Louisville Public Media turned to the crowdfunding website Kickstarter.com to solicit contributions for its new literary radio series Unbound, which will present short fiction read by authors.
The inaugural 10-episode season of Unbound will cost $9,000 to produce, and LPM is asking the Kickstarter crowd to kick in $4,000, less than half of the budget. The remaining $5,000 is already covered by a sponsorship deal with the Bachelors and Masters Writing Programs at Spalding University in Louisville.
LPM is promoting the show to Kickstarter backers as “awesome short stories read by memorable voices in new fiction.” If the campaign reaches its goal, Unbound will air on LPM and be offered as a podcast and in national syndication.
“Radio is a great medium for fiction, but there are few outlets for high-quality short stories on air,” said Gabe Bullard, WFPL director of news and editorial strategy, in a statement. “We want Unbound to provide a new outlet for listeners to hear great stories and discover new writers.”
The first season of Unbound will feature short stories read by authors Frank Bill (“Crimes in Southern Indiana,” “Donnybrook”), Gwenda Bond (“Blackwood”), Holly Goddard Jones (“Girl Trouble”), Neela Vaswani (“Where the Long Grass Bends,” “Same Sun Here”), Silas House (“Eli the Good”), Matt Bell (“In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods”), Roxane Gay (“Ayiti”) and Kyle Minor (“In the Devil’s Territory”)
As of 11 a.m. on March 13, 37 backers had contributed $876 toward the fundraising goal. The crowdfunding campaign runs through April 10.
LPM operates Louisville’s three public radio stations: NPR news/talk station WFPL, Triple A music WFPK and classical WUOL.