Bios are here posted on Chris’s blog Writers@WRUV, and tomorrow, Chris will be posting the excerpts and an MP3 of the show, in case you missed it.

One of the interesting elements for me was how much editing I was led to do in the course of preparing simply from the experience of reading aloud. The excerpt I sent to Chris on Monday at his request (to give him an idea of what was coming and allow him to vet it for possible FCC violations) was not—and I cleared this with Chris ahead of time—not exactly the same as what I read on the air.

Because a high percentage of the excerpt is dialogue between two characters, reading the piece was—in effect—acting it out and allowed me to test the veracity of the characterization: did it hold up to scrutiny? My answer when I first read it was, “not yet.”

I changed words to synonyms that flowed more trippingly off the tongue in the particular context; rearranged sentence parts; changed the order of the first several paragraphs to make the “argument” of the section progress more persuasively; added a puzzled interjection from one of the characters at a point where she had earlier said nothing; and repeated one particular word to make a stronger connection between sections.

I’d like to thank Chris again for the opportunity: it was great fun!