Sweetman Podcast

The turntable is my alarm clock, it has this thing where you can program it, but it will only play one side of course, and it doesn’t switch off after, so I wake up to a few lines by Tears For Fears, or a guitar solo by Lindsey Buckingham, but then I doze again and wake up to the train-rhythm of the needle just butting against the end groove and locked in a loop. I’ve named the rat Ben. After the...

The regular Say The Thing open mic that I started just over a year ago features an opportunity for reading of all kinds - not just poetry. Though I’m often first up with a quick poem to get things going. I don’t consider myself a reader there, just the MC. And I read something short to start the night so that the ice is broken; it means no one has to go first — first has just happened. And the fir...

Last night, Monday, June 22, I was invited out to be a guest reader at the celebration of Flash Fiction Day . There’s a competition and short-listed entrants (and some long-listed one) read their entries. There’s also some guests reading from their own published work — even if they weren’t part of the competition. I debuted a brand new piece that I wrote specifically for this reading. It’s called...

Something I’ve been mulling for a wee while…how to do my old podcast again, but make it (kinda) new. And I think I’ve landed on it. And I’m going to start recording and sharing new episodes — here first and with/as video. (There’ll be the option to just listen to it as an audio clip if that’s how you prefer your pods). It will still go out under the Sweetman Podcast label — and be tied to the RSS...

I’m always in motion, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m still the opposite of Ben when I think about it. He’s everywhere and all at once, and so busy, and the scurrying barely stops. I mean, I almost wonder if Ben is real when I stop to think about it. I never see him. I feel like I imagine I hear him as much as actually hearing him, but yeah, the proof of him was definitely on display for a time. A...

Here we are with our first-recorded podcast of 2026, and our second episode shared for the year. It’s time we got a move on, but thanks for sticking with us. We had a big one here! IT — very much the most popular and influential of King’s books, thanks especially to the recent movies and their dominance and popularity. So we explore the book, the films, the music for those films, and the influence...

Well, it was time to host the second “Say The Thing” of 2026. We had a strong card of about 20 readers of poetry, stories, and essays at MEOW — and as the host and MC I decided to read a couple of new poems as part of my intro to the event — that way no one feels they’re being forced to go first; our ‘first’ real reader of the night can technically say they went second. The ice is broken. That’s t...

I haven’t done a video for a while — so here are six poems from the last year or so, read out by me in a one-take video. I’ll link to the poems as they originally appeared here for those that want to read them instead, or as well… 1. / 2. / 3. / 4. / 5. / 6. / And next Wednesday, April 29, it’s Say The Thing — the monthly open mic. I’ll do a seperate post about it, but save the date, and if you’re...

One Christmas, I got this two-person pup tent. So stoked. We put it up right away, out in the backyard, just a stone’s throw from the house. We had a wee pool and a spa. There was a Ponga fence, and my dad had a black belt in Macramé — so by the pool there was this big, long dangling rope tree-thing, with a glass table-top hanging inside it for drinks and things. When I hear George Benson’s Give M...

My first time back at Poetry in Motion for 2026. I took the opportunity to plug our upcoming “Say The Thing” open mics for this year, at new venue, MEOW. And I read three new poems from, seemingly, a series of bus-stop poems. Poems I’m writing on the bus on the way to work, about experiences and thoughts to do with waiting for the bus, and bus etiquette. You can read along at home: It was fun to b...

We are back with the 13th episode of We All Float Down Here — A Stephen King podcast . Our last of 2025 (on YouTube) and first of 2026 (here on other podcast services and Substack) is our second “Richard Bachman” episode. King famously wrote a bunch of books as Richard Bachman, later publishing them under his own name as “The Bachman Books”. This set of four novels includes the now banned and out...

Here is a recording of my portion of a very cool literary event in Havelock North. The Cuba Press drove into town on the big orange metaphorical bus and we had readings, and a chat about our books in front of a wonderful and engaged audience. They stayed! They bought our books. They had great questions for us and comments afterwords. Thanks so much to the brilliant Wardini Books and Mary and Cuba...

Snag is a nasty wee story that includes violence and discussion of sexual assault. It’s flippant, provocative, and probably downright brutal. But that’s up to each individual to decide. So if you think you’re better off skipping this story — then you should. I’ve supplied a text for it below, and the audio recording is up above. You can read it, or read along with the the recording, or just listen...

This time last year we launched my second book of poetry, The Richard Poems . The launch was at the clothing and barber store, That Was Then This Is Now , not only a magical place to get a great haircut or some snazzy threads, but also to launch a book: Emily Writes delivered an amazing speech: And I had a ramble too of course: There’s even a playlist attached to the book — scan the QR code on the...

Sounds Good! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Most people think the “Mary, Mary, quite contrary” thing is just a rhyme — a cute little bounce off the name. And maybe there’s that thing in there too where it’s giving a quick character assessment of the child, the idea that the wee girl making a tiny, temporary...

It’s been five years since we launched my first book of poetry, The Death of Music Journalism . I did a little audio podcast at the time sharing some of the story behind the writing of the poems, the making of the book, and reading some of the work. I thought for its fifth birthday, I’d share a reading of five poems that I don’t think I’ve ever read out from the book before. A range of the content...

Here’s a reading of a short story (which might also be a poem, depending on how you hear it) called Bumper Boats. You can read below an earlier version of this — there are some slight changes in the reading vs. this text version linked here: Anyway, I’m enjoying exploring this — it’s meant to be a single sentence, which obviously presents challenging when reading, so here’s an earnest first attemp...

We are back with the 11th episode of We All Float Down Here — A Stephen King podcast . Our third of 2025 is our first “Richard Bachman” episode. King famously wrote a bunch of books as Richard Bachman, later publishing them under his own name as “The Bachman Books”, including the standalone volume of ‘Thinner’. So we’re talking about that in the publishing chronology (1984) and also the 1996 film...

Here is a podcast recording of my short story ‘Reverie Gone Astray’, from the third ‘Say The Thing’ spoken word evening, recorded, July 23, 2025. You can listen to it here on Substack, or wherever you get podcasts — Amazon, Spotify, Apple, etc. Sounds Good! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thanks for reading S...

We are back with the eleventh episode of We All Float Down Here — A Stephen King podcast . Our third of 2025 is King’s first collaboration, The Talisman , written with fellow horror scribe, Peter Straub. There would be a sequel close to 20 years on, and King is working alone on a second sequel right now ( R.I.P. Peter Straub ). The podcast goes out on YouTube first and foremost — so we’d love you...

You can read the text below — and/or click on the arrow above to listen to the podcast of the story (also available on Sweetman Podcast on Spotify, Amazon, Apple and wherever you get your podcasts) Michaela remembers when things were different. She is thinking this while winding the spool of tape from her cassette back into itself with a trusty pencil. Who even uses pencils these days she thinks a...

Here’s three brand new poems from me at the regular Poetry in Motion open mic at the Fringe Bar in Wellington. My first time reading there in a couple of months. I debuted three new poems which you can click on below for text versions if you’d like to read them first, or after, or read along with the recording: .They are called The Centre-Right is Ick , Strange Hours , and Rip Me Apart Like A Shar...

Just mucking around with stories — so these are two different readings of the same story. The audio and video are separate recordings, so you can listen to the audio above on its own, or with reading the story below. Or you can watch the video. Or any combo… Click: They’d met at a café. First impressions were awful. But by coffee number three, things had reset. She’d spilled a drink on his lap. He...

I haven’t made a bit of music for a while. Some would say I never have — including after hearing any of the pieces. Fair enough. With that in mind, here’s my most recent. A wee piece I call New Coat . I guess I tried to address the question no one was asking — what would happen if Moby and Robert Miles collaborated after they’d both been hit in the head a bit? My (“musical”) answer is above. Sound...

I always knew when my grandfather had come home too boozed, or sometimes it was even on a night when he’d just drift in his chair. The whiskey had done a number on him again. There’d be some noise and then my grandmother would shout out, “Boil the combs!” Grandad was a good sort otherwise. He made me a go-kart out of old boxes, but when the other kids could go much faster, he took the engine from...