Each July, Stephen Gregory Smith celebrates his birthday with a retro-party, turning the basement of his Fairlington, Va., home into an ‘80s arcade with Nintendo, Atari, and PlayStation.
There are neon lights shining, early Madonna albums spinning, and sometimes even projected footage of zombie arms reaching into the room. “It’s a great time,” he says.
Like Smith’s annual get-together, his new podcast “Longshot” is rooted in nostalgia for the actor/writer’s Pennsylvania tweenhood.
But Smith takes it further. By combining LGBTQ young adult fiction and sci-fi set against malls and a zombie apocalypse with a dose of dinosaurs and interstellar travel, he creates the ultimate adventure.