🎂 Cake For Breakfast 🍳 Ghosts In The Burbs' Liz Sower 👻

💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌

Bonjour!

A few months ago, my business partner Katherine and I launched Lasso Audio, a podcast agency and management company. Our intent was to help independent podcasters achieve their biggest dreams, whether that be joining a network, striking a book deal, having their podcast turned into a TV show, whatever. We have been busy helping podcasters in other ways (marketing, social media, consulting—we helped Penguin Random House launch The Adaptables, for example) but last week was exciting because we recently sold our first show to a network, Forever Dog, and it launched on Tuesday.

The show, Cake For Breakfast, is a twice-weekly news show hosted by Jessica Devine and Nicole Stillings (DJ Rosé.) I’ve been describing the show as a feminine Daily Zeitgeist—Jessica and Nicole dive into trending news topics and pop culture. It’s like the antidote to a depressing episode of The Daily. Listen to it when you want news, but you don’t feel like being depressed.

Listen to the first episode here, and let me know what you think! I’m so proud of Jessica and Nicole, and the whole Forever Dog team who have thrown their hearts and energy into making this happen.

Katherine and I took a walk to Washington Square Park on the day Cake For Breakfast launched, and when we got to the fountain, we did our Lasso Dance, our ritual for celebrating a big win. (I don’t have to describe to you what this looks like, we looked like psychopaths. Joyous psychopaths.) It was a very happy, weird moment in these dark days. It’s hard to do physical exercise such as the Lasso Dance wearing a face mask. But I will remember this moment forever.

xoxo lp
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Ghost In The Burbs’ Liz Sower

Liz Sower is the host of Ghosts In The Burbs. Follow her on Twitter here.

Kindly introduce yourself and Ghosts In The Burbs!
I'm Liz Sower, the creator and producer of Ghosts in the Burbs, a podcast and blog about the people of Wellesley, MA and the ghosts (and monsters) who haunt them. I live in that spooky little New England town with my husband, two daughters and four elderly dogs and I am a major fan of cozy mysteries and reality ghost hunting television. 

You started the show before podcasts were hot hot hot. How did you end up embracing the medium? Did you have a hard time explaining what a podcast was? 
I learned to podcast in Library School! Librarians  stay up to date on new technologies so that we can help patrons access and use them - and the best way to do that is to learn how to use the technologies yourself. Ghosts in the Burbs began as a blog, but I found it difficult to stand out in that space so I decided to start reading the stories for the podcast. I didn't think I'd ever get more than a handful of listeners, but the stories spread by word of mouth! At the beginning it was hard to explain podcasts to people - specifically how people could access them. But then Serial took off and it got a lot easier!

I had always thought Ghosts in the Burbs would NEVER come back and was THRILLED when I heard you'd be doing more episodes. What made you return?
I missed it so much! I had to take the time to focus on a book that I'd been working on for far too long. Once that draft was complete and I was ready to begin my search for a literary agent I had way too much time on my hands and haunted neighbors began to pop into my mind once again. I knew I had to start writing their stories down again. 

If people want to get into Ghosts in the Burbs, where should they start?
People should start with the very first episode of Ghosts in the Burbs. The audio sounds like I am recording from inside a tin can in those early episodes, but the story builds on itself in a fun way. But, if you want to just dip in, my favorites stories are The Mimic and Third Time's a Charm.

If you were going to start a new podcast, don’t worry about whether or not anyone would like it or any of the logistics, what would it be?
I’ve thought a lot about this. Another project I am working on is a sort of memoire / thought dump about my life long relationship with alcohol (specifically wine.) I’d love to someday start a podcast and invite people on to talk about their relationship with their self-medication of choice. Who knows, maybe someday…

What would you tell someone who wants to start a podcast but is afraid?
The fear you feel over trying something new is a major tell. It’s the little demon assigned to you trying to distract you from what you’re meant to do. Ignore them and do it afraid.

Are there too many podcasts?
Hell no! The more the merrier. I am a huge believer in a seat for every ass, and if there’s anyone out there who wants to make a fictional cozy mystery podcast with a small town librarian protagonist who leaves her job to open a mystery book store and stumbles upon body after body then realizes she has psychic abilities and also owns a bunch of dogs…I’ll take that seat!

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💎BTW💎

🎙️Last week, I incorrectly stated that The Waves was OVER over. I said the last episode was THE LAST EPISODE. This is incorrect, I was being hyperbolic, overreacting from a place of distress, and meant to say the last episode was the last episode FOR AWHILE. The show is on hiatus and has plans to return. A BIG PHEW FROM LP.

🎙️If you take one thing away from this issue of Podcast The Newsletter, let it be this: listen to Mob Queens, a show about women and drag queen mobsters. I don’t listen to a lot of history or true-crime shows, but Mob Queens feels different. One reason is because of the hosts. Jessica Bendinger (writer, Bring It On) and Michael Seligman (writer, RuPaul’s Drag Race) are best friend armchair investigators diving head-first into a hugely under-recorded topic for the first season of Mob Queens: the story of Anna Genovese, a New York drag club maven, self-styled entrepreneur and bad-ass mob wife. Jessica and Michael do an A+ job conducing their research, and in a way this podcast is a model for other people trying to launch their own true-crime investigation. They look at primary sources, track down Anna’s family members, and take lessons from other investigators, to be sure they’re going about things the right way. It’s not just a story about the mob, it’s a story of queer New York City. I always knew the mob supported gay bars, and were the reason gay bars were able to thrive, but I had no idea that this was because of Anna, who has such a complicated story and actually had a girlfriend for a few decades. The writing on this show is fantastic, and the show is just so much fun, so New Yorkey! When I listen to Mob Queens, I feel like I’m running around New York City with Jessica and Michael. Anna’s drag club was located at my neighborhood movie theater, across the street from my old apartment. And when that club was shut down, she opened another one a few hundred feet away from where I live now. I was walking in Washington Square Park, listening to Jessica and Michael talk about Anna living on the park (her neighbor was Eleanor Roosevelt,) and part of my brain thought I would bump into Jessica and Michael running around in detective coats, with magnifying glasses. The episodes of Mob Queens rolled by, I gobbled them up immediately. Each episode held its own show-stopping surprise, including the facts that Anna may have been an FBI informant, and that she worked with Mario Puzo to inspire his writing The Godfather. The storytelling feels real and gratifying. And I mean please, Anna Genovese is FASCINATING and nobody has written a goddam thing about her. THIS IS HER TIME.

🎙️On Inside Voices, Kevin Porter interviews podcasters about how their shows are made, how they feel about their voices, and podcasting in general. I listen to a lot of Jon Gabrus (High and Mighty, Raised By TV, I eavesdrop on my husband listening to Action Boyz, and Jon is a frequent guest on a lot of shows I love, because he is hilarious.) But Kevin turning the table on Jon, digging into how he is perceived by his fans and what he thinks of the medium, was interesting. Podcasters should take notes on the conversation about Patreon—Gabrus is a Patreon success story. I loved this quote about Jon coming to grips with the fact that has to call himself a podcaster, despite the fact that his dream has always been much bigger, to be an actor. “It’s like you’re hooking up and having a great time with a woman who is perfect for you, she’s nice, you’re good to her, you guys connect, you’re interested, but the whole time you’re out going out on first dates with absolute smoke shows that you are undeserving of or you don’t even really want but you think that’s what you want, career-wise, relationship-wise. But you keep leaving. High and Mighty is sitting at home like “where is he?” And I’m out [fucking tap dancing around] to try to get a part in the new whatever. And High and Mighty is like “oh you’re back, where were you?” And I’m like, “nowhere, I missed you, let’s do an episode.”

🎙️A few weeks ago I wrote about great shows for adults that kids might like, too. And I’d like to add another show to that list. Bad Science is a show that pairs a comedian and a scientist who go over the scientific (in)accuracies about popular TV or film, facilitated by host Ethan Edenburg. The last episode on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was wildly entertaining (and I’m not even a huge TMNT fan) and I learned so much about turtles—and ants! I think this is a fun way for kids and kidults to learn about science through pop culture. It’s much more fun to learn about turtles if you’re picturing said turtles cowabunga-ing through sewers eating pizza.

🎙️This Is Love’s Antelope Island was one of my favorite episodes of This Is Love ever. It tells the unlikely story of a guy, who on his dating profile indicates he was attacked by a bison, linked up with a girl, for a date, who later got attacked by a bison when the two were going to meet for a date…in the same park. We all want this relationship to work, right? What a love story! A rom-com in the making. But the truth is, that’s not how love works. And the story of these two people connected by bison-attacks doesn’t unfold how it does in the movies.

🎙️But sometimes love does conquer all! A fun episode of Telescope tells the story of Nazmul Ahmed, who was planning a wedding with his girlfriend Sharmin that got upended because of the pandemic. In lieu of an IRL ceremony, Nazmul planned and executed a surprise wedding for Sharmin on Animal Crossing, one of the many Nintendo games blowing up right now. It might not have been the wedding Sharmin has been dreaming for since she was a little girl (if she was one of those little girls,) but I think Nazmul’s thoughtful, creative problem-solving skills made for an even sweeter event.

🎙️Throughline is a show that goes back in time to understand the present. It’s an interesting way to look at the pandemic, because much of what we’re experiencing is a shadow of the past. A recent episode covers the disaster at Three Mile Island, comparing the murky communication to the public in 1979 with the kind of health information we are receiving now. It makes you think a lot about how we will look back on the Coronavirus in 40 years.

🎙️Similarly, Outside/In had an episode on The Carrington Event, a solar flare observed in 1859 that was so huge it could be seen with the naked eye. Scientists know that if the world were to experience a Carrington Event today, we’d be fucked. (A lot of technology that wasn’t around in 1859 would be negatively impacted.) It’s an example of a Black Swan Event, something we KNOW could happen (like a worldwide pandemic) that we just aren’t prepared for. Can we be prepared for everything? Or is the idea of prepping for inevitable but rare disasters unreasonable?

🎙️Dylan Maron (Conversations With People Who Hate Me) has launched Small Triumph, Big Speech, where Dylan facilitates over-the-top speeches for his listeners from his friends. (For example, Bowen Yang jumps on to sing the praises of a listener for throwing out an old medical file.) I have been dreaming of a show of this kind for awhile, and Dylan is the perfect host. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, and Dylan is asking listeners to donate to support domestic workers through the Coronavirus Care Fund set up by the NDWA.

🎙️I LOSE MYSELF listening to Election Profit Makers. I press play and next thing I know, an hour has passed. There is absolutely nothing like it, and it is sort of hard to explain (technically it’s about politics, but it is so funny and has so many weird segments that I can’t place it in a box.) The last episode featured a king of podcasting John Hodgman and was so enjoyable I forgot, for 60 minutes, that there was a pandemic happening outside.

🎙️Back over on John Hodgman’s show, Judge John Hodgman, John mentors people through disputes (like my favorite episode ever about sending one guest’s mother a fake pie-of-the-month subscription.) Often these disputes are silly, but the most recent episode opens with a more serious one, about the etiquette of either having your groceries delivered or going out to buy your groceries during the pandemic. This episode was comforting to me, because it made me realize that I listen to JJH not just for the laughs, but because I truly value what John Hodgman has to say. He feels like one of the best people, and even if his show was very serious, I would still value it and listen to his advice.

🎙️It used to feel oddly enjoyable listening to Rebecca Delgado Smith turn tragic events into hysterical arguing about who is to blame, but Jesus Christ, one of the things I’ve learned these past two months is that it’s necessary to find humor in shitty things. The Chilean Mine episode of The Alarmist is a good example of how laughing through tragedy can actually be a respectful act, when done with sincerity, which The Alarmist does. I loved this episode for the history lesson, the exposure of corruption, and the silliness. It’s a delicate balance to strike, but The Alarmist nails it every time.

🎙️I was delighted to hear cartoonist of The New Yorker’s Liana Finck on The Sporkful for a conversation about why we are all breaking more dishes, in quarantine, than ever before. I am obsessed with Liana (Katherine and I hosted her on our show, The Shelf-Care Podcast) and this is such a friendly, relatable conversation. Liana even brings her boyfriend into the call. The two moved their plans to move in together up, because of the pandemic.

🎙️ I know a lot of people who are loving Phoebe Reads a Mystery, a show that has This Is Love’s Phoebe Judge reading Agatha Christie novels. I am such an enormous consumer of books and an old-school reader. I prefer to read books with my eyes–I’m not a huge audiobook person. I do recommend Phoebe Reads A Mystery if you ARE. But if you are like me, and you still want to get goosebumps with a spooky story, listen to Light House. We’re two episodes in and I absolutely love the storytelling style, it’s purely spooky and enjoyable, and I’m pretty sure it gave me a nightmare last night.

🎙️I love American Hysteria for the humor and the thinkey-ness. Host Chelsea Weber-Smith takes a deep, critical look at things that have spun us into mass hysterias. Get Rich Quick traces our search for untold riches back to the founding of our country, and pulls the listener through ways, in the time between then and now, that the desire to shortcut to million$, has shaped our society and who we are. Make sure to listen to the bonus episode, The Curse of the Lottery. It’s hard to listen to so many terrible stories about people’s lives being destroyed by winning sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. But it is mind-blowing.

🎙️I consider myself a loyal Pretend (stories about people pretending to be someone else) listener, but I somehow missed this episode, The Joe Schmo Show, which was released in January. (I know how I missed it, actually. My mom was in the hospital, something that really cramped by obsessive podcast-listening style.) The episode covers a huge hoax in television, The Joe Schmo Show, a SPIKE TV series that featured Matt Kennedy Gould, who thought he was on a show called The Lap of Luxury, a Big Brother style television show, but in reality all of the other show contestants were actors. (Like the young, unknown Kristin Wiig, who played a quack psychiatrist.) This episode of Pretend features Chase Rogan, season three’s Joe Schmo, to find out what felt like to be conned by an entire television production team and audience.

🎙️We’ve all heard interviews with medics on the front line of the pandemic, delivery people or people who work in grocery stores. But most of those people are city folk. In The Dark: Coronavirus in the Delta is a limited-run podcast series that follows people living through the pandemic in the Mississippi Delta, including nurses, doctors, blues musicians, prison inmates, pastors and athletes, giving the perspective of rural America. The first episode tells the story of two pastors and the mayor of Greenville, Mississippi clashing over how to hold church ceremonies during a pandemic.

🎙️Jessa Crispin rounds up the most interesting voices on her show Public Intellectual for conversations unlike anything you will hear anywhere else. And I thought I had consumed all the thought pieces on Netflix’s Tiger King, but on Tiger King, a Morality Play, Jessa talks to Eileen G'Sell about things I had never considered before. In an era when less people are going to church, are we looking to our entertainment to teach us moral lessons? Is that fair? Why were people morally outraged about a show that was really just a show? Why do we need our filmmakers, writers, and artists to talk to us like we are children? 

🎙️Part in opposition to the Public Intellectual episode above, part in agreement, Cat People’s bonus episode on Tiger King offers a look at what the show got wrong. Cat People criticizes Tiger King for many of the things that Public Intellectual touched upon, sometimes being a bit too critical. (I tend to agree with Jessa…why must we expect a dumb TV show to have the highest moral standards?) Still, this Cat People episode points out that Tiger King is not journalistic at all, a good reminder to anyone who watched it, and that many of the choices the producers made were a tad manipulative. Listen to BOTH Tiger King episodes.

🎙️Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt of Reply All have launched The Scardey Cats Horror Show, a podcast about scary movies for people who are too scared to ever watch them. Each week Alex will challenge PJ to watch a scary movie with a guest. Their theory is that if they start with a barely-scary movie and then allow the films to get scarier and scarier, the process will ease PJ into becoming a person who enjoys fear. For the first episode, they watch The Exorcist, which, because I believe in some sort of Satan, I have always found terrifying. I love PJ and Alex’s chemistry on Reply All, and I think this is such a funny idea for a podcast. This is a podcast for people who love movies (PJ and Alex go over the history of the movies and how they were made) and for people who love comedy and Reply All. The next movie they are watching is Nightmare On Elm Street. I like that they announce the next episode so that listeners can watch ahead and play along. Justin and I watched Nightmare On Elm Street last night, so we are ready for episode two.

🎙️The last episode of The Secret Room, Trafficked, was wild. Lisa is a totally relatable good, naive girl in school, who was beguiled by an evil man, someone she thought was her friend. This isn’t a story you can truly appreciate from the surface, the more Lisa gets involved with her “friend,” the further he pulls her into darkness and crime, without her realizing. I’ll say it again—host Ben Hamm has such compassion for his guests and tells these stories with kindness and sincerity. His warmness allows Lisa to open up and describe how this incident changed her life and bonded her to the other women she met going through it.

🎙️And if you like The Secret Room, as I do, I think you will like What Was That Like, “real people in unreal situations.” Each episode unfolds a story of something extraordinary, allowing the storyteller to go into what they were thinking and feeling, why they made the decisions they did, which forces the listener to empathize and imagine what it was like. It’s also just kind of juicy and fun to hear these outrageous stories. I listened to Tyler Was Abducted, which I recommend if you are one of those people, like me, who always loved those 20/20 or Oprah specials featuring victims of weird crimes. (I don’t know what this says about me, but I cannot not listen to an episode called Shiny Ate His Own Foot, and it’s n my queue now.)

🎙️A special episode of Today Explained has a unique approach about talking to kids about COVID. Set on an enchanted island, the episode is designed for parents and children to listen to together, and attempts to answer questions like how the virus spread and why kids can’t go to school. The episode is accompanied by a discussion and activity guide families can print out and do together provided by early childhood specialist Rachel Giannini. (Think: inventing an outfit that will place 6 feet between you and someone else, a highly scientific “snot test,” etc.)

🎙️I recently discovered Do You Even Podcast?, and it truly was created for YOU, anyone reading this newsletter. (It’s sort of what I was hoping to create when Eric and I started PodcastPodcast.) Each month, Lainey and Alex give podcast news, recommendations, and interviews with podcasters. A recent episode has a great interview with Flash Forward’s Rose Eveleth. I love ANYTHING that helps with podcast discovery, and listening to Do You Even Podcast? is a great way to expand your podcast library.

🎙️I just heard an ad for American Rehab, a show from Reveal that “uncovers a type of rehab that is flourishing by turning tens of thousands of people desperate for treatment into an unpaid workforce.” I was so excited but couldn’t find it anywhere. (It’s to be dropped in the Reveal feed.) Turns out the first episode is being delayed because of COVID, so I’m just here to say, subscribe to Reveal now, if you don’t already, so you can hear it when it drops! I’m excited.

🎙️I love you!