2023 News

Announcing with great pleasure and happiness that with the first of our new episodes with Pierre Estève, my podcast What Now with Simo has just passed 10,000 listens on audio streaming alone. Counting also YouTube listens, this milestone was already passed a little while ago, but now, on Christmas Eve of 2022, the official count on my podcast hosting site for audio-only listens has gone past 10,000. With thanks and appreciation to everyone who has listened — a perfect Christmas gift!

Released the first of the two new episodes of What Now with Simo featuring Pierre Estève. As with our earlier episodes in 2021 (see the Podcast page), all the music in these episodes was composed and performed by Pierre and can be bought on Bandcamp.

Remastered every episode of my podcast and compiled each season so far into YouTube videos (playlist link), giving the early episodes (1.1 to 3.9) the lo-fi treatment they needed — to match my earliest intention of having those episodes be like something you heard from a single-speaker radio, old tape recordings, or even a telephone, perhaps late at night — and the later episodes the best hi-fi stereo quality they called for.

Happily announcing two new episodes of What Now with Simo featuring Pierre Estève and his fantastic music. The background image for this banner is from his beautiful and inspiring Flowers of Change project. You can find our earlier, 2021 episodes here: Part 1 and Part 2.

Published the season 4 finale of my podcast: episode 4.16: “Creative Basics, Visions, and Fog”. In it you can you also hear in fragments parts of an ongoing composition of mine called “In the Fog, Deep”.

Published my first collection of poetry, Land of Youth & Beauty: Early Poems, as a hardcover and an ebook. See the Writing page for more.

Updated the album with two new tracks:

1) My reading of the H. P. Lovecraft poem “The Garden”, as featured in the 2nd anniversary episode of my podcast What Now with Simo. The reading follows the music-only track “Lovecraft’s Garden”.

2) An “Extended Peaks Version” as the last track of the album. This version includes all the repeats as in the episode itself, whereas the album’s opening track, the “Single Peaks Version”, is a condensed take without repeats.

I also made one tweak: shortened the silence at the end of the first track. Other than these changes, everything else remains the same, including the price of the full album. Here is the album link again.

For the amended album blurb, please see the Music page.

Released my first album of music, Passages Dark and Light, on Bandcamp. The album blurb reads:

“Passages Dark and Light is my first album. It consists of the full soundtrack of the 2nd anniversary episode (4.9) of my podcast What Now with Simo.

For this episode I created a more serene version of the theme tune as well as the extended piece ‘Passages Dark and Light’ made up of peaks and valleys. The first track presents a version of this with just the peaks without the meditative guitar valleys.

‘Lovecraft’s Garden’ accompanies in that anniversary episode my reading of H. P. Lovecraft’s poem ‘The Garden’.”

That 2nd anniversary episode is available for example on YouTube.

I recently decided to start uploading all future and earlier episodes of my podcast also to my YouTube channel. This process will take a long time, but the latest two are already up, including the extra long and extra musical 4.9: “2nd Anniversary Special”.

That one is also the first of my episodes to be recorded with my new Shure Super 55 Deluxe microphone, and my voice has never been captured better. If you have a smart TV with a good sound system and capable of accessing the YouTube app, that’s one of the best ways to experience the episodes.

The presentation video for my collection of short stories is now viewable in various places, including this site, my YouTube channel, and the Amazon product page for the hardcover (scroll down there to find it).

Published my first collection of short fiction, At Dawn: Early Short Stories, as a hardcover, a paperback, and an ebook. See the Writing page for more.

Started season 4 of podcast What Now with Simo with episode 4.1: “Welcome Aboard, a Look Back, and a Look Forward”.

A special 2-part episode of What Now with Simo coming up featuring composer, sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, sculptor, poet, and adventurer Pierre Estève (you can hear and purchase his music on Bandcamp).

We’ll record our discussion early in the first week of August 2021. Please send in any questions you’d like me to ask him before the evening of Tuesday the 3rd. (See the banner larger at the bottom of the Podcast page.)

An Iceland Symphony, Op. 1 hit #1 on Amazon’s list of Hot New Releases in the category of Opera & Classical Songbooks before I had even made an official announcement about the book’s publication! Waiting for those preview pages to become available on the product pages.

My first book of sheet music: An Iceland Symphony, Op. 1: A Theatrical Symphony for All Ages. It’s available on Amazon as both a paperback (8.5 x 11 in) and ebook.

I had the great pleasure of having a wide-ranging and fascinating discussion with actor and writer David Lee Homb — well known to adventure gamers for his role in Sierra’s groundbreaking horror adventure game Phantasmagoria — for a special two-part 1st anniversary episode of What Now with Simo. David has also kindly given permission to include a full transcript of our talk in the next book of transcripts. (See the banner larger at the bottom of the Podcast page.)

Published the book of transcripts for the second season of my podcast What Now with Simo. Available as both a paperback and en ebook. And here is the page for the series on Amazon.

Episode 3.1 of What Now with Simo. Starting with this episode, my journey through the history of recorded music, films, TV, books, comics, and more will be featured regularly, starting with January 1952. An associated playlist of carefully selected items will also get built up on Spotify as I go along.

My podcast What Now with Simo has just passed 5,000 unique listens. This number excludes partial request, bots, and repeat listens. Last episode of season 2 on the way, then the book of transcripts for season 2, and season 3 starting 1 January 2021.

Published Art & Love, Vol. 1 as paperback and ebook. The first in a new series of non-fiction books, a keystone series in my future legacy.

My podcast What Now with Simo is now also on Amazon’s main site. I was one of those they contacted prior to launching their podcasting platform.

My odyssey through the history of recorded music has reached the 1950s, the decade when everything in music blossomed and exploded, including record cover art. From now on I’ll be sharing exceptional and sometimes questionable or ludicrous examples of this art form on Facebook.

For the 100th birthday of one of my very favourite writers, Ray Bradbury, I was invited to record this guest podcast episode for the Cabrera Brothers’ Free Bundle Originals. A very personal introduction to a series that has accompanied me through life at important moments like a dear friend, from childhood to Paris and beyond. Recorded raw, straight from the heart.

I was invited to write this guest blog for the company I translate films and TV series for. I discuss some of the challenges and joys involved, and how this work also feeds into my development as a writer.

My books featured in the Artist Alley for this year’s virtual Finncon — due to the virus, not a physical one this time around. This was my first time being involved as more than a guest.

I joined the Senscape team to work under designer and main writer Agustín Cordes on Asylum, a horror adventure game of epic proportions and quality.

I’ll be contributing writing as well as revising texts under his brilliant direction. I previously worked with Agustín on the free horror adventure game Serena, which was a pleasure from beginning to end.

Published word-for-word transcripts of the first season of my podcast What Now with Simo in book form. Available both as a handsome 6x9-inch paperback and an ebook, and including an introduction and some footnotes.

This is the first in this series of books, which will build up into a library as time passes. A chronicle of my life, thoughts, and daily musings, and a record of my having been here.

I started my podcast What Now with Simo:

“A freeform, wide-ranging podcast on any topics foremost on the host’s mind at the time of recording. Particular favourite topics include creativity and all the arts — music, films, screenplays, fiction, poetry, comics, games, comedy, and everything in between. Messages from listeners welcomed for possible inclusion in an episode. Note that sending a recording for inclusion in an episode of this podcast does indeed implicitly give me permission to do so.”