By Brandi Hess
It was early Monday morning when I gathered up my MacBook Pro, two headset microphones, podcast notes and headed for the door to meet up with my good friend Luz Moskos. We had a long drive ahead of us as we took off for Chicago en route to a Borders bookstore. Why drive over 6 hrs to go to a bookstore that’s also located in Evansville? Simple. We wanted to meet our favorite writer, New York Times best selling author, Charlaine Harris.
It all started back in January. We just finished reading the famed “Twilight” books and I was trying to talk Luz into reading another series I really enjoyed. She reluctantly decided to give them a try and quickly fell under the same spell. We called each other, discussed book plots and details over lunch, traded books during our kids’ play dates. It was obviously clear--we couldn’t get enough of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse southern vampire series, we couldn’t stop talking about them, and we were completely drawn to a new genre of books called paranormal romance.
It was during one of our lunch chats I brought up the idea of podcasting our discussions on the Harris series to share with other fans. Podcasts are similar to radio shows, in digital audio or video format and are recorded, then stored and syndicated on the Internet. Podcast listeners can search by topics using directories like iTunes to subscribe and download episodes.
Luz was ready to give it a try and we launched our first “Wake the Dead Podcast” episode in March.
Fast forward to July. Charlaine Harris was scheduled for a book signing at a Borders store located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, IL and we knew this was our chance to meet the author, snap a picture and have her sign our books with all the other fans in tow. Luz thought I was aiming too high when I told her I contacted Harris’ publicist and requested a recorded interview for our podcast. She ate her words the day I got the confirmation email back from the publicist and our interview was scheduled before the event.
Harris’ popularity has risen quite high within the last year especially with the help of the television adaptation of the Sookie series on HBO. “True Blood” is now in it’s second season and is gaining ground as HBO’s most popular show since “The Sopranos”.
With all this heightened celebrity, Luz and I were very honored to have the opportunity to meet Charlaine Harris privately, interview her for our podcast, and have her personalize and sign our books. The event turned out to be the largest book signing she’s ever had with over 630 people in attendance.We finished up the podcast in the hotel room the next day, packed up our gear and left Chicago even bigger fans of Charlaine Harris (if that’s even possible) because of her down-to-earth personality, humble attitude, and gracious love of her fans.
Since it’s launch, our podcast episode of Charlaine Harris’ interview is one of our most popular podcasts to date. We have subscribers and website visitors from all over the United States and other countries ranging from Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Canada. Our website, www.wakethedeadpodcast.com, has had the honor of being added to HBO’s “True Blood” website, and our podcast has been ranked in the top 100 literature podcasts on iTunes.
On the way home to Cannelton, Luz and I were dreaming up ideas for our next road trip to feed our passion for paranormal romance literature. Who knows, maybe it’ll be San Diego’s Comic Con in 2010? One can dream.
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Brandi Hess and Luz Moskos are both from Cannelton and record their Wake the Dead Podcast roughly every 2 weeks. Their website is at www.wakethedeadpodcast.com and can be found on iTunes, Twitter and Facebook.
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