8/8/2023 0 Comments Radio silence success storiesLaunched in 2012, Radio Silence quickly made a strong impression on writers and readers, especially in the Bay Area. “What we have tried to do from the start is create something that’s really special for a broad, nonspecialized audience.” “I don’t like to call Radio Silence a literary magazine or a literary journal because that has the connotation that it’s for a small, specialized audience,” Stone says. In pitching the idea to potential contributors, investors and readers, Stone emphasized that his company didn’t have an easily definable niche. To make rent, Stone served drinks at the Alembic, Magnolia and Smoke Stack by night while he built Radio Silence by day. “I needed to go where there was a really vibrant cultural community.” “I had lived here, this was the right place for it,” Stone says. Even before he moved here in 2012, Stone had registered his company in Oakland. Stone eventually scrapped the radio show in favor of a media company, but he remained determined to grow his project in the Bay Area. Stone is the founder and editor of Radio Silence, a print and digital publication featuring essays, poetry and other stories with an emphasis on music. Dan Stone holds the three editions of his publication in Oakland, Calif. He was bored with Portland and eager to return to the Bay Area, where he dreamed of creating a nationally broadcast show with musicians Neko Case and Zach Rogue. Stone had just finished a master of fine arts program in Boston, and before that, a long stint with the National Endowment for the Arts making radio documentaries about books. “We’re what the kids like to call ‘pivoting.’”Ĭall it what you like, it’s a departure from what Stone had envisioned for Radio Silence back in 2010, when he and his wife, Kim Gooden, were working as bartenders in Portland, Ore. For now, Stone and his staff of volunteers will dedicate their energy to producing the podcast and occasional live events. “It was a journal people had been waiting for for decades … a serious literary journal about rock ’n’ roll and the arts.”īut commercial success hasn’t followed, and Stone is being forced to make some uncomfortable changes.Įarlier this month, Stone decided to put the digital issues into “hibernation.” As for print, Stone says there’s enough material to produce two more issues, but he doesn’t have the funding to publish them. “When I received the first number of Radio Silence, I was stunned,” said music journalist Greil Marcus in an e-mail. Earlier this year, Radio Silence even won a prestigious Pushcart Prize. In the course of its brief existence, Radio Silence has consistently received high praise from readers, writers and musicians. And earlier this year, Stone partnered with Audible, the audiobook company, to start making a podcast - tentatively titled “Radio Silence Backstage” - that delves into the personal lives of famous musicians and writers. He commissioned top-tier writers to contribute to Radio Silence’s print and digital publications he organized pop-up events featuring readings and live music he established a nonprofit arm to secure funding for the arts in local schools. So Stone tried to produce something ambitious: a truly multiplatform media company. To succeed, you need to produce something special. In his own words, only an idiot would create a print publication in an era marked by the daily disappearance of magazines and newspapers. ![]() ![]() ![]() When he founded Radio Silence - a magazine focused on literature and rock ’n’ roll - three years ago, he knew he was taking a gamble. Stone is disappointed by this predicament, but he’s not surprised.
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