Podcasting for Writers: Trailer for the iBook and Workshop at the Writer's Center

UPDATE: The ebook is available December 2012.

>>Visit the book's webpage

Meanwhile, I'm offering a 2 hour workshop at the Writer's Center in Bethesda MD (right outside Washington DC):

PODCASTING FOR WRITERS
May 5, 2012
Bethesda MD
The Writer's Center One day only. 10 am - 12 pm
Audio podcasts, on-line digital files, not only serve as an important promotional tool for writers, but they can be storytelling vehicles themselves, whether as stand-alone works or complements to text. This workshop provides an introduction and overview of podcasting for writers, from basic concepts to nuts-and-bolts tips. The goal is that by the end of the workshop, you will be able to go home and use your iPhone or digital recorder and computer to generate and then post a simple podcast on-line.
>>Listen to C.M. Mayo's podcasts here.
>>REGISTER ON-LINE

Madam Mayo's Sleepy Doggie

This is not a frivolous product, way-out as it might seem. It's not only been psychoacoustically designed by none other than music producer and sound researcher Joshua Leeds, but it's also been clinically tested on 150 subjects by veterinary neurologist Susan Wagner. And it's very beautiful... classical selections played by concert pianist Lisa Spector. Through a Dog's Ear: Music to Calm Your Canine Companion, is like a cup of valium for the furry ones... I tried it on my pug, Picadou, and we got some major zzz's...

Guest-Blogger David Rothenberg's 5 Links on Music for and with Whales

Ever since a five-day January stay on the shore of Baja California's Laguna San Ignacio to see the hundreds of spyhopping, spouting, and swimming gray whales, (which I wrote about in Miraculous Air), I've had a great affection for whales. I used to think caring about whales was silly; now I think it's silly not to care. They are wondrous creatures, and a last vestige, alas, of a natural world that is fast disappearing. And I'm a ginormous fan of writer-musician, improvising composer and philosopher David Rothenberg's elegantly original Why Birds Sing and so, especially delighted to see that now he's brought out a new CD to accompany a forthcoming book on--- no kidding---playing his clarinet for whales, from belugas in the Russian Arctic, to orcas off Vancouver Island, and humpbacks in the warm lagoon between Maui and Lanai. “David Rothenberg,” says Paul Winter, “is one of the rare musicians who is devoted to exploring the voices of the natural world. I would hope his work might encourage others to follow suit.” But do the whales care? Will they respond to his clarinet? You'll be able to read all about it when his book, The Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound, is published by Basic Books in May. In the meantime, I asked him to supply five links. Dive in:

1.) The Thousand Mile Song
The book's main website.

2.) David Rothenberg plays for Russian Belugas
Youtube video

3.) Serenading Belugas in the White Sea: Rhapsody in Beluga
Orion Magazine article by David Rothenberg

4.) Bull Hill: To Wail with a Whale
Terrain.org on-line magazine article by David Rothenberg

5.) CD: Whale Music
Jazz that reaches out to the sounds of the natural world. Lyrical, pure and tinged with a little bit of bird, whale, and bug.

---David Rothenberg.

P.S. Madam Mayo says: click here to download these uber-cool ringtones for your cell phone of Rothenberg jamming with whales and birds.

---> To read more Madam Mayo guest-blog posts click here.
Up next Wednesday: Steven Hart.

Yes, Picadou Is Smiling

because her CD, "The Essential Francisco Sosa or, Picadou's Mexico City," is just about sold out. CD Baby has a few copies. I'm down to three. Collectors take note! So is the CD dead? Obviously not. And I'm booked to read at the sound studio for the next one, "From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Sea of Oblivion" an essay about a journey to the Emperor Maximilian's castle in Trieste. Next up: vid-lit. More anon.

The End of the CD? Nah.

Just back from AWP where the "Beyond the Book" panel with Yours Truly, Richard Beban, Joseph Bednarik, Urayoan Noel, Richard Peabody, and Nancy Zafris brought up about 7,000 fascinating questions. One of the subjects was CDs--- Peabody's audio CD, "31 Arlington Poets" was my inspiration to do "The Essential Francisco Sosa or, Picadou's Mexico City". Peabody said he expected that in the future audio would be downloaded off the 'Net--- itunes and podcasts and the like. (Here's an article that argues the same.) And all of this seems commonsensical... but.... it also seems to me that there is always going to be a need, if a drastically reduced one, for the physical object. The graphic design and "jewel case" of the CD is a kind of wrapping. A gift comes wrapped in paper and tied with a bow. A book, too, has a wrapping-- the cover, the dust jacket. People don't have to, but they do wear clothes. Tea could be dispensed out of a vat, but it also comes in bottles. I have hope. I would expect that CDs themselves may shrink, perhaps down to the size of a coin. But the CD case itself is a good size. It fits in the palm. It can be beautifully designed: a work of art in itself. So: I'm going to do another one. And isn't the CD Baby logo cute? And DVDs! I've just been watching Urayoan Noel's way-out wacky Kool Logic Sessions. More anon.