A cool thing happened this week ... the producers of the German-language podcast Podgeschichten approached me out of the blue and bought rights to adapt "Your Corporate Network and the Forces of Darkness". I'm geeked on general principle, of course, but also because English-language humor often doesn't translate well into German, and these guys think it'll do just fine. I'll post when it's up.

Gary just posted this to his Yahoo! Group newsletter list:

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Hello, Everyone:

Maintaining my reputation for always being late to the party, I have decided to start podcasting on regular basis starting in July. An avid fan of Grave Thoughts Radio and Pod Of Horror (the two programs that have, as far as I'm concerned, written the template for such programs dedicated to the literature of the dark and the fantastic), I've already begun working on format, have lots of neat-o recording and production equipment and software, and am pretty much all set to go.

What I don't have is a title for the show.

That's where you come in. What do you think is a good title?

Keep a few things in mind:

1. I don't want something that is focused primarily on horror -- I write all over the road, and there are many members of the horror community who don't think my work isn't "really" horror -- at least, not as it's viewed in the popular lexicon, so nothing with words like Grave, Horror, Terror, Ooga-Booga, Boo, Gotcha, Creepy, Crawly, Blood...you get the idea. The content of the program is going to be varied--even (gulp!) quirky--and I want the title to reflect that.
   
   
2. If you are an avid-ish reader of my work and are familiar with the themes I deal with and my style, then you've got a head start on coming up with something.
   
   
3. "What Is This S**t, Anyway?" has already been considered and set aside, though it's not out of the running.

So, here's how this will work:

Starting immediately for my newsgroup members, I will start taking your suggested titles at: gary@garybraunbeck.com

June 1st Edit: You can send up to six suggestions, but they must arrive in a single email. If you sent fewer suggestions in your first email before June 1, and have others, you can send the rest in another email (but no more than 6 total).

Please put PODCAST TITLE CONTEST in the subject line. The contest will close July 7, 2007; I will announce the winner shortly thereafter. My goal is to have the first official podcast go live in mid-July.

The address from which you send your entry must be on the list of Gary's newsletter subscribers to be eligible; so, if you want to participate, please subscribe to his newsletter first.

The jury will consist of me and Lucy, my wife.

What will you receive as a prize?

The immediate prizes and slightly-delayed prizes will include autographed and personalized copies of:

1. my forthcoming Lesiure novel, Mr. Hands (due out July 31)
2. the anthology Five Strokes to Midnight (due in early September)
3. the complete set of the collected Cedar Hill books (Graveyard People: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories, Vol. 1, Home Before Dark: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories, Vol. 2), to be sent to you when the third and final volume is released next July by Earthling.

You will also, of course, receive public credit on the first podcast for naming the show.

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The five books in this prize are worth at least $200.

Please feel free to repost or link to this contest announcement.