I am pleased to announce that, beginning August, 2013, Beatdom will be expanding yet again into new territory. Not content with being a literary journal and publishing company whose works sell on every continent (except those bastards in Antarctica), we are taking our first steps into the audio world with the introduction of Beatdom: The Podcast.
You might well be wondering how this will function. Beatdom’s reputation at present is forged upon sterling essays published every six months. What will be included in the podcast? Why the hell should you listen in?
Let me tell you:
We are never short of Beat topics to talk about. In fact, the literary journal format is a little restricting in that it doesn’t allow us to keep entirely up to date with the news. If there’s a new book released or a new discovery made, we have to wait several months before the next issue in order to pass comment. That’s why we use our website and social media outlets to discuss, for example, film adaptations or new editions of Beat texts. I believe that the podcast, which will be released fortnightly (that means every two weeks), will allow us to stay on top of all the news from the Beat realm.
So, every fortnight we will start with a roundup of Beat news, before moving into tackling a question. For the first episode, we will be asking a deceptively difficult question: “What does ‘Beat’ mean?” It’s something that everyone has a different opinion about, and I want to hear from our readers prior to the show. On air, I will read out various tweets and comments from Facebook and the website, as well as adding my own thoughts, and I will discuss the topic with another Beatdom editor, Michael Hendrick.
It is important for us to interact with our readers, and so in addition to reading your comments on air, we will also be seeking to answer your questions. If there’s something you want to know about the Beat Generation, or about Beatdom, or anything within reason, please get in touch via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or this website’s comment boards. We will try our best to answer your question.
In addition to this, we will be adding an extra dimension to our poetry publication by having poets read out their work. As we know, poetry is not intended solely for the page. It is also performance art, and this podcast will allow Beatdom to better showcase its talent. We are also looking for musicians to accompany these poets. For the first episode, we will be featuring the poetry of G.K. Stritch, whose work has previously appeared on our website.
Finally, we will conduct interviews for each episode. The interviewee will contribute by discussing the question du jour as well as contributing their thoughts on the breaking Beat news, and of course we will talk to them about their own projects. For our first episode, we will be speaking with Charles Cannon, the sci-fi writer and collage artist who’s in charge of organizing the Burroughs 100 celebration – a year long catalogue of events to mark the centenary of William S. Burroughs’ birth.
