Executives at PRI and the creative minds behind LIMETOWN, SERENDIPITY and WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE to judge the competition!
AUSTIN, Texas—May 31 2017—Austin Film Festival, (AFF) is pleased to announce a distinguished panel of judges for its inaugural Fiction Podcast Script Competition:
- Jeffrey Cranor, the co-author of the novels Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! He is also the co-creator of the podcasts Welcome to Night Vale and Within the Wires.
- Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie graduated from Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Film & In Summer 2015, they co-founded Two-Up and released Limetown, which has received over 8 million listens and was an iTunes Best of 2015.
- Kathy Merritt is VP of Content Strategies and Development for Public Radio International, where she oversees podcasting, special projects, and distributed radio programs. An award-winning producer, she develops new talent and production partners and most recently launched Playdate with Sarah Jones.
- Ann Heppermann is the founder of The Sarah Awards, celebrating and rewarding radio drama for the 21st century, and hosts its fiction podcast Serendipity. She teaches audio fiction at Sarah Lawrence College in its writing program and is also a producer with Pineapple Street Media.
“Our judges truly feel like partners in this initial year of the Competition,” says AFF’s Executive Director, Barbara Morgan. “Each is committed to helping launch great stories into the podcast medium, and has a proven capacity to do so.”
Public Radio International (PRI) has officially signed on as the sponsor of the competition which is open until July 7.
Akers & Bronkie will also be featured in a new slate of audio fiction programming that will take place during the Austin Film Festival’s Writers Conference, October 26 – 29. Programming will discuss the art of storytelling within an acoustic medium, as well as the address the nuts and bolts of creating a successful fiction podcast.
About Austin Film Festival
Austin Film Festival (AFF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the art, craft, and business of writers and filmmakers and recognizing their contributions to film, television and new media. This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department and the Texas Commission on the Arts. www.austinfilmfestival.com
About PRI
PRI is building a more informed, empathetic, and connected world by creating multi-platform content that empowers people to benefit their lives and the world. PRI’s award winning content reaches more than 20 million people each month, through over 900 public radio stations in the U.S., PRI.org, podcasts and social media. An affiliated company of WGBH, PRI produces PRI’s The World®, The Takeaway (a co-production with WNYC), and Studio 360® from PRI and WNYC. It reports in-depth on topics including gender equity, international security, and American identity and immigrant life, and represents public radio programs including Science Friday, q from the CBC and The Tavis Smiley Show. Major philanthropic supporters include The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and The Ford Foundation.