The Behind The Wonders podcast takes a look at how our great audio projects including audiobooks, audio-dramas and place-based audio stories are made. We talk with writers about what inspired their stories and with curators about what made them select the stories they did. We chat with actors, directors, sound designers and producers about the work they do to help deliver the engaging and immersive stories to our audiences.

Episode 1 True Crime – Assassins and Sunyassins 

Host Jess Morgan chats with authors Ashley Kalagian Blunt and Katerina Cosgrove about the adaptation of their true crime novellas into an audiobook and an audio-drama. My Name is Revenge explores why two young brothers living in leafy Lane Cove would turn to terrorism and Zorba the Buddha examines why thousands would give up everything to follow a guru who many regard as a charlatan.

Both stories are based on true crimes from the recent past. Ashley’s book, My Name is Revenge is set in Australia in the 1980s when the Turkish consul-general was assassinated by Armenian activists outside of his home in Vaucluse, North Sydney. Katerina Cosgrove’s Zorba The Buddha recounts the scandal-ridden demise of the Rashneeshi or ‘Orange People’ guru who sought refuge in Crete in 1986 following the failure of his Oregon ashram and the imprisonment of his spokesperson, Ma Sheela.

In this behind-the-scenes interview, the authors both talk about their interests in these two crime stories and how they each went about crafting their very different engaging and psychologically authentic fiction takes on these real events. You’ll hear from some of the voice actors involved in the projects as well as some audio excerpts.

My Name Is Revenge (audiobook) and Zorba the Buddha (fiction podcast) are both available on Spotify.

Behind the Wonders is produced by Spineless Wonders and Echidna Audio and is recorded, in gratitude, on the Gadigal land of the Eora people whose sovereignty was never ceded.


Episode 2 Behind Sonic City – Sydney

Join our host Jess Morgan as she interviews Sonic City Sydney curator Ariella van Lunh and assistant producer Zoe Hercus. Sonic City Sydney is a place-based audio storytelling project produced by Spineless Wonders in partnership with Echidna Audio and supported by the City of Sydney.

In this latest addition to the audio story map, Ariella has selected eight new stories from across Sydney’s CBD and inner-city suburbs. Each story responds to a place, person or event from Sydney’s past and more recent history. Zoe has
worked with authors and sound designers to produce immersive audio stories available on the Sonic City website and the GeoTourist App.

In this episode of Behind the Wonders, Jess explores with Ariella the notion of ‘imaginative recreation’ and the ethics and challenges of fictionalising history. Ariella talks about her experiences of teaching and writing place-based historical fiction and about the art of curating stories. Zoe unpacks the role of audio producer and how she worked with and supported authors and sound-designers. She talks about her love of the audio format as an immersive form of storytelling and the fun she had in scripting, voicing and producing the trailer for the project.

Sonic City Sydney is produced on the Gadigal lands of the Eora people whose land was never ceded.