Austin Bunn’s mountain-climbing story doesn’t end in death, but it was scary enough to inspire him to write one that does.
“DENALI,” written by Bunn, associate professor of performing and media arts in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be released Jan. 23 as an Audible Original audiobook.
“One of my closest childhood friends is really into mountain climbing so he convinced me to climb Mount Whitney with him in California,” said Bunn, adding that the 14,500-foot climb (the highest in the contiguous U.S.) involves deep snow, ice axes, crampons and altitude sickness. “At one point, near the summit, I got a splitting headache and told Josh I couldn’t go any further.”
Bunn sat down and passed out. When he woke up, Josh was gone.
Cue the whipping winds and foreboding music.
In Bunn’s own story, Josh returned from his own failed summit attempt and they both made their way off the mountain. But the harrowing experience – and Bunn’s own love of real-life disaster survival stories – inspired him to create the script for “DENALI,” a twist-laden thriller set on one of the most extreme environments on earth, Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in the Americas.
In the story, three friends set out on a 10-day climb of the rugged Alaskan peak, but after a serious of disastrous mistakes – and dark ulterior motives — only two descend alive. One of those two, Finn, ends up writing a best-selling memoir about the trip, while the other, Doug, threatens to expose the true story. Meanwhile, Abby, the sister of the dead hiker, untangles what really happened to her brother. The audio drama “with a full cast” stars Jack Falahee (ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder”), Amit Kaur (Netflix’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls”), and Jake Lacy (Max’s “The White Lotus”).
Bunn tells the story through three points of view: present-day scenes, excerpts from Finn’s memoir and an audio recording Finn made of their ascent.
“When you’re climbing in these extreme environments, you’re really not talking much with your fellow climbers, but there’s so much internal conversation going on inside your head,” Bunn said. Writing the memoir portion of the story also allowed Bunn to embrace his passion for disaster stories and revisit traditional tropes of boyhood friendships.
After he sold the idea to Audible, producers and casting staff there hired actors and Bunn spent some time transforming his play into an audio story. That required rewriting a few scenes and changing the organization a bit to something that “works in your ears,” he said. Production began in 2023, with actors Lacy, Falahee and Kaur on synchronous Zoom sessions in three separate sound studios across the continent.
“There’s something really natural to murder mysteries and thrillers in the audio format,” he said. “They have atmosphere, suspense, and keep you listening.”
“DENALI” isn’t Bunn’s first foray into the audiobook world. His audiobook “The Brink” was honored at the 2017 Audie Awards in New York City as the winner in the short stories/collections category. Often referred to as the “Oscars of spoken word entertainment,” the Audie Awards are given out by the Audio Publishers Association
The written version of “The Brink” was published in 2015, with stories that focus on core themes of large-scale change and transformation.
In October, Bunn released his book, ”Short Film Screenwriting: A Craft Guide and Anthology,” and last summer, “Ghosts,” a film directed by Jeffrey Palmer, associate professor in PMA (A&S), and written by Bunn, was one of only 15 films selected for the PBS Short Film Festival. Bunn’s short film, “Campfire,” won the 2023 Provincetown International Film Festival’s "best queer short" award, the Best LGBTQIA+ Short Award at the 2023 Cleveland International Film Festival and the Best LGBTQ Subject award from the 2023 Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival.
