Stufflebeam and Brewer, Strange Monsters (2016)

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam and Peter Brewer, Strange Monsters: A Music & Words Collaboration. Easy Brew Studio, 2016. 57 min. $9.99.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

Strange Monsters, where narrative dances along the fringes of normalcy, while bowing deeply towards the magical, the strange. The thrust of the tales comes from female perspective: a cursed ballerina, Rumple Stiltskin’s wife, a devotee of a singular love idol, an older woman remembering past loves and lives and a decidedly lycanthropian love story. The poems speak of finding voice, of rising above confusion, of making one’s own way.

Glass & Madera, Once and Future Nerd (2013-)

Zach Glass and Christian Madera, The Once and Future Nerd. Audi-serial, 2013-present. Free online at onceandfuturenerd.com.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

Comic-fantasy audio-serial The Once and Future Nerd (TOAFN) is the brainchild of two unashamedly nerdy friends: Zach Glass, a bioengineer, and Christian Madera, a film editor. Madera came up with the initial idea, and roped in Glass to help write and develop it. Between them, they gathered a group of performers, musicians and sound engineers to create a continuing audio series, with free, downloadable episodes faithfully released every two weeks and extra material loaded up onto a dedicated webpage. As an unpaid project, it’s a labour of love, and if the cast and crew biographies on the webpage are anything to go by, enthusiastically supported by all doing it.