Oral tradition emerged as a way to transmit knowledge and preserve culture from one generation to another, through folktales and other forms of storytelling. Before literacy, oral tales fostered community and identity by instilling values, customs, and behaviors. Today, we have legends, myths, and folklore, from nursery rhymes to Grimm’s tales, which have crossed cultural boundaries to captivate young readers and adults alike. Online literary journals have preserved the art of storytelling by offering readers audio soundtracks, and there are several literary journals dedicated solely to audio texts.
Literary Podcast
Bound Off is a monthly audio literary magazine that has been leading the way of literary podcasts since 2006. According to co-founders Ann Rushton and Kelly Shriver, their mission is “to merge the oral tradition of storytelling with new technology to create a digital audio magazine[1].To this end, they have published some of the most innovative and exciting writers today, including Amelia Gray, Todd Zuniga, Shya Scanlon, Kathy Fish, Matt Bell, Meg Pokrass, Andrea Kneeland, and Tao Lin.
Continental Sounds
Two newer audio literary magazines, Paper Radio and 4’33” are bringing writers and listeners from around the world together. Australian-based Paper Radio’s vintage design allows readers to listen to an FM channel, which offers a “mix of fiction, fantasy, speculation and other literary gymnastics,” and an AM channel, which showcases “non-fiction, documentary, social commentary and observation,” both by antipodean writers [2]. Contributors include Rachel O’Neill, Chris Somerville, Thomasin Sleigh, and Benjamin Law.
Presumably named after John Cage’s famous “silent” musical composition in which he used a stopwatch to sit at the play the piano for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds and not play it, 4’33” offers listeners short stories that are up to five minutes long [3]. This London-based audio magazine has featured work by some well-known writers from Bahar Brunton, Nicholas Hogg and Tania Hershman, as well as talented newcomers likeRosie Adams, Kirsty Logan, and Emer O’Toole. Many of the contributors are playwrights, poets, and performers in the UK.
Avant-Garde Audio
Recently named as an “Indie Innovator” by Poets & Writers, Textsound merges experimental compositions and prose [4]. Editors Anna Vitale and Laura Weatherington have showcased cutting-edge work by authors and dialogic improvisers Cotner & Fitch, poet, dancer, and visual artist Donna Kuhn, interdisciplinary artist Brian Schorn, musician Audrey Chen, and Mannlicher Carcano, an improvisational audio collage group.
These poets, visual artists, playwrights, and composers are utilizing digital technology to create soundscapes that transverse genres and bridge cultures.
1. Bound Off, accessed December 17, 2010, http://www.boundoff.com/about.html.
2. Paper Radio, accessed December 17, 2010, http://www.paperradio.net/about.
3. “John Cage: 4’33”” Media Art Net, accessed December 17, 2010, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/4-33/.
4. David Hamsley, “The Indie Innovators,” Poets & Writers, November/December 2010, 76.
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