Internet Radio Shows and Podcasts

If, like me, you're more of a book lover than a celebrity watcher, it can be hard to find ways to see or hear from people you find interesting on television or radio talk shows, which are more focused on people who work in television or film. Authors don't tend to make it on the big television and radio talk shows until they're very famous bestsellers. J.K. Rowling may get an entire news special devoted to her, but the most a midlist author like me can expect is a guest slot on a local mid-day talk show in a small town. I'll never see a lot of the authors I like to read on television or hear them on the radio. They might not even go on book tours so I can meet them in person.

Here, as in so many other things, it's the Internet to the rescue! There are a number of online "radio" shows devoted to books and authors, and other sites offer author chat sessions where you can interact live with authors.

Blog Talk Radio offers the Authors on Air channel. This offers live, radio-like call-in shows on various book-related topics, including authors as guests. The shows are then archived as podcasts, so even if you can't listen live, you can still hear the shows.

Among the shows available are The Beyond, which covers science fiction, fantasy and urban fantasy.

And there's Romance Radio, which features guests like Meg Cabot.

On a more text-based note, there are a lot of opportunities to have chat sessions with authors. Novel Talk schedules author chats for its members, along with other author-related features:

The mega book-cataloguing site LibraryThing offers author chats, as well. These aren't so much the live interaction but are more of a scheduled message board time where an author is available to answer questions over a two-week period.

One of the few national venues for authors is National Public Radio. The authors featured tend to be bigger names or those who've written topical non-fiction books, but the NPR books page offers links to podcasts of book-related shows.

If you don't get a lot of authors coming through town on book tours, you can enjoy the book tour experience vicariously, thanks to Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore. They post podcasts of authors who've visited their store.

Until next time ... Shanna

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Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a magical NYC. Visit her website or blog for more information.