Paper Radio - Australasian stories that talk
The aerial is up, and the volume is turned on. In April 2010, a new voice in Australasian culture began broadcasting to the world, bringing listeners stories tall and true from the idiosyncratic South.
Paper Radio is an audio journal based in Melbourne, Australia. It take stories by Antipodean writers and raconteurs from the page and make them audible.
Producers Jessie Borrelle and Jon Tjhia started Paper Radio with the idea of materialising a missing piece of their playlists – a contemporary podcast reflecting distinctly Antipodean narratives, with high production values, custom sound design and illustration for each episode.
The aim is produce accessible and interesting fiction and documentary work from New Zealand and Australia. It launched with a work from Chris Somerville, a writer from the Gold Coast in Australia’s northeast. Somerville’s piece is called ‘The Drowning Man‘, and is the story of an aloof teacher whose life is defined and dominated by the irascible temperament of water. The inaugural episode featured a detailed soundtrack produced by Tjhia, and ‘cover art’ by Australian illustrator Polly Dedman.
While Somerville’s piece christened the FM (fiction) channel, fellow Queensland writer Benjamin Law is Paper Radio’s first piece for the AM (non fiction) channel with Tone Deaf, an extract from his debut novel The Family Law, Law tells the story of his run-ins with his family’s native tongue: Cantonese.
Future episodes will see productions of writing by New Zealand-based writers Rachel O’Neill and Thomasin Sleigh.
Paper Radio publishes stories monthly or, in a good spell, slightly more often. It is divided into two distinct stations — FM and AM. FM is a mix of fiction, fantasy, speculation and other literary gymnastics. AM is where you’ll find exercises in non-fiction, documentary, social commentary and observation. All episodes are free, and can be downloaded or streamed from the website.
Paper Radio is open to pitches and expressions of interest from NZ writers, producers and sound designers.
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