Announcements
Articles on Walt Disney in Chicago, Warner Bros. in Pittsburgh, Simon & Schuster and a new podcast of Scott Holleran’s short fiction for the paid subscriber
Let me announce and plug my new podcast: Short Stories by Scott Holleran.
This is fiction storytelling—priced in league with Autonomia—for the general reader. Every paid subscriber gets a new audio story every other month (or sooner). Founding subscribers can schedule private audio, video and personal story conferences and conversations with me. Coaching will be available on a range of topics, including guidance about your own writing goals, projects and problem solving.
My new fiction enterprise is speculative. Like any new venture, it involves risk—it can fail or fall short. There’s evidence that today’s audiences have a fleeting attention span. Podcasts are ubiquitous. You have many options as a subscriber, as a listener and as a customer in choosing entertainment media. Many other writers and thinkers, including those who share my philosophy, write and read fiction across media.
I’m confident mine’s different. Pleased that some of you are already subscribed, I’m realistic about the prospects. As I write a new novel, I’m happy to be able to write short fiction and I want to share with you that I am delighted to know that my first paid subscriber is an esteemed and excellent English literary author and scholar.
Today marks three years of publishing Autonomia. I launched this new media (read Autonomia’s first article; a fiction book review of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) after writing a blog for 13 years, which I stopped with a final post (“Remember the Alamo”) on December 16, 2020 and I’m in the process of deactivating. Fundamentally, I want my short stories to touch or brush your soul and prompt you to think. Professionally, Autonomia’s an experiment which allows me to learn, grow and thrive and I seek for Short Stories by Scott Holleran to add to and accelerate the process.
If you enjoy listening to audiobooks, you may enjoy Short Stories by Scott Holleran.
Read the introductory post here.
Learn the facts and details about subscribing to Short Stories by Scott Holleran.
Note that I worked with Scattaregia Design founder Jim Scattaregia, who created Autonomia’s logo, on crafting this image as the podcast logo.
As I prepare to read and record the first Short Stories by Scott Holleran story, which has never been published or recorded—the first public reading of my fiction writing—I’m filling with excitement, anticipation and passion to tell a story which prompts you to think and, possibly, evoke emotion.
I invite you to subscribe and listen to my stories. Review, comment and critique them. Know that, if and when you do subscribe, you feed a writer who forges a new path because, though this new intellectual is not young, I possess the ambitiousness I had when I was young. I’ve been writing fiction since I was six or seven years old. Yet I feel like I’m getting started. More vital than this, I am ready to read new stories aloud.
New articles in the press
Regarding untold tales, my non-fictional journalism continues. Indeed, you can read what I think is a mostly unknown story about Walt Disney’s birth and legacy in Chicago in an in-depth article published in Chicagoland (where Walt Disney’s birthplace is being restored) just this week.
Last year, I wrote about centennials of Disney’s studio and Warner Bros. for a private newsletter and a publication in Pittsburgh—Warner Bros., a Burbank, California, AT&T-owned studio, essentially originated in Pittsburgh, where movies (and yours truly) were born—and I’ve added a link below to their Pittsburgh story.
Looking to 2024, this month’s edition of the Simon Letter will feature the last in my Reality Check series, covering the centennial of Simon & Schuster’s book publishing, which was founded by two men—Dick Simon and Max Schuster—who started the for-profit business with a word puzzle book while in their twenties. As Harper’s magazine once observed: “The American publishing industry as it exists today is largely the remnant of [the] middlebrow revolution” created by Messrs. Simon and Schuster.
This mid-range, Mid-American publishing revolution continues, I’m proud to say, with Autonomia—which marks three years of writing and reporting for the freethinker today—and, soon, with Short Stories by Scott Holleran. Please subscribe and cash in on the goodness to come.
Related Links and Articles
“Warner Bros. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania” by Scott Holleran for NEXTPittsburgh
“Walt Disney in Chicago” by Scott Holleran for Classic Chicago
“Remember the Alamo,” by Scott Holleran, Scott Holleran’s Blog (16 December 2020)
