A World by Jerome Bethea · Rights held by Listen LLC

Futuring

A story that has never been recorded —
and has never been forgotten.

Performed Fiction Universe· Frankfurter Buchmesse · 7–11 Oct 2026· World · German · Audio · Dramatic Rights Available
The story
The Work

Eight minutes. Heard once, carried for years.

The Futuring Story
Eight Minutes · Live Reading

The work at the center of this world exists only in the room where it is read. It has been performed at private tables, over a single phone call, and before rooms of investors — and by design, no recording of it exists anywhere. The people who have heard it still talk about it years later. That is not an accident. It is the architecture of the work.

What Happens When It Is Heard

It converts on contact.

$20,000

committed by an early listener after a single live reading of the eight-minute story.

One property

in the Caribbean, converted by its owner into a themed venue for live Futuring performances — the world escaping the page into the built environment.

Years

of unprompted public references from those who heard it once — including a Grammy-winning music executive who still compares it to The Alchemist.

No recording has ever circulated. Every one of these outcomes followed a live encounter with the work.

What Is Public

The world has a finished sound.

The story stays live. The world around it is produced and released — short readings from the Wingly Tales, and two complete albums that score the universe and its origin.

Sounds of Futuring · I
The Audio Signature of World of Futuring
0:00 / –:––
Sounds of Futuring · II
A Wingly Tale · with a fragment of the story
0:00 / –:––
Sounds of Futuring · III
Together Family Sample - the animated origin story of The Wizard
0:00 / –:––
Album · On iTunes
Futuring Sounds

An audio journey through the World of Futuring — what the world feels like, scored and produced.

Listen on iTunes →
Album · On iTunes
Together Family

The origin of the Wizard as a contemporary animated-feature score — the soundtrack before the film.

Listen on iTunes →
On the Record

What people say after they hear it.

“Those books that change the world, that teach us lessons through these little stories — like The Alchemist. That's what Futuring is.”
Charlie RocketGrammy-winning music executive · said publicly, on the record
“JB is the combination of Dr. Seuss, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, Disney. It's revolutionary — it's going to change the world and everyone's mind in it.”
Taylor ClarkCreator & entrepreneur · said publicly, on the record
The Universe

One seed. Many forms.

Futuring is a fable at the scale of an empire — a performed story at its center, a family of Wingly Tales around it, a produced sonic identity across two albums, and a physical venue already built in its name. The world is cohesive by design: every piece, from the tales to the scores to the Wizard's origin, belongs to one architecture.

The full concept — the world, its characters, and where it goes from here — is documented in the white paper and the world site below.

The Voice It Lives In

Written to be performed. Performed by its author.

Jerome Bethea
Author · Performer · Founder, Listen LLC

A working actor — Prison Break (FOX), the One Piece English dub, and Lance Cpl. Dawson in A Few Good Men opposite Lou Diamond Phillips and Jensen Ackles (Casa Mañana, AEA), with a featured role in Radio alongside Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris and Alfre Woodard.

Every reading of Futuring is delivered by the author, live — at a table, at a stand, or down a phone line.

Frankfurter Buchmesse · 7–11 October 2026

Rights are clean. The reading is live.

World EnglishAvailable
GermanAvailable
AudioAvailable
Dramatic & AudiovisualAvailable
Licensing & Location-BasedAvailable

All rights unencumbered, held by Listen LLC. Nothing is optioned.

Twenty minutes at your stand — and I'll read it to you there.

Request a Reading at Frankfurt