After months of hard work from writer and producer Grace Valerie-Lynette her podcast Twinemies has launched.
CBF funded the SYN Podcast Incubator – a mentoring and professional development program for up to six emerging producers all under the age of 26. Producers in the program receive an industry mentor, production training and close support from SYN to develop their podcast idea.
Part of the Podcast Incubator program involved the creative development of three original podcasts — one of these was Valerie-Lynette’s queer musical concept Twinemies. We caught up with Valerie-Lynette a few days before the official launch.
“Twinemies is the cheesiest, gayest and sassiest podcast musical to come out of this decade,” says Valerie-Lynette.
“It is a queer rom-com that takes inspiration from the absolute pinnacle of late 90s and early noughties films like Clueless and Bend It Like Beckham and 10 Things I Hate About You.”
Twinemies is a four-part podcast series that is a proof of concept that Valerie-Lynette wants to expand the series in the future.
As a Podcast Incubator participant, Valerie-Lynette was given access to media, leading audio mentors and marketing training to help make her podcast a reality.
“My mentor was Jessica Hamilton – she actually wrote Australia’s first ever podcast musical (Slaughterhouse Road) – so having her there to read the scripts, to really workshop with me how to get through such a big amount of action in such a short amount of time, and how to incorporate those songs and the general production was just incredible.”
“I think that art is really community based. There’s no such thing as art that isn’t great within community. And I think through working with community organisations like SYN you surround yourself with such incredible talent who push you more than if you tried to create something without community,” she says.
“The other aspect to it is people in my community who I’m writing for. I come from the Queer community and this is the kind of work that I didn’t have access to when I was a teenager.”
For Valerie-Lynette the CBF funding not only gave her access to professionals who could guide her in the development of her podcast but meant she could produce a story that is also accessible for the vision-impaired members of the community and is freely available—two things she cares deeply about.
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