It’s launch day for KTCP, the radio station that will be hosting my podcast! I was live this morning (including doing an interview with my sister-in-law Sarah about WHY she and Joe started a community radio station in the first place). And they aired the first episode of Story Like a Journalist Radio.

Future episodes will air every other Saturday at 2 PM. If you’re not in Bell County (they are broadcasting from an historic home in Temple, Texas) you can tune in to ktcp.org. Episodes will be available each following Wednesday on Spotify.

SLAJ started out as a workbook I put together for my writing students, broken into the same units I use when I teach continuing education novel writing classes. The focus was to use the lessons from the journalism classroom—particularly the 5 ws and H—to deepen understanding of the story world you are creating and to write more vividly. This is a set of questions designed to ensure a reporter is creating a complete and balanced story. If you can name who, what, when, where, how and why, you have everything you need to engage your readers, maybe teach them a thing or two and leave them considering the ramifications of the events. With some types of writing, there’s even a call to action. So I flipped this, of fiction. (Who=Character, What=Premise, When/Where=Setting, How=Plot and Why=Theme) But I believe that story is story is story in any format. So while there will still be a lot about storytelling and writing, I plan for this podcast to be a bit broader, so that you can get something out of it too if you want to keep a journal, write poetry, or explore creativity through other art forms.