audio podcast drama, or if you’re delivering a performance that will become the basis of animation, you are in the studio, usually alone with the director or someone else reading lines opposite you. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have some other actors present as well that you can actually play off of, but you know, if your character is, you know, a lion that’s pursuing a gazelle, you have to engage your imagination there. It’s something that the great acting teacher Sanford Meisner calls the magic “if.” You know, if I was this character in this situation, how would I behave? You have to engage the imagination in that magic “if.” That’s one of the good practices.

Bad practices for voice over and radio drama. I think that bad, especially for radio drama, this is what we’re talking about when you’re acting and playing a character. When you get too aware of yourself and aware of your voice and are actually trying too hard to do something. I think that can be the bad practice in this particular sort of scenario. It’s at its best when you sort of forget that you’re giving a performance and your focus is on what you’re doing. “I’m trying to catch this gazelle, and I need to catch the gazelle. Otherwise, my cubs will not eat.” You know, I’m going back to this lion thing. But the moment you get conscious of, I’m going to try to do it, you know, I’m going to make my voice higher and do it this way. That’s all great for building a character, changing your voice. These are all good and important things, but then when the moment comes to record, you want to internalize all of that and give a performance that has that magic “if.” If that magic reality of the scene.

Kathy

What are three pieces of advice that you would give to voice over actors and radio dramas?

Prof. Keller

The three pieces of advice would be: Play the reality of the scene. Play, Play, play an action. This is advice to any actor. What are you trying to do? I’m trying to get that person to give me the thing that I want, and I’m going to bully them into doing it. That’s a playable action. I want to get that person to give me what they what I want. I’m going to seduce them into doing what I want or so the way that you go about getting something play an action that’s always good advice for any actor.

Another piece of advice for actors and radio dramas. Let’s see. Don’t do it the same every time. Keep it alive. If you’re asked to do another take. You know, however you think about it. This is another kind of acting technique. Follow the impulse, so every line starts with an impulse inside of you to say something. And you feel that impulse come, and then you let it out. And that will change every time you perform it, so the impulse will come out a little differently and it will change how you say that line. So follow the impulse and let it be different every time. That’s good advice.

Let’s see a third piece of advice for voice of actors is be a good collaborator. Work with your fellow actors. If you have the benefit of playing off of another actor, listen to them, give them your attention. Be a good collaborator, work with your director. Try to give, you know, a director will give you notes. Try to give them what they want and work together. You know, there be the impulse to say, well, I’m doing it the right way already, and I’m going to argue back with the director about what they’re suggesting. You know, it’s the old improv technique of “yes and.” Be a good collaborator. Try to try to make lift everybody up. Not just yourself.

Kathy

Anything else that you want to add?

Prof. Keller

I would just add that I think it’s an exciting time for this type of voice performance. I’m working on something right now. Check out my “Keeping the Bones” postcast.

Because of the podcast, the world . . . there was sort of a golden age of radio drama and the, you know, call it 1930s or so. When radio was really big before the coming of television, and there was a lot of audio-only fictional storytelling going on, you know, War of the World, The Shadow — this sort of classic era. It’s something that never really went away to the same degree after the coming of television in Great Britain. I’m a huge fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from I believe the 70s, right? That there’s still more audio fiction, storytelling, audio only, that’s produced by the BBC and then Britain, but I think we’re kind of, we’re coming into a new time when there’s a lot of opportunity out there to do this stuff, and it’s just getting going again in the world of podcasts specifically.

So that’s my last bit of stuff that I want to add, which is: It’s a great time to be doing this, and I hope that everybody. You know, if you have ideas, if you have projects get out there and make them. That’s why I’m working on one is because it’s, you know, as a screenwriter, you can write, you know, a giant spaceship flies over and crashes into the mountain. Well, you just wrote, you know, $1,000,000 on screen with the special effects.

If you’re producing a podcast, you can say that you’ll do it in dialogue and sound effects, and all it takes you is the time of recording and producing that, so it’s going to be a cool time for audio storytelling in the future. That’s my prediction.

So I’ve actually just released the final episode in the first season of a podcast audio fiction series that I wrote and produced. I adapted a bunch of classic horror stories from like the teens and 20s and even the late 1800s, stories by people like HP Lovecraft, and Algernon Blackwood and Edgar Allen Poe even. And we adapted, I wrote the adaptations for these stories as though they were contemporary documentaries, so it’s all presented in the guise of a highly-produced audio documentary made today, but it’s full of performance by a bunch of great actors that I know. We have dozens of actors that have worked on this, and that that we just released the final episode of our first season. It’s called “Keeping the Bones,” and we’re working on season 2 right now, but anywhere that you find podcasts, or at keepingthebones.com, you can hear all 10 episodes of our first season.

Kathy

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview! I really appreciate it!

Prof. Keller

I’m glad to have been able to be a part of this, Kathy, thanks for inviting me. And let’s stay in touch.

Kathy

Will do! Bye for now!

Read more articles on the stories2music blog.

Listen to the stories at www.stories2music.com

Got comments? I’d love to hear them.

Jesse Keller is a screenwriter, director, and teacher of filmmaking. He is also the host and producer of the found-footage audio drama podcast, Keeping the Bones, which is a new podcast that reimagines and remixes classic weird tales and horror fiction into found-footage stories set today. He is an Associate Professor of Dramatic Arts and Digital Storytelling at San Diego Mesa College, where he helps the next generation of storytellers develop their craft.

Image of Jesse Keller used with permission. ChatGPT by OpenAI was used to expand it for the banner image.

Permission was obtained to post this interview on Medium.

© 2024 by Kathy Matthes. All Rights Reserved.