“…AND THE WORLD GROWS A LITTLE DARKER”

In the early 1950s, Leonard Allen was the producer and host of After Dark, a very popular, independently-produced suspense-horror radio show. His on-air persona, Dr. Damien Crask, was practically a household name. But when his best friend and business partner, Robert Stroud, stole the scripts and decamped for Hollywood to produce his own show, After Dark lost its biggest sponsor and Allen, feeling betrayed, gave up.  After Dark died, unfinished.

Fifty years later, Allen is dying in a state-run nursing home, when he is approached by the mysterious David Lewis, a smooth-talking businessman who gives him a strange offer: the role of caretaker and tour guide for an historic lighthouse off the New England coast. Allen is unable to resist the lure of a mystery and, when invigorated by a sudden and unexplained improvement in his health, he accepts the job.

But for Allen, settling into his new home, overlooking the stormy sea below, it all seems too perfect. Just who are the people of Sea Robin Island and why do so many of them seem familiar? Why go through so much effort to get one, very specific, old man for such a mundane job? Why does a very useful, technically-minded teenage girl show up on his doorstep just before he discovers a disused radio transmission facility behind a door locked from the inside? And why is it so important for Dr. Damien Crask to return to the airwaves long after America has left the Golden Age of Radio behind?

Leonard Allen is determined to get answers, but shortly after he discovers the bizarre truth, he learns that the plan is destined to go horribly, horribly wrong.  Sea Robin Island will become a wasteland and face demons far greater than any mortal enemy if something isn’t done. But how can one old man and one rebellious teenage girl prevent the ongoing wave of destruction?

The Mask of Inanna is a bi-monthly podcast, consisting of two seasons of, respectively, five and four  episodes each. Each episode is over an hour long.

About the Author

Alicia E. Goranson is an award-winning Boston author of books and plays. Her 2010-2011 audio drama “The Mask of Inanna” won the 2012 Parsec Award for Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama (Long Form). Her first novel, Supervillainz, is a 2007 Lambda Literary Award finalist and winner of the 2004 Project QueerLit Award. She has performed at events including the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, Cornell University and LitQuake in San Francisco. Charlie Jane Anders, editor of io9.com and She’s Such a Geek, says, “Alicia Goranson’s superpowers include searing vision, a powerful voice, and the ability to leap over genre boundaries.” You can learn more about her at her website: www.alicia-goranson.com

You can write her at readalicia [at} gmail {dot] com.

In 2010, she had two plays performed – “The Sirens of War” in the Big Broadcast of 1946 show at the Somerville Theater and “Doctor Who and the Starship of Madness” at Arisia 2011, both for the Post-Meridian Radio Players.

In 2009, she had two plays performed – a ten-minute short called “The B’Arkies” for the Ten Tiny Shows festival, and an adaptation of the Orson Welles version of “War of the Worlds”, set in Boston (bb1938.com), for the Post-Meridian Radio Players.