indiepodfest had 28 podcasts represented at the 2019 festival among the 26 guests that were lined up to appear.
Guest Bios
Anouska Taylor
Anouska Taylor is an accomplished singer / performer and certified vocal instructor with an international voice organisation. Hailing from the UK, Anouska lives between Melbourne and London and has been training singers and speakers for over a decade, helping them to discover the full potential of their voice.
James Parkinson
James Parkinson is the host and producer of By Association, a narrative show about football and the human connection behind the beautiful game. By Association has received multiple honours, including Best Sports Podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2017 and 2018. It was also a 2018 Webby Award Nominee.
Adem Cifcioglu
Adem Cifcioglu is an accessibility specialist and web developer. He believes that technology has the power to change people’s lives, and that it should be usable by all, regardless of ability. In 2016, Adem co-founded digital accessibility consultancy at Intopia and is leading the crusade to create universal and barrier free websites.
Maggie Scott
Maggie Scott is a writer, editor and podcaster based in Melbourne, Australia. She has edited three anthologies with women’s experiences at the centre, all published by Pan Macmillan. Along with Jessie Scott and Carla Donnelly, Maggie co-hosts Club Soderbergh, a monthly show about the feature films of American film director Steven Soderbergh.
Lindsey Green
Lindsey Green is the creator and host of People Movers: a podcast highlighting the impact of escalators on everyday life. By day she is Content Manager at SYN, a Melbourne community media organisation committed to providing broadcast and leadership opportunities to young people aged 12–25. Lindsey co-presents Tuesday’s breakfast program on JOY 94.9, contributes stories to All The Best and previously co-produced the podcast It’s A Match.
Carla Donnelly
Carla Donnelly is an award-winning podcaster, theatre critic and passionate fan. In 2018, Across the Aisle won the Arts and Entertainment category at the Australian Podcast Awards. in 2019 Both Club Soderbergh and Across the Aisle were finalists in the Australian Podcast Awards, with Across the Aisle winning “Best Audiogram”. Carla co-presents Sunday Arts Magazine on JOY 94.9.
Ben McKenzie
Ben McKenzie a comedian, writer and game designer. Ben co-hosted Doctor Who celebration podcast Splendid Chaps and was a writer, producer and star of time travel audio comedy Night Terrace (recently purchased by the BBC). An expert crowdfunder, Ben has run or consulted on campaigns raising more than $150,000. He currently hosts monthly Terry Pratchett book club podcast Pratchat with Elizabeth Flux and re:Discovery with festival co-director Carla Donnelly.
Carly Godden
Carly Godden is producer, co-host and writer of Dead and Buried, alongside Lee Hooper. An award-winning podcast, Dead and Buried takes a deep dive into the hidden history and by-gone true crime of Melbourne and beyond. Season two of the series, released earlier this year, peaked at number 3 in the Australian iTunes charts and has been profiled in The Age, ABC Radio 774, Frankie Magazine, The Herald-Sun, The Music, PBS FM and Triple R FM.
Taku Mbudzi
Taku Mbudzi is a writer, comedian and podcaster based in Melbourne. Taku also hosts The Moth StorySlam competition in Melbourne, part of New York’s global sensation The Moth Radio Hour, which gets over 47 million podcast downloads annually. When Taku’s not performing or writing, she’s talking about writing on her podcast Two Words with Taku, which won the Writing+Podcast prize in frankie magazine’s 2018 Good Stuff Awards.
Vaya Pashos
Vaya Pashos is a TV writer with a background in radio and comedy. Vaya started Neighbuzz: the Neighbours Recap Podcast in 2014 after several years of live-tweeting Neighbours. She has taken the pod to London, L.A., and the Australian Podcast Awards where it won Best TV/Film/Pop Culture in 2017 and was nominated again in 2018 and 2019.
Lee Zachariah
Lee Zachariah hosted the auteur-centred film podcast Hell Is For Hyphenates for nine years. He has worked as a journalist covering arts and politics for over a decade, and published his first book, Double Dissolution, in 2016. He co-created ABC’s The Bazura Project, has written for The Chaser and Shaun Micallef, and is currently a producer on Network Ten’s The Project.
Sean Whelan
Sean M Whelan is a poet, playwright, DJ, marriage celebrant and podcaster. His two books of poetry are Love is the New Hate and Tattooing the Surface of the Moon. He is co-founder and co-producer of the literary cabaret show Liner Notes Live. In 2018 he began a weekly creative writing themed podcast called More Than A Whelan, produced by Castaway Studios.
Megan Spencer
Megan Spencer is a seasoned radio presenter and producer (ABC, triple j) who turned her hand to making podcasts when she moved to Berlin in 2015. Since then – and now back living in Australia – she has made a slew of indies, including Auspicious Plastic (2018 finalist, Frankie Magazine ‘Good Stuff’ Awards), Three Wicked Women and Gut Feeling.
David Ashton
David Ashton has worked as recording engineer since the early 1990s, including stints at 3RRRFM, 3CR, ABC and SBS. David has recorded podcasts including Boxcutters, Splendid Chaps and The Open Channel Podcast. He was the sound designer and co-creator of narrative comedy audio series Night Terrace, recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Erin Kyan
Erin Kyan is one half of Melbourne fiction podcast power couple Passer Vulpes Productions. He’s a queer, fat, disabled trans man who produces and acts in the queer romance podcast Love and Luck, as well as acting in other fiction podcasts including Interference and The Nuclear Solution. He’s also produces a monthly zine, Floodlight Viscera (which is also released as a podcast).
Lee Davis-Thalbourne
Lee Davis-Thalbourne is one half of Melbourne fiction podcast power couple Passer Vulpes Productions. He’s a queer cis man who produces and acts in the queer romance podcast Love and Luck, as well as acting in other fiction podcasts, including Interference, Standard Docking Procedures and the upcoming Hit the Bricks. He’s also the producer and head writer for Supernatural Sexuality with Doctor Seabrooke.
Tracy Sheen
Tracy has been working in the podcasting space for almost ten years assisting many businesses to embrace podcasting. Tracy’s had two of her own podcasts but is best known for the internationally successful Not Another Business Show. She is a three-time judge for the Australian Podcast Awards, speaker, consultant and regular contributor to Smallville, an Australian small business publication.
Jessica Lukjanow
Jessica is a content creator and audio producer. Currently with with ABC Radio Melbourne’s Breakfast program, she is also producer of independent podcast Sisteria, which discusses women and non-binary folks’ experiences as creators & consumers of arts & culture. She has worked across radio, online and print, including local Melbourne community broadcasters Triple R and SYN Radio, VICE News and the YMCA Australia Press Gallery.
Bec Petraitis
Bec Petraitis is the co-creator of Kentucky Fried Chattin‘, a bite-sized podcast ranking each KFC menu item by the number of fingers licked and discovering secrets hidden within its recipes. With a bunch of independent podcasts under her belt, she also helps put together the YouTube series Gamey Gamey Game each week, which she will continue doing until her inevitable end from some sort of fried chicken-related disease.
Jessie Scott
Jessie Scott is a practising video artist, writer, programmer and producer who works across the spectrum of screen culture in Melbourne. Besides being co-host of the Club Soderbergh podcast, she is a founding member of audiovisual art collective Tape Projects, and co-directed and founded the inaugural Channels Video Art Festival in 2013. She is currently completing a practice led PhD in the School of Art at RMIT.
Declan Fay
For almost ten years Declan has been half of the top rating comedy podcast The Sweetest Plum. The show has recorded over 150 episodes, played live gigs around Australia, and released a greatest hits album that topped Bandcamp. When he’s not swearing at Garageband for deleting audio files, Declan works as a comedy writer having written for Rove, Dirty Laundry Live, Fancy Boy and co-creating the award winning comedy Ronny Chieng: International Student.
John Richards
John Richards is a writer, broadcaster and podcaster. He co-created and wrote the ABC sitcom Outland and the BBC radio comedy Night Terrace, and his podcasts include the iTunes-chart-topping Splendid Chaps and the award-winning Boxcutters.
Elizabeth Flux
Elizabeth Flux is an award winning writer and editor based in Melbourne. Her fiction and nonfiction work has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, The Guardian and The Saturday Paper. She co-hosts a monthly Terry Pratchett book club podcast called Pratchat.
Aurelia St. Clair
Aurelia St. Clair is a Melbourne based comedian and the self proclaimed queen of woke memes. She has been delivering deliciously sassy comedy sets all over the country since 2017.