Tom Ray's Art Podcast Creators & Guests

Chris Lester has been telling stories for about as long as he can remember, and credits a writing contest in elementary school for introducing him to his muse. Trained as a biologist at the University of California-Santa Cruz, he received his master's degree in 2004 and is now working as a microbiologist in Madison, Wisconsin.After years of writing for Internet mailing lists and a small circle of friends, in September 2007 Chris launched The Metamor City Podcast as a way of bringing his fiction to a broader audience. The show soon drew praise for its engaging characters, imaginative world-setting, and superior production values. Metamor City's first "season" ran from September 2007 to May 2009 and featured several short stories and novelettes and one full-length novel, MAKING THE CUT, which was presented as a full-cast audio production with music and sound effects. MAKING THE CUT won the 2009 Parsec Award for Outstanding Long-Form Audio Drama, and Metamor City's first season also garnered a 2008 Podcast Peer Award for superior audio production.In 2009-2011 Chris released three additional novellas on The Metamor City Podcast: "Whispers in the Wood", "Dreams of Change" (written by Nobilis Reed, and available in print as part of his QUICKSILVER BRIDGES anthology), and "A Lightbringer Carol." In March 2011 Chris ended the podcast in order to focus on completing the second full-length Metamor City novel, THINGS UNSEEN, which was published in 2013.In May 2015 Chris debuted a new weekly podcast, THE RAVEN & THE WRITING DESK, focusing on simple serialized storytelling and updates on his new writing endeavors. Since launching the new show, Chris has used it to air numerous short stories and three complete novels: THE THREE GRACES, THINGS UNSEEN (which won the 2017 Parsec Award for Best Podcast Novel), and THE LOST AND THE LEAST.Since returning to podcasting, Chris has published five additional books of his fiction: URBAN LEGENDS, MAKING THE CUT, DIVINE INTERVENTION, THE LOST AND THE LEAST, and HOMECOMING. His first collection of non-Metamor fiction, DISTANT REALMS, will be released in early 2020.