I talk with Sam Bempong - multi-hyphenate film producer, creative entrepreneur, and community organizer - about what it takes to build the infrastructure for narrative film in your city. As a co-founder of #MakeItBay, she's been at the forefront of strengthening the narrative film industry in Oakland, Berkeley, and across the East Bay.

Topics include: Topics include: independent film production, creative entrepreneurship, film financing, local film economies, narrative storytelling, Bay Area filmmaking, arts organizing, and building a career in the business of art.

This episode is a reflection on the way art is used to manipulate reality, for good or ill. Trigger warning that this episode discusses the Epstein files, and the revelations the recent release have unveiled about celebrity culture, patriarchy, and social conditioning. The discussion moves from the societal to the personal, tracking the way that larger forces create conditions that permeate both our external and internal circumstances.  

face-eating leopards OR FAFO

Original poem by Sara Brink (2024)

The spiritual community exhorts us at this time to stay grounded in our bodies, so I offer this prayer/curse/warning as a reminder of exactly what our bodies can feel.

May we protect the vulnerable. May the next tent pole find purchase ten inches deeper.

Trigger warning: gore

Welcome to Dancing Stickman! 

This isn’t a typical podcast feed. I’m Sara Brink, creative director, and here’s how it works: each season is a complete, standalone narrative or experiment, and you can jump in anywhere. Between story seasons, I publish Worldsbuilder, interviews about the business of creativity — how artists make a living, sustain their work, and stay creative.

Story: Oops, All Witches – a complete D&D actual play campaign featuring the Witch Class created by Worlds Beyond Number. Perfect if you want to dive straight into story.

Experimental Gameplay: Broken Sky – a short, self-contained ARG with puzzles, mini-games, and interactive content created alongside other tabletop designers. Explore the full ARG here: www.brokensky.blue

Creative Business: Worldsbuilder – standalone interviews about making a living as an artist. Listen to any episode that catches your interest.

Short, finished projects — start and finish without commitment.

Stories, experimental gameplay, and insights into creative work.

Discover unique tabletop campaigns, interactive ARGs, and audio storytelling.

Oops, All Witches homepage: www.oopsallwitches.com

Broken Sky ARG & interactive content: www.brokensky.blue

Learn more about Dancing Stickman and upcoming projects: www.dancingstickman.com

Ash, Annette, Andy, and I reunite to chat about the end of Oops, All Witches. We talk witches, gods, and monsters, using fiction to represent ideal real-world solutions, and what comes next for Aelia.

Oops, All Witches was a Dancing Stickman production.

Ashlyn Sparrow as Nia

This episode was produced, edited, and sound designed by Sara Brink.

Our album and poster art was illustrated by Andy Mack. Character art designed by Nalakwsis.

This Dungeons & Dragons actual play is a playtest of the Witch class created by Mazey Veselak and Brandes Stoddard for Worlds Beyond Number. Check out the Worlds Beyond Number Patreon and listen to The Wizard, The Witch, and The Wild One wherever you get your podcasts.

www.oopsallwitches.com

In the wake of Renee Good's execution by the state, I have some things to say about American politics, art and fascism, and the expansion of our imaginations. Let's dream up a better world, and then let's build it.

You may know her as Nia from Oops, All Witches, but game designer and scholar Ashlyn Sparrow sat down with me today to talk about transmedia games, the future of the game industry, and how games can function as everything from educational tools to political praxis. From ARGs to emerging media, Ash offers a sharp, accessible look at how games reflect real life, how interactive storytelling is evolving, and how media makers and game designers can build systems that inspire civic engagement, collective action, and social change.

No better way to learn from one's mistakes than to publish them publicly on the internet, right? This is a breakdown of Broken Sky, a transmedia alternate reality game that I ran over July 2025. Join me for lessons learned from the experience.

See the archive of Broken Sky here.

How do we make a living making art? Kenna Alexander from Coyote & Crow Games joins me to talk about how they bootstrapped a game company after their surprise $1 million Kickstarter campaign demonstrated the demand for indigenous representation in tabletop gaming. Hear about their triumphs and their pitfalls when building a for-profit company with a built-in ethical system.

Note: this episode was recorded in February 2025, prior to Kenna's transition and name change.

Get an episode transcript here.

Connor's Coyote & Crow links:

Four Souls are drawn to the yawning Void at the center of their existences. 

This episode was supplemental material for players of the Broken Sky ARG. It contains a clue designed to move players from Act 2 to Act 3.

Casual listeners: These co-GM'ed scenes ran both Wickedness and D&D simultaneously, pairing our PCs across universes to create overlapping scenes. What you hear in these episodes are the intertwined stories of both actual plays in real time.

ARG participants: In this episode, discover a hidden object invisible to the characters. Only players who carefully followed the Act 1 clues could spot these items and unlock the path from Act 2 to Act 3 of the ARG.