Howell Creek Radio consisted of short episodes anywhere from five to fifteen minutes long. The episodes were called “radio addresses” because they were written out beforehand and read straight through, from one individual to an invisible audience. The addresses were often somewhat autobiographical.

Most podcasts follow the waka-waka format of talk radio; I tried to make this one a little more like radio theatre, with as little “overhead time” as possible. The Writer’s Almanac always struck me as having the ideal format: a recognizable opening theme, and a spoken intro that is only a few seconds long. That show is also the reason I use a simple date instead of episode numbers.

The writing had too many influences to list, but an important one is the brilliant and universally relevant book The Muse in the Machine by David Gelernter.