This week we have a treat for all those amateur sommeliers out there. We get to talk to Colby Elliott the award-winning audiobook narrator, producer and author about his new book Geekery and Wine: The First Case a Spirited Pairing of Fermented Grapes and All Things Nerdy.
Q) Your latest work Geekery and Wine: The First Case a Spirited Pairing of Fermented
Grapes and All Things Nerdy, is all about the pairing of wine and pop culture, what inspired you to combine these two passions?
I was talking with a friend at a narrators’ retreat in New England, after I’d first moved to Massachusetts and we were discussing blogs and podcasts and it was one of those, “If there were no limits” discussions and that particular pairing came up. At the time, I think I was just trying to make him laugh. But then he said, “I’d like to hear that.” And there it was. I had my “intimate audience of one” to write towards, because the best blogs and podcasts have that intimate feeling like they are just for you.
From there, I thought the podcast needed something more, so I brainstormed what might be an interesting journey to add and I immediately thought of audiobooks. What if I did “liner notes” for the audiobooks I’ve recorded, like they were classic vinyl records?
The audiobook as a whole ended up being this tapestry of stories. Wine almost always involves friend or travel stories; nerd/geek are either family (and parenting) or found-family (intimate friend) stories, and audiobooks sections are professional adventure and colleague stories. When I added the “palate cleansers,” it was the cherry on top of the sundae; those were essays where I could say something personal; aspirations, fears, and dreams.
Q) If money was no limit what would the ultimate wine and geekery pairing be?
I wrote a little about this in Geekery & Wine, but I think it would be really fun to do a 1972 Barolo with Pong.
I had the coolest grandmas growing up. One had a pool table and a Pong console (hooked up to a battered old TV) and the other had an Atari 2600 and a foosball table. Plus, that grandma had my uncle’s old stash of MAD magazines in the basement. Oh my gosh, that episode practically wrote itself!
You might be able to get that Barolo for around $400, so it would be a biiiiig stretch.
Q) What was your first introduction to the world of all things nerdy?
Mine was the classic, Gen-X burning bush moment of seeing Star Wars in the theatre in 1977. But before that I’d gotten The Story of Star Wars, a vinyl LP that featured Roscoe Lee Brown narrating the introduction and I listened to it continuously until I saw the film. It definitely lit the fire of audiobooks in me!
Q) How has your relationship to the world of Geekery changed over the years?
When I was growing up, geek and nerd stuff wasn’t something you talked about with every friend. Dungeons & Dragons books were hidden in one’s backpack. The Satanic Panic was awful. That period in the 80’s when role-playing games were viewed as a corrupter of youth did nothing but generate sensationalist news coverage, just like what happened with comic books in the 1950’s. And then, gradually, into the mid-90’s, things mellowed. By the time I’d finished college, roleplaying games were pretty well accepted. My entrée to most of my closest friends when I lived in Colorado was through tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG’s); conventions, and later, playing at each other’s houses. Once we got into the 2010’s, everything geek became mainstream, which was wonderful, except for the gatekeeping. A certain group of The Old Guard wanted to keep the clubhouse locked. And it really was a shame.
Now is probably the best time to be a nerd or geek. So many types of stories are celebrated and people who’ve never played before are curious to give it a try. I feel like friends sitting around a table together telling collaborative stories is how we save the world.
Q) Besides being an author, you have an extensive career as an audio book narrator and producer, has books you have narrated affected how you approach writing?
Absolutely. The books I narrate and the books I listen to personally all have a tremendous effect. There are phrases I’ll hear or narrate and know immediately, “If I do it like that, it’s going to pull the reader right out of the story. Unfortunately, it’s the bad examples that I notice the most often. When things are good, whew boy, I don’t even notice the clock on the wall, I’m so into the flow.
I do keep those good examples at hand, though. When I narrated Greenbeard, which is a glorious science fiction pirate epic, I listened to Patrick Tull narrate the Aubrey/Maturin series every night before bed. When I’m writing though, I try to keep other stories of the same type at arm’s length. I don’t want to be writing my urban fantasy novellas while listening to, say, Jim Butcher’s Dresden series on my morning walk. It would be way too easy to fall into Butcher’s style, which in my voice, wouldn’t sound authentic.
Q) What would your dream project to work on as a narrator be?
This is going to sound incredibly superstitious, I don’t like to say the dream project out loud (or on paper), because, by saying it, some part of my mind feels like it has already been partially accomplished, and the fire to create it diminishes. But in more general terms, I want to find a forgotten classic and bring it back, like a literary archeologist. And I want to continue writing and narrating my own work and have it find its audience.
A few years back I met Travis Baldree at the Hear Now Conference in Kansas City, and he was a wonderful guy. This was before his Legends & Lattes series took the book world by storm and he became the face of “cozy fantasy.” What I love about his work is that it is so distinctly him, and yet he gets to step outside of that world in any direction he wants to narrate other authors. That’s the dream. Not one project, but a wonderous river of stories.
Q) What is your next project you are working on?
I’ve just finished recording Catapult: Harry and I Build a Siege Engine for Tivoli Books. It’s this great nonfiction story of two friends who decide to build a catapult together as an art project and fling stones into the ocean off the coast of San Francisco. I adore this book. I first read it in the early 90’s and, at that time, it was a great friendship story. Now re-reading it in the 2020’s I’m finding new things that I love about it; the history, the making of something archaic just for the creative thrill. It’s wonderful.
I’m also currently recording Danger: Falling Rocks, a mystery by Paul Wagner. It’s about a park ranger in California who is also an amazing sleuth. Think Sherlock Holmes meets Outside Magazine. The cast of characters is really challenging with lots of intriguing suspects.
The contrast between the two authors is fascinating, one is an award-winning poet, the other a noted wine sommelier. And they approach language very differently. Delightedly so.
On the writing front, I’ll be putting together a collection of the Nerdly Travel series of travelogues and adding to that a trip to Origins Game Fair this year. On the fiction side, the seventh story in the Stay-at-Home Shaman series should be finished in December. That seventh story will end the Colorado Cyle of The Shaman.
Q) If people want more information about you or your projects, where should they go?
Folks can find me and Last Word Audio at lastwordaudio.com. My site has links to everything released and a “Coming Soon!” page. Additionally, you can find me on Audible just by searching “Colby Elliott.”
Final four questions –we ask everybody.
Q) When the zombies take over the world where will you be?
Victor Strand (played by Coleman Domingo) in Fear the Walking Dead had this amazing wine cellar in his home in Baja California, Mexico. I’ll have one of those, along with a giant group of friends and family to play roleplaying games with. And, I know I’m mixing fandoms here, but a replicator from Star Trek for tacos would also be awesome.
Q ) What is your favorite Fandom (could be sports, pop culture, favorite director or author)
Easily, tabletop role-playing games reign supreme. If I had never sat at a table with my friends and played role-playing games, I would never have become an audiobook narrator. Telling epic stories with my friends and family is literally the best thing. When my kids come home for the holidays, we play a TTRPG called Magical Kitties Save the Day and it is delightful. Each of them plays a cat trying to help their silly humans who keep getting into trouble. Sometimes it’s to stop a flying saucer invasion and sometimes it’s because your human needs you to be soft and cuddly because the world can be hard and cruel.
Mostly, I think we all belong in each other’s stories, collaborating and trying to make the world a little better. In those stories it doesn’t matter if you’re different, in fact “different” is a plus. And the story you bring to your character is utterly unique and you get to experiment with who your character is. And that gives you permission to examine who you are in the real world.
Q) What piece of art, be it in the form of music, a book, a film or picture, do you think people must experience before they die?
Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is something every person should see, preferably when they are younger. The main character, Chihiro, goes to a magical land and loses herself, literally loses her name. But through curiosity, kindness, and determination she reclaims her identity and finds her agency in the world. It’s mythic and tender and, at times, scary, but in the end the journey is beautiful.
Q) Give one fact that most people would not believe about you?
I love going in for mani/pedis. I currently have chrome galaxy toenails, and they are fabulous.
Paper Phoenix ink 