Jack presents the final in our series of Ward Family Father Christmas Letters, this one dated 2007. Has Saint Nic found his new home at last? What will the elves do to protect this one against the mischief of the Snow Goblyns? Who are their new neighbours in the nearby mountains? Will Giegelfier muck up their plans?

Life is never easy for Father Christmas, but he has your belief in him to keep going. And that is part of why Christmas is such a magical time of the year.

Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noel!

But one must never lose hope… especially at Christmas!

Thank goodness! Can you imagine the look on the face of the children that expect his annual visit if he never arrived?

Please enjoy more from our Father in the North from 2005

Please enjoy this letter from the Ward Boys… Happy Boxing Day those in Great Britain and Canada!

One might think he could go anywhere in the North. But Father Christmas explains how that just wouldn’t be right.

With their permission, Jack presents the first of the Ward Father Christmas Letters- from 1999.

The fantastic artwork of Matt Leong of the DoubledorkMeter Podcast and Draw Something Cool has done it again and sent us a great new icon to be used for Shannon’s opus- “Hugo and Alice”

Thanks so much Matt!

We’re back to the novels, and Shannon with a new job this week, this means Jack is up again!

So more Age … Up to Chapter 16 this time! Thanks so much to Dave for the Story So Far…

With grateful thanks to our Matt Leong who just delivered this piece of awesome artwork for Jack’s book “The Age of Adventure- The Signet”

Go rush out and buy your piece of original work from Matt while you still can at Draw Something Cool or listen to Matt’s own amazing podcast (a MUST LISTEN for Geeks Everywhere) The Doubledork Meter Podcast

1. Apparently one of our microphones in the studio puts on an annoying buzz that shows up in the playback, but doesn’t show up amidst the background noise visually. I removed it best I could, but it was too painful to listen to anything but Shannon’s brief introduction with. So poor Shannon, trooper that she is. got in and rerecorded the Chapter.

2. Pro Tools decided not to allow me to edit any files. 7 days of emails and phone calls back and forth, and I discovered that Windows sometimes sets files to be able to be compressed even if you don’t want it to. Apparently, it has something to do with the scan disk function.

At any rate, everything was back up and running, and last night amidst recording Sonic Society, Sonic Gold, some acting work for Zombie Astronaut, and Broken Sea’s Grog & Gryphon I got to cobble together my private joy. The Age of Adventure.

I can’t really put into words how it makes me feel to be present while Shannon is reading this novel of mine. Not only is it truly a work of love and a trip down my own memory lane of childhood, she just is able to bring the characters alive for me. She really is a gifted reader and actress. I’m incredibly lucky, and trust me, I know it.

This week represents the end of a halfway mark. Shannon and I will take a two week story hiatus (What? You just had a series of breakdowns! Wasn’t that enough!?) Well, when you’re scrambling to fix technical things, you’re not able to work on the story editing.

But trust me, things will not go completely on hiatus. Shannon and I will have some interum interviews of our works. It should be a lot of fun, and I hope you continue to stick around- In the Age of Adventure.

Enjoy this, the next episode of Jack’s fantastic novel, Age of Adventure. I know I loved reading it. He just gets better!

Next week, show. Unless Mother Nature has anything left to throw at us.

Good news! This is a much longer episode! By God, it’s almost twenty whole minutes! A vast improvement over the last episode of my novel. Enjoy!

Shannon will be back with a double-helping of “Hugo and Alice”. Right now she’s busily working on her LSAT and we all wish her luck!

This week, Will takes a leap of faith- right off the stern of the flying ship The Valiant, and down to the land of Albaron.

Can he find the Signet ring and save the crown of Albaron for Queen Elspeth?

Have a listen to find out!

Enjoy chapter 13 of this amazing novel! Huge thanks to Bill Hollweg for providing Jack’s Story So Far for this week!

Also note: ON TIME!

However, in order to make this quota, Hugo and Alice is going through a couple of changes. These changes apply to HUGO AND ALICE only. Jack’s novel is different, and will (as far as I know) continue on as normal. From now on, I will not have a introduction/closing, and I will not have a story so far. Why? Well, all my story so fars are all turning out to be the same thing….

I want people to be able to just listen. No interruptions, nothing but story.

If you disagree with my choices, or if you even agree, feel free to let me know here in the comments. Jack thinks you’ll all burn me at the stake, so let’s see if he’s right. Thanks everyone, and enjoy the show.

Shannon and I are back though, and we’re going to reward people for hanging in there with your kindness and dilligence and deference. Take care and enjoy this week’s Story So Far from Rob Paterson” of Kung Fu Action Theatre!

Seriously, I have no excuse. Allow me to post this file, and then slink away, to go hide under the rug in SHAME.

BURNING SHAME.

This show continues to be a very favourite of mine. I hope you enjoy it too!

Sometimes life can just get in the way of your best laid plans, and I apologise for the two days late and a dollar short. We’ll make it up in the future I promise!

Sorry this is so late being out. This weekend is the Canadian Thanksgiving, so I had to roll out of a gravy induced coma…

I know you’re all looking for my novel portion right now, but I have to burst your bubble and give your spirits a gentle but loving crush.

Due to the fact that work and school are eating my life, the library will be changing slightly. There were still be content each week, but only one show. Jack and I will alternate weeks, so you’ll still get both of our stories. Just think of it as more time to savour and enjoy…

Thanks everyone.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Fergus

Here’s Wikipedia’s description of “The Grand” river, inspiration for “The Divine”

Willard’s public school “James Black Elementary” was a mix of my public school James McQueen and my sister’s school John Black PS.

The Swimming Pool Will sneaks around that’s just situated on the banks of “The Divine” is based on the old swimming pool in Fergus. Unfortunately its been closed down. It needs a transfusion of funds, if anyone is a multi-millionaire looking at this.

Some other pictures of the town.

Groves Mills

The Grand

Another of the old Pool with the bridge where I lost my bathing suit over. Since watching it fall, I’ve always had a desire to jump off of heights. Scary!

Small pic of my High School before it got knocked down. Centre Wellington District High School (always called CWDHS)

Elora Quarry. Lots of movies filmed here. Inspiration for the caves that Willard goes to. And another shot here.

Downtown Elora from the Grand perspective.

One of my jobs I kept in university was working security nights at this Inn. They have a waterfall, and generate their own power and sell it back to the town for a profit!

Can you see Kyann and Willard playing in the Elora Gorge? Maybe here?

Yes, I had a stupidly idyllic childhood.

Thanks so much for walking with me down memory lane, and seeing a little of where Willard came from!

All readers love a good library right?

Thanks again to the Zombie Astronaut for his AWESOME work on this.

You know… if the movie promo guy has passed away… well, I’m just saying. There’s an opening, and Zombie would rock. Just saying!

I’ve had these promos floating around the Internet forever, but not put on the feed.

Please feel MORE THAN FREE to snag this amazing Hugo and Alice promo and affix it where ever good audio may be.

Once again, our eternal thanks to the tireless and amazing talent of the Zombie Astronaut! Go Zombie!

Chris Moody wrote us and asked if we might consider splitting the feed for the Library of Jack and Shannon.

Shannon and I talked this over. We think such a thing defeats the purpose of having the Library in the first place. There’s more than one book in a library, and more than one story to be had.

The good news is that there’s different files, so if you want, you can always resort them… or just enjoy each story as they come. And please keep listening. We love telling tales!

Now download this show and enjoy his wonderful writing!

Enjoy!

Some days, its just a matter of finding a spare few minutes!

Hope you like it With much thanks to the Zombie Astronaut for recording the narration!

We’re still playing with the format of the podcast as we learn how to do this podnovel thing. Please give us your feedback at sonicsociety AT gmail DOT com.

Kyann continues to teach our young Will about life and mischief making!

****************UPDATE**************

Apologies to Matt and everyone. The sound levels were a little wonky on the first upload of this, so I have fixed them and resent the file up. Thanks so much for your patience on this folks!

So here I am, back again! Twice as mean, with a half-finished root canal! What could be more fun? Well, maybe having a day like Hugo has in this section of the novel.

A huge thank you to Matt Leong, who was kind enough to lend his voice to our first “Story So Far” for both Jack and I. We really appreciate it.

Enjoy the show!

Here’s episode 2 and Chapter 2 of The Library of Jack and Shannon’s “The Age of Adventure: Book 2: The Signet” written by Jack J. Ward and read by our Shannon.

Note that once again, the theme music of the Library of Jack and Shannon is the amazing Nine Inch Nail’s song “12 Ghosts II”. Thanks to Trent for being the cool dude that he is to allow folks to have access to his work!

In this episode, Willard gains an ally in one of the most unusual of circumstances.

I hope you enjoy!

Please note the music is from Shannon’s favourite band, Nine Inch Nails and is called “12 Ghosts II”. It’s a very cool and kind of creepy instrumental to wrap the show around.

This section includes one of my personal favourite descriptions in all of English literature. Yeah, that’s a huge boast- but I can say that- Miss Hilchie is amazing. Enjoy the story as the mystery of exactly what is happening to Hugo deepens!

I was really hoping to get it up and running for tonight’s show, and I’m not going to cross it fully off the posibilities list, but I don’t think it will be managed.

Bear with us! We’ll all be fully operational soon! Even if it kills us.

Shows will be up late tonight, two full twenty minute plus episodes!

This is Shannon Hilchie, here with the very first episode of my new podcast novel, Hugo and Alice! I really hope you enjoy it, because I put my heart into writing it.

This is a short intro episode, just a taste to test the waters. It’s twelve minutes long, just enough to get you (hopefully) excited about the full-length episode next week!

Don’t forget to also check out Jack’s wonderful novel too. It’s a fantastic story and I know you’ll love it.

Enjoy my first section, and good luck guessing where all the names of the characters are from!

~Shannon

Shannon Hilchie reads the Preface and the very First Chapter. It’s short, but its up.

Next week the story continues… until then.  See you in the Library!

Happy Reading…

This Thursday will see the beginning of Jack Ward’s epic, The Age of Adventure. We will also start Shannon Hilchie’s tale of Hugo and Alice, so stay tuned and get ready to listen!