Daniel Manning

In high school I was really good at English and Literature. When my literature teacher let the class “work together” on homework, everyone else just passed around my answers and copied them and my teacher didn’t care because it was easier grading for her. For some reason, that didn’t make me smart. I was “creative” because I liked to read and write. People who were good at math and chemistry were smart.

Daniel Manning, creator of the award-winning podcast Ars Paradoxica, was one of the smart kids in high school.

For the longest time, I wanted to go into science and do something with chemistry. I was very into chemistry as a youth and a teenager.

Dan hasn’t let go of that love of science one bit, but it stopped being his first love early on. Dan had an English teacher sophomore year that “lit the arts fire” under him, showing him the beauty of story and fiction. But, like most kids in America choosing their college majors, the idea of pursuing a dream that would probably never turn a profit, Dan struggled to commit to the arts.

I was trying as hard as I could to say ‘oh, you don’t want to be a writer because writers and those kinds of people, they don’t make any money and everyone looks down on how useless their job is.’ And at some point I was just like ‘f*ck that, that’s a dumb thing to think. It’s what you want to do.’

Dan didn’t know it yet but that decision, that glorious moment of clarity, would lead to him create one of the most followed and loved podcasts today. He didn’t know that he would bring to life characters that feel real to thousands of fans. He didn’t that he would always combine his love of science with his escapades in the arts. He didn’t know that he would fall in love with radio and sound as the medium for storytelling. He didn’t even know Mischa Stanton, his ultimate partner in crime. All he knew was that he was going to Emerson College for Journalism, though even that would change soon.

Dan Goes to College

Dan went to Emerson to study journalism but quickly realized it wasn’t for him.

I realized I don’t actually like journalism. I dont like interviewing people or talking to them or reporting… I’ve come to gain an appreciation of those things now, but as an eighteen-year-old I was like ‘I just want to write things.’

So, instead of journalism, Dan majored in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. But, honestly, Dan’s formal studies didn’t come up much in our interview. What did come up was enough sneaking around and unapproved broadcasting to justify expulsion. But we should build up to that.

Dan lived down the hall from Mischa Stanton, a sound designer and his close friend. The two of them developed an interest in numbers stations early on in their friendship. If you’re like me, you don’t know what those are. Don’t worry, Dan explained it to me and I will explain it to you. Numbers stations are short-wave radio stations that remain silent the vast majority of the time, and when they do broadcast it is merely a string of numbers that are nearly impossible to make sense of without a deciphering key. These stations developed in the Cold War and continue today to the glee of conspiracy-theorists around the world.

Right around the time Dan was reading into these numbers stations, another friend of Dan’s invited him to guest host on the college radio show he hosted.

[The show] was the midnight to 2am slot, which is very late… And we were still going up to 2am past.

Around three in the morning – a full hour after the show should have ended – Dan asked his friend if they had to leave the studio at some point.

He said, well, there’s no one on after us and no one’s really listening anyway. So we can just do whatever we want.

That got Dan thinking. He reached out to Mischa to create a fake numbers station that they would broadcast on the college radio station. Or to put it in Dan’s words, “we would have our friend with the radio show sneak it on to the radio late at night.” The heroes of our story had a plan, and off they went on their glorious quest.

From Radio to Podcasts

The numbers didn’t translate to much, which is reasonable because no one was really listening. After broadcasting a few times, Dan decided he wanted the numbers to say something, to tell a story entirely in code.

We came upon the idea of an alternate history, where someone goes back in time and prevents the Kennedy assassination and that causes all its own problems…

Dan and Mischa mapped out an entire alternate timeline using library books and Wikipedia and coded it all, knowing no one would take the time to decode it but loving that idea and having a lot of fun creating it anyway. So they finished one story and began making another, but right in the middle things got knocked off track.

In the middle of broadcasting these, we got in trouble because I went to the radio station when they were accepting new shows and I was like ‘hey, you should accept our radio show because by the way, not only do we have extra bonus content, but we’ve been sneaking on to your station for a like year now.’ Turns out, they really don’t like it when you say that. I thought it would make us seem cool and edgy, and it made them see ‘oh, this is a safety hazard.’

After promising not to break any rules, Dan and Mischa did get a show the next year and even managed to mostly stick to that agreement. But at the end of college, the duo realized they had a really cool story that no one would ever listen to. So why not make it a narrative thing? Dan had been listening to podcasts for years at that point, but there weren’t a ton of fiction podcasts beyond Welcome to Nightvale. So they set out to make “the best time travel show” and, after months of tinkering, the first six episodes of Ars Paradoxica were born.

The Realities of the World

Ars Paradoxica has now finished its third season and finished telling the story of Dr. Sally Grissom, a brilliant scientist from sometime in the 2000’s who finds herself transported to 1943 America and forced to work for the military despite her deep desire to get back home. She is accompanied by soldiers like Chet Wickman and nosy investigators like Lou Gaines. They all come together in Point of Exile, Colorado, a secret government location where Dr. Grissom tests her inventions. The show investigates the way power corrupts people, the consequences that accompany every choice, and all of the things that come with a world centered around time.

The concept of time and the costs and benefits that accompany time has been a major interest of Dan’s for a long time as well as the major unforeseen obstacle in making the show, right alongside casting.

Scheduling and casting are outrageously difficult, or at least so much more difficult than you’d think or you’d expect.

With six writers and over 20 regular characters split between the east and west coasts, it makes sense that it took over a month just to schedule some of the post-finale talks the crew produced for their fans.

You’re constantly butting up against the realities of the world versus the things you want the world to do.

See, the amazing crew Dan works with doesn’t make money off of their podcast. They have jobs and lives and families to keep up with alongside producing Ars Paradoxica. But, in the face of all of those commitments, they have continued to spend hours and hours producing a story that has captured thousands of fans. Why? Knowing the immense value of time (Dan and I had a solid half hour talk about that value during our interview), why spend so much time on this one thing?

With Ars Paradoxica, more than just about anything I’ve had or worked on in my life, Ars Paradoxica is worth all of those hours because I know, deep down in my soul that I would be incredibly unhappy with myself if I let that go… it would nag at me forever… for a long time, a lot of making Ars Paradoxica, it was a necessary regurgitation, because there was so much in me and I had to get it outside of myself.

Anyone with a creative passion knows exactly what Dan is talking about, the feeling that there is a world inside of you and you have to make it real. And something special happens when it finally comes together, finally exists in reality.

We made it to the end and I think that’s really gratifying that I have spent those hours and I can point back to them and say that I spent them doing this thing, this really cool thing. And no one can take that from me.

The Fans and the Fiction

A show as successful as Ars Paradoxica is built on a solid fan base, and interacting with fans has been a major learning experience. Dan consistently finds his fans to be “fun people” and works to “cultivate a space where it is okay to be less formal with fans” as well as learning for himself that “you can always say nothing.”  However, alongside that desire to get to know his fans as individuals is the struggle to maintain some level of distance that allows for his and his team’s creative space.

I really like trying to make a space where the fans feel wanted and are meaningful, because they are, but I don’t want, on the other hand, for us to be beholden to the fandom content machine that is constantly asking for and clamoring for new stuff. But I also don’t want to be like ‘we’re the creatives and we don’t owe anything to you, we don’t have to be community people,’ because you kind of do.

Ultimately, Dan works to treat his fans well because they often remind him of himself, and that recognition drives him to use his storytelling to remind them that “it’s gonna be okay.” Why? Because people like Dan are committed to using their work to make sure they leave the world a little better than they found it.

Through a very diverse writers room and a cast of characters that encounter a host of social issues, Dan finds that Ars Paradoxica allows him to comment on and critique some of his personal and present-day passions.

Part of the reason we staged things the way we did was we kind of wanted to show that we’re not actually that far from the casual sexism and systemic racism of the 1940s and 50s. We’re not actually that different from them… the people are not that different.

Dan and his crew decided to center the people that have been consistently overlooked or erased by history and historical fiction. In other words, Dan wanted to show that even though women and black people and gay people were oppressed and silenced, they did exist. They lived in that time as people and deserve to be included in that landscape.

Dan and his crew agreed that they had to be thoughtful about “the world they were putting their work into” and “make sure their work reflects their values.”

The story continues to be compelling and fascinating and immersive, but Dan does not believe that fiction demands a complete erasure of the world we live in and the problems that exist there. So he encourages his fans by presenting and wrestling with those issues to show that things can change and even become better.

Outside of Ars Paradoxica: Daniel Manning

When he isn’t spending hours working out schedules and writing stories, Dan immerses himself in fiction as much as possible.

I really love managing role-playing games, because at once you have to be an entertainer, a host, a spreadsheet, a world-builder, and an improviser. And putting all those things together is incredibly gratifying… I think it has made me a better storyteller, and I think it has made me a more social and creative person.

Dan is currently a part of three D&D campaigns (one of which he manages), one Dungeon World campaign, and a game of Fate. This is how Dan has built his friend group, merged different groups together, and how he relaxes, despite the fact that it can get exhausting keeping up with it all.

I play a lot of video games of various shades. I play card games, I’m a big Magic player. I play EDH (Commander), a special variant of Magic.

All of these hobbies push Dan in a creative space of world and character building. Beyond the games, Dan listens to “a ton” of podcasts.

Since July 27, 2016, I have listened to 132 days and 17 hours of podcasts.

That number comes via the statistics section of his podcast app. While Dan immediately assured me that it was really only half that time because he listens to podcasts on double speed, he also started exclaiming “a third of a year? Really?”, so, it is really a lot of time from all perspectives.

Lastly, Dan says “and then, I don’t know, sometimes I like to go outside.”

Coming Up

Dan has a lot of stuff coming up. Several new shows are coming out that Dan will be working on from Western stories to swashbuckling space pirates, and each of those stories has him looking forward to what the future holds.

Personally, what I am really excited for is – I want to make new shows. I’m very excited for being a sound designer and producing stuff. Even though I came in as a writer, I really found, in doing sort of the extracurricular art stuff, that I’ve really loved producing sounds and designing mixing and all of that jazz. And it’s sort of been a realm that I have been kind of exploring and now I’m going whole hog into them.

Dan is already acting on some projects (the specifics of which he wasn’t ready to discuss) as a director and he is really enjoying it. So, when it comes to the future, Dan is excited about podcasting, about being in the industry and doing what he loves.

I’m excited for a future where I can make more shows and  future where I can, maybe, possibly, do this thing full time. And maybe become a real producer and make things. That’s what I’m excited for in the future, to make more stuff.

Dan spent seven years making Ars Paradoxica, and he is ready to do new stuff and see what comes out of that. So, if you like great stories, a lot of nerdiness, a little bit of goofiness, and some top production quality, look for anything with Dan’s name on it and you’ll find what you’re looking for.