A review of my first podcast interview.

From my Dad:

Please remember I love you when you read what I have to say about the Mur Lafferty interview. I swear I mean this to be helpful.

First of all, while the majority of your audience may know her, Judy and Jenny [my grandmother and aunt respectively] don't, so saying someone needs no introduction and then not actually giving them even a cursory one is not only annoying to the listener, but probably to your guest too.Not knowing her I can't be certain, but there were a few times when it sounded to me like she might be annoyed, and that was one of them.

Secondly, when it is natural in the course of the interview that you interject something about yourself,do it then move on quickly. These were a couple of the other times when she sounded to me like she might be annoyed. You spent too much time on you, when your interview was supposed to be about her. If you and your guest are connecting and there is a great give and take some of this kind of behavior can be excused, but you guys did not connect, and that was another thing that led me to believe that she was not enjoying it. She answered quickly and without much elaboration after each question. That definitely gives the impression she is not
into it or you as the interviewer. Plus, she could have asked a couple of questions of you out of sheer politeness, but she didn't which gives me the impression of a selfish person.

Lest I give you the impression that I hated it, I did not. You were complimentary without going overboard into kiss ass, and you sounded more secure than you
probably felt. But I felt the above things were important enough to bring them up.

-

My response:

Well, you aren't the first to bring up that point about the introduction. Mur herself mentioned it obliquely on Twitter. What didn't make it into the show was the part of our conversation where I told her this was my first interview, and she gave me some encouragement. "Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere." One of the things she says on her show I Should Be Writing is you're allowed to suck. The more interviews I do the better I'll get and I'll avoid a lot of those mistakes. I just hope I get to do more interviews. ;-)

Also, part of the not connecting may have been that on her end she was getting a bad echo because I didn't have a headset and lost my headphone extension cord so I had my speakers on during the recording. Also, I failed to tell her ahead of time how I was going to be recording it. She said it was distracting to her, and if I could've done something about it at the time I would've.

Like I said, in the future I'll be better, and maybe down the line I'll get a second shot. Season 5 of the Heaven series is coming out soon. But even if I don't, I got a chance to talk to one of my favorite writers, and it was a pleasent experience overall, just like when I met Peter David. It just as easily could've gone the other way, like when Kevin J. Anderson rudely dismissed my question at a ComicCon panel in 2006. See if I ever help him promote anything, the jerk.

Anyway, as per the selfish remark, I also chalk that up to her being distracted by the echo, but to be honest it didn't bother me that she never asked me anything. I've listened to a lot of podcast interviews in the nearly 3 years I've been into podcasting and I don't recall any interviewee doing something like that with an interviewer unless they were already friends, and Mur and I really only don't have anything beyond the "fan/artist" relationship, which is fine by me. I don't have to be friends with everyone in the podcasting community. The fact that I have as many as I do this early in my podcasting "career" frankly is astonishing. Not that I don't appreciate Tosus, and Jack, and Mark mind you. ;-)

So, I guess that's it then. Remember, a G.O.A.T. bonus episode is coming August 5th, and there will be a regular episode on August 13th, but it will be light on content because I'll be at WorldCon all week.

And lastly...

Amazon.com. Buy it.