Carl Hoover
Jan 2, 2025
Alexandra Segel’s “Hellhound Country” breaks new ground as Rogue Media Network's first serial narrative
It's new territory as well for the 27-year-old Segel, an Austin screenwriter branching out into audio fiction. Her “Hellhound Country” made the top 2% of screenwriting scripts submitted to the 2023 Austin Film Festival and was one of its top 10 fiction podcasts.
Her interest in writing for the ear, what she considers “the most intimate form of storytelling,” eventually connected her with Rogue Media’s Hamilton, who was equally interested in exploring fictional podcasts.
A conversation led to a collaboration, and “Hellhound Country” will be realized as a 10-episode series, with two episodes already out and ready for listening, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms.
The series’ storyline follows a mother and her 13-year-old daughter as they drive from Alaska to Washington state after finding a man dead in their kitchen and their husband/father missing. What they encounter on the way — well, let’s just say the story falls in the horror/supernatural genre.
What makes “Hellhound Country” distinctive is the prevalence of female voices in the story, with most of the characters women.
Segel finds writing audio fiction requires flipping the film school/journalism adage, “show, don’t tell,” with production, such as sound effects, an important part of the storytelling. “I’m unlearning some of the things I learned in film school,” she said.
Nearly two dozen actors provided the voices for the series, recorded on weekends at Rogue Media Network’s ALICO Building headquarters.
Read the complete article in the Waco-Tribune Herald here.