We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michelle Graham And Giles Hash. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michelle Graham below.

Michelle Graham , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

When we first began, none of us had any idea how to create a podcast. Well, that’s not fully true. We knew the mechanics of it. We knew how to use microphones, we knew podcasts were often conversational and interesting. We could edit the audio and upload it to the Internet. And for a while, that’s all we did. We churned out several episodes we were incandescently proud of…and which later turned out to be absolutely awful. I mean, they were really, really bad. Then we had our first guests on, and we began to see our show through the eyes of other people. We began to adjust how we presented ourselves on air, how we asked questions––everything, really. Little by little we took the feedback of guests, listeners, and other podcasters and honed our show’s personality.

The first lesson we learned is a common one in the business world: Go for the “No.” We wouldn’t speak to half of the people we do if we didn’t create Top Dream Guests lists and take the risk of reaching out. In the early years, we were able to speak to some of our author idols simply because we realized that the worst response they could give us was, “No, thanks.” Looking back, it’s obvious that we also learned quickly to ask the right kinds of questions––no “gotcha,” no basic Q&A phrasing. The most creative and successful shows are those that reveal a deeply human side of their guests (and hosts), and once we figured that out, that became our North Star.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Denver 2011), Giles Hash, Michelle Graham, and Emily K. Singer met with a few other writers in a bookstore to create a writer’s critique group (a place where writers share their work for feedback). None of us knew anyone else, but we bonded over sci-fi and fantasy manuscripts. After about two years of critique group meetings, Emily S., Giles, and Michelle realized that they kept arriving early and having fun, and sometimes intense, conversations about the publishing industry and writing in general. Then Giles had a dumb idea (according to him) that sounded like a fun way to keep hanging out with friends and having great conversations: “Let’s start a podcast!”

Now, it’s important to understand that neither Emily S. nor Michelle had ever considered podcasting as a hobby or career. So when we said “Yes” to Giles, it wasn’t because we understood what we were getting into. Oh, no. We thought it sounded amusing and fun, so we said, “Why not?” A few months later we had created our first logo and our podcast name, and we sat down for our first recording sessions. Those first episodes were much longer than what we do now, but they got us our first big break: working at Denver Comic Con 2014. From there, everything just kind of blew up. We loved supporting the nerd community by moderating panels and teaching podcasting and writing seminars. Since then, we’ve helped out at Denver Comic Con, Denver Fan Expo, and smaller conventions such as Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Mile Hi Con. We even taught Podcasting 101 at Arapahoe Public Libraries!

One of the things we are most proud of is how we have been able to give back to the nerd community in Denver. We have made so many amazing friends in the past eight years.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

When we started, we used a year’s free trial of Amazon Hosting with an RSS generator, and all of our show notes were on Blogger. Later, we switched to Libsyn, a podcast hosting service that had reasonable pricing and was able to manage things like putting show notes and audio files all in one place. It was also nice to only have to click one button to publish episodes instead of taking multiple steps with Amazon and the RSS feed to get everything published. If we could go back, we would tell our past selves to just use Libsyn from Day One. It wasn’t a ton of money, and it makes things so much simpler.

All the other opportunities to engage in trial and error (i.e. our original logo was…special) made us who we are today, and we wouldn’t trade those choices for the world.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

A big part of being a creative is the community. Nerdy creatives get to experience joy with every kind of media they consume. And since we nerds love hard, there is no greater joy than to discover what someone else loves so you can share in that joy with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://beyondthetrope.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/beyondthetrope
• Twitter: @beyondthetrope
• Other: patreon.com/beyondthetrope beyondthetrope.redbubble.com