Atypical Artists Quarterly, March 2026 - the audiovisual edition!
This podcast episode is a direct transcription of our quarterly newsletter - as a pal, a lot of this is going to sound familiar, but if you haven't checked the Patreon in a while, this is a good summation of what's been going on!
Happy Spring!
Welcome to the first Atypical Artists newsletter of the year! We’re reaching the end of the first quarter, and we already have a lot to talk about. This is also the first newsletter published through Beehiiv, so thank you in advance for your patience as I figure everything out! If you received both this and a newsletter through Squarespace, apologies - there shouldn’t be any redundancies, but that will be the last time we send a quarterly through Squarespace, so it won’t happen again.
I had a hard time trying to figure out how to title this newsletter and decided to pull from one of the many all-caps responses I’ve gotten to Atypical Artists’ newest episode release. So let’s start there:
New year, new New Year’s Day
That’s a lot of “new”s! For the uninitiated, New Year’s Day is our yearly podcast about two rival magicians in the late nineteenth century who accidentally become immortal. They go from enemies to reluctant friends to…?
I’ve pitched this show as a slow burn so slow and so burn-y that it’ll drive you bananas. So far, so good. The show only releases once a year, on January 1st, so the start of this quarter saw the release of Episode 5. And people on the internet have been shouting (lovingly) at me ever since.
The slow burn is given fuel throughout the year with the monthly missives - journal entries, letters, telegrams, etc. from the world of the show, giving a glimpse at the thirteen years that pass between each episode. And stuff is really kicking up this year. March’s missive had people saying “LAUREN WHY” and there’s going to be a special additional missive that comes out for our paid Patreon supporters on April 1st. And if you’re a fan of this story and thought you were mad at me now, just wait until April 15th. It’s a doozy.
All to say, now is the perfect time to get into this show! A lot of fun stuff is happening in the story before next year’s episode and you can get the missives delivered directly to you by signing up for our free Patreon! More on that below.
Before I move on from New Year’s Day entirely, I have been absolutely blessed to have some truly incredible artists start to draw art for this show. Their enthusiasm came out of nowhere - Noah Dao is the amazing character artist for Phantom Pulse and Léa Charbonnier has drawn Bright Sessions fanart before - but I feel absurdly lucky that they’ve both gotten into this show in particular, at a time when I’m really excited where the story is going.
I highly recommend that you follow both of them on Instagram (and check out Noah’s Patreon!) for this and all their other stunning art!
I was so inspired by Léa’s art that I ended up writing a little story inspired by it that could, technically, be considered canon. I had so much fun with it, that it led to a new series on the Atypical Artists Patreon called “Atypical Asides”. Read the New Year’s Day story for free and read on to learn more about our Patreon…
The Atypipals are thriving
The supporters of Atypical Artists have been called the Atypipals for years and in late 2025, we made the move from Memberful back to Patreon! It has been wonderful getting reacquainted with the platform (which now has many features that make it possible for Atypical to be on there, like having multiple podcast feeds) and now that I’ve got a few months under my belt, I’ve settled into a nice publishing cadence. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s going on each month:
First Monday: Atypical Asides (paid pals only (for the most part))
The 15th: New Year’s Day missive (paid and free, paid 1 day early)
Last Monday: Monthly Mixtape (paid and free)
I’m also doing livestreams every Friday at 2pm PT. Here’s what those look like throughout any given month, with the public livestreams being a mix of chatting, playing video games, and listening to audio drama:
First Friday: Public livestream; playback only for paid
Second Friday: Plus pals exclusive Q&A
Third Friday: Public livestream; playback only for paid
Fourth Friday: Public audio drama office hour
And then, of course, there’s our discord and all the other stuff I do throughout the month as things come up, both for paid supporters and free subscribers. It’s already such a fun community and it’s growing every day, so be sure to sign up if you want more frequent insights into what we’re doing beyond these quarterly newsletters!
Ready to make YOUR audio drama?
The line between lover of audio drama and creator of audio drama is very thin and one that is frequently hopped over! If you’re someone contemplating making your own audio drama, you may already be familiar with Atypical’s extensive resources, but I’m plugging them here again because the Production Handbook has recently gotten an update! There are no major revelations, just some refined details and workflows, as well as a bunch of new templates. You can get that here and while you’re on our website, go check out our script editing and story consulting services. Atypical Artists has provided consulting services for years, but we recently overhauled our whole system to include script editing, so if you need your dialogue to shine, I can help you with that!
Recommendation Corner
If you’re a fan of Atypical Artists then I know you love audio drama, science fiction, complicated women, and queer characters. Well, have we got a show for you!
DERELICT is an incredibly well made, immersive, compelling story about what happens when you dig up something that you really shouldn't have. you can listen to the first two seasons (which take place deep underwater and then up in space, the two most terrifying places to be imho), and then support their crowdfund for season 3!! Which you absolutely should do!!!
Odds & Ends
TWO THOUSAND AND LATE was nominated for Best Fiction Podcast at The Ambies - while we didn’t win (congrats to Red for Revolution!), I’m really humbled that we got the loudest cheer when the nominees were read 🥹
We still have our Havoc Wreaker buttons and Wreak Some Havoc stickers in stock! Grab them while you can!
While our 10th anniversary bonanza for The Bright Sessions is over, there are some fun updates! We recently overhauled our website and bonus content to make everything a little easier to find, and The Bright Sessions Compendium is now available in digital form!
Briggon Snow and I are currently working on something that I’m pretty excited about…a new show that’s a departure from anything Atypical Artists has done but that’s been a joy to make so far. It’s not a fiction podcast, but it does involve fiction stories. We’ve talked a bit about it on our Patreon livestreams, and here’s a preview of the lovely show art by Shae McMullin (who also designed the TBS Compendium)!
Every complete Atypical Artists show is now available for purchase on Bandcamp. We kicked launched our Bandcamp by doing a fundraiser for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and we raised over $500!! Which was pretty awesome!
Finally, take a good look at the header, because that may be the last time you see it in a newsletter. I’m in the midst of doing a major Atypical Artists rebrand to better reflect the kind of studio we are now and by the end of next quarter (when you’ll next hear from this mailing list), we should have done a full launch of the new look!
I hope everyone’s 2026 has gotten off to as good a start as it possibly can! No matter what, we’ll be here giving you stories that make you feel all kinds of things - thank you so much for listening to them and we can’t wait to bring you more!
Stay strange,
💚 Lauren
