Moonshineland is a scripted horror/true crime podcast written by Ryan Michael Hines, starring Dave Theune and Jessica Kozak

I am a writer and producer living in Los Angeles who is originally from back east. I have written several feature and pilot scripts as well as all four episodes of MOONSHINELAND. Our show stars two phenomenal actors named Jessica Kozak and Dave Theune. You can see Dave in several episodes of your favorite TV shows and Jess (who is also a writer and director) just wrapped principal photography on her first feature film. The podcast was recorded at Fireflower Studios in Los Angeles. Cooper Appelt, who engineered the recording sessions, is a professional musician who plays all over LA and tours as well.

MOONSHINELAND is a tale of haunted Appalachia. Based on Horace Kephart’s first person account of prohibition era murder, moonshine, and mountain mayhem “Our Southern Highlanders” and Madeline Vinton Dahlgren’s classic book on the Appalachian occult “South Mountain Magic,” MOONSHINELAND is the story of two friends’ journey into the Appalachian wilderness on a manhunt for a fugitive moonshiner. But instead of tracking a human criminal, the men discover they are on the trail of an ancient Evil, the Wolf Man of Appalachia, and that they, the hunters, have become the hunted.

The inspiration for MOONSHINELAND lies in true historical events: When a murderous Moonshiner escaped his prison cell in prohibition era Appalachia, real life adventurer and author Horace Kephart joined the manhunt for him led by a US Marshal and a Cherokee war hero turned bounty hunter. It was the adventure of a lifetime and Kephart wrote about it in his true crime book "Our Southern Highlanders." But we here at MOONSHINELAND have discovered a lost, apocryphal edition of Kephart's book that details the mysterious, supernatural events that took place on this manhunt that the publisher refused to print.

Our listeners are anyone who loves horror, true crime, and are brave enough to learn the "truth" about what happened to those three men up in the Appalachian mountains one winter back in 1922.
 

I love listening to podcasts, audio books, as well as old radio dramas like "Gunsmoke." I wanted to merge my love for writing and storytelling with my love of audio entertainment.

Our only goal at MOONSHINELAND is to share this incredible story with everyone who has the guts to listen to it.

We started recording MOONSHINELAND at Fireflower Studios in Los Angeles earlier this year and released our first episode in July.
 

It's always a balancing act getting the schedule right for a production. Everyone involved in MOONSHINELAND is an entertainment industry professional, so we had to find time between Dave and Jess's busy schedules as well as Coopers gigs.

MOONSHINELAND is self funded.
 

The biggest benefit to podcasting is being able to share this really cool story with the world. We have listeners from all over the globe. It's amazing to wake up, check my downloads, and see that people in places as far away as Germany or Australia are just as interested in MOONSHINELAND as folks in the area where the story takes place.
 

We recorded with professional equipment at Fireflower Studios, but I used logic pro to edit and mix everything on my laptop sitting on the couch in my apartment.

After we recorded all the actor's VO at Fireflower, Cooper would send me a link to download the audio files. Once each episode's vocals were cut and edited I would go back and add the music cues and sound effects.
 

We have a FB page https://www.facebook.com/Moonshineland2022 and an Instagram account @moonshineland_2022 . Originally we were getting most of our listeners from Apple podcasts, but that has shifted now and most people are listening on Spotify.

Instagram has been a great way for us to get the word out about the pod.
 

Try to be patient with yourself as you attempt a new creative endeavor. It takes a huge amount of time and energy to create a new project. That is why it is so important to have people in your life and creative partners that share your vision and enthusiasm for the material.

If you are interested in doing a podcast that has lots of music and sound effects like ours did I highly recommend looking at the audio assets sold by Triune Films, the people from the YouTube Channel Film Riot. We're not sponsored by them or anything. I just think they have tremendous sounding audio assets for sale on their site and great technical tutorials on their YouTube.
 

You can learn more about our story at MOONSHINELAND's official website: https://moonshineland.podbean.com/ or at @moonshineland_2022 on instagram.
My personal Instagram is @rheadyallready . You can find Jess and Dave at @jess.kozak and @davetheune respectively. Fireflower Studios' Instagram handle is @fireflowerstudiosla and their website is https://www.fireflowerstudiosla.com/