SFFWRTCHT: A Chat With the Functional Nerds-Patrick Hester and John Anealio
Originally published at Grasping for the Wind. Please leave any comments there.
Every Tuesday night, a new episode of the Functional Nerds podcast is posted at www.functionalnerds.com with hosts Patrick Hester and John Anealio chatting with authors like Blake Charlton, James Enge, L.E. Modesitt, and more.
In addition to running the podcast, Patrick edits and records podcasts for www.sfsignal.com and author Mur Lafferty and can be found at www.atfmb.com.
John is a school music teacher by day and spends his nights recording and writing funny or serious songs with speculative themes. Much of his work can be found on various podcasts and websites, including http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnAnealio and http://johnanealio.bandcamp.com/.
They joined us to discuss their own work and the business of podcasting.
SFFWRTCHT: Please tell us a little about how Functional nerds came about. You were bloggers first?
Patrick Hester: I was doing a blog and podcast called ‘All Things From My Brain’ and thought I needed a second voice. John was listening and doing his own podcast and thought the same thing. He contacted me and we started chatting. Thus was born The Functional Nerds.
SFFWRTCHT: Why the name Functional Nerds?
PH: When John contacted me about partnering up, he said it needed to be called ‘Functional Nerds’ based on something I’d mentioned once or twice. I had a boss tell me that I was a nerd, but ‘functional’-as in, I function in society.
SFFWRTCHT: Hey, I like that. Podcasting is still new to a lot of us. Can you tell us how you go about putting a show together?
PH: I do the recording, editing and put the posts up. John books all the guests and handles the scheduling. I used to do all this show prep, I’d write out scripts for us (you can tell in the early shows), but we don’t do that now. John prepares cogent questions and then I mess him all up by going all over the place.
SFFWRTCHT: Do you use any other programs besides Skype do you use for the podcasts? I know Patrick’s written a great article on how he does the technical stuff.
PH: Quick app list for podcasting: Skype, Wiretap, Garageband, Amadeus Pro, Levelator.
SFFWRTCHT: What types of books do you like to showcase on your podcast?
John Anealio: Science fiction, fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy etc. and so on.
SFFWRTCHT: Has it been a challenge to book guests? And relatedly, how do you get in touch with people?
PH: For the SFSignal podcast, I have a list of contacts from SFSignal, plus I troll websites for contact info (I book that show). I recently have had publicists contact me to get their people on SFSignal, which is different and welcomed (sometimes).
JA: It’s been surprisingly easy to book guests for The Functional Nerds Podcast. I’ve booked a lot of authors and musicians through Twitter. For some authors, I’ve gone through their publicists.
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