Soman Chainani and Cave Twins Tell Stories of Monsters on ‘SongWriter’

Author of the bestselling School for Good and Evil series (which is currently being made into a major movie by Warner Bros), Soman Chainani, reads a children’s story he wrote for SongWriter, about an evil bear that eats children. David Mayfield and Abby Rose, who perform as Cave Twins, perform their song, “Mighty Mountain Monster,” and talk about how America’s political divisions inform their art.

The SongWriter podcast is a podcast of stories and answer songs because host Ben Arthur knows that writers and musicians are mutually intrigued by each other’s craft.

“Each of us imagines that the other’s playspace is somehow more pure, more fun,” Arthur says, “when, really, it’s a funny window into a kind of magical thinking we have about the art forms that we’re less comfortable in.”

At the same time, each art form has unique ways of captivating its audience, a “secret language to get inside people’s chests,” Arthur said. “My lifelong passion is to figure out how that works.”

Listen to the new episode of SongWriter below:

Photo credit: Brian Blauser/Mountain Stage