Jeffrey Cranor is a partner in and co-founder of Night Vale Presents. He co-writes the podcasts welcome to night vale and within the wires. He co-wrote with Joseph Fink the novels Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! An alumnus of the performance art collective the New York neo-futurists, Jeffrey also creates theater and dance with choreographer (and wife) Jillian Sweeney.

Clips of Welcome to Night Vale courtesy of You Tube, Inc.

For every established Hollywood producer there are countless up-and-coming writers desperately trying to get their work read. Despite the odds of ‘making it’ these people continue to write. In our podcast series, “Toiling in Obscurity” we hear from working writers on their day to day obstacles and what keeps them inspired to keep writing.

Michael Soll is an Austin Film Festival Finalist whose screenplay, Catalyst won the Drama Feature Category in 2016 and is currently in pre-production. At 17, Michael wrote his first screenplay, a teenage coming-of-age story. In addition to features, he also enjoys writing books. His novel, Scorched, was an Amazon Bestseller. We spoke with Michael during the Austin Film Festival to discuss what keeps him motivated to write and how AFF helped advance his script further in the industry.