❤️Sending love, hope you're ok❤️ 🎙 Earios' Amanda Lund 👂
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Oof.
I had a silly intro planned for today, but it doesn’t feel appropriate, and I don’t know what is. I hope it’s not insensitive to send you these podcast recommendations, but maybe they can offer you some relief. I’m sending this newsletter out, mostly as planned.
Listen, it’s been a YEAR, and I have been clinging to my optimism to help get my family and myself through it. But I’m having an award-winning hard time focusing today. We have managed to bump a global pandemic to second tier news. Black Lives Matter.
I was listening to The Daily Zeitgeist this morning, as I always do, and Miles started the episode by saying, “we recorded this Friday, and because we are in a hellscape, it might not make much sense to you on Monday.” We are living in a world where we are so confident the future will be confusing and probably scary that we cannot record a news podcast two days in advance.
Podcasts are reacting by dropping emergency episodes. I direct you toward The Nod, The Daily, What a Day. Or something to make you happy like Josh Gondelman’s Make My Day. I don’t know. Fuck it, I’m listening to Disney music today.
I hope you’re safe, I hope you’re okay, take care of yourself above all else, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, reach out if you’d like. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Earios’ Amanda Lund
Amanda Lund is an actor, comedy writer, podcaster, and producer, and a co-founder of Earios. Follow her on Twitter here. Follow Earios on Twitter here.
Kindly introduce yourself and tell us what you do!
My name is Amanda Lund and I am an actor/writer/podcaster. I am the co-founder of the Earios network. We launched last July and have a bunch of amazing podcasts that are hosted, produced and created by women.
At the beginning of The Big Ones, you and Maria kind of joke that female podcasters aren't aggressive enough in asking for ratings and reviews at the top of their episodes, so you always do that. What other advice would you give to female podcasters?
Maria and I used to modestly ask for ratings and reviews at the end of The Big Ones in a very apologetic manner. One of our listeners who worked in podcasting, reached out and brought to our attention an interesting statistic. By and large, women podcasters did their asks at the end of their episodes while men, much more successfully, put the asks up top. We thought this was so fascinating and made total sense! We started doing very demanding rate and review calls at the top of our episodes and it’s become a running gag. It’s also very effective!
The best advice I have for women podcasters and creators in general, is to not wait around for a greenlight. If you have an idea, just find a way to make it yourself and put it out there. I jokingly say our Earios motto is, “We won’t stop until every woman in America has a podcast.” It’s important for women to trust that their ideas and perspectives are valuable.
Why did you start Earios? How did that happen?
Maria Blasucci and I had been podcasting for a while and we started to notice that the industry was becoming more and more like TV and Film. There was money in podcasting suddenly, which meant that there would be gatekeepers. Maria came up with the idea of starting our own network. We wanted to carve out a space where we could greenlight our own shows and help our friends develop their ideas. We mostly hang out with women, so it made sense that it would be “GIRLS ONLY!” We enlisted the help of our friend/mentor, Priyanka Mattoo. She was excited by the idea and jumped right on board. We put together a kickstarter and used that money to start the company. We were also so lucky to have Acast as our ad sales partner. They have been amazing and really helped us get Earios off the ground. It’s been an insane two years but creating Earios has been my greatest accomplishment...so far!
You are married to Matt Gourley, or he is married to you. When the two of you go out for a romantic candlelit dinner for two, are you able to talk about anything other than podcasts? Or is it like having a newborn baby, you cannot talk about anything else?
I call my husband, Matt Gourley, a “Podcast Hero.” He has been hugely supportive of Earios. There was one day leading up to our launch, Maria and I were so overwhelmed trying to edit, mix and master ten trailers and Matt was outside painting a fence. (He’s very handy). We ended up switching jobs for the afternoon. Matt mixed our trailers while Maria and I painted the fence. We definitely got the better end of the bargain.
Matt and I collaborate a lot on our podcast projects so there’s quite a bit of podcast banter in our little Pasadena home. We are gearing up to do a new project together that I think you’ll be particularly interested in. I can’t say what it is, yet! We probably talk about podcasting a good thirty percent of our day. The rest of the time is filled with conversation about our big fat cat, what to eat for dinner and what to watch on Netflix. Sometimes we have a fight and that shakes things up except for when the fight is about podcasting.
I loved your episode on Podcast The Ride about being a Disney Princess. Does your love for, appreciation for, or experience with Disney carry into any of your work? (I also read your piece in the Wall Street Journal about Disney, so I believe you are a fan.)
Yes! I worked as a Disney princess from age 17 to 23 and even spent seven months working at Tokyo Disney. It was the weirdest first job ever. There are a few skills I picked up that I definitely integrate into my podcasting. Improv, for one. I learned the tenants of “yes and” during my princess training. Everyday on the job, you are interacting with hundreds of people and having to carry conversations. I also learned how to preserve my voice. You have to talk for 45 minutes straight before you get a break and I quickly realized to be deliberate with what I said. It was actually like a podcast bootcamp. There are some skills, however, that don’t translate. Wig pinning, princess waving, and covertly picking a wedgie are not particularly relevant to podcasting.
If podcasts didn't exist, what would you be doing?
I think about this question all the time and honestly it frightens me! I feel so lucky to be working in podcasting right now. Especially during Covid 19, when other parts of media are shut down, podcasting is, if not thriving, at least surviving. I’m a writer and an actor as well, so I’m sure I would be sitting around waiting for Hollywood to call. That makes me sad, though. I love that with podcasting you can take your career into your own hands. It’s so freeing!
🚨If you only have time for ONE of my weekly recommendations…🚨
…make it Femlore’s two-part series on Mulan, which felt so fun and important and special. Mindy, Rachael, and Lauren read the ancient Chinese poem that influenced the Disney animated movie, and talk to Gio Santiago, a transgender military veteran. Gio’s connection to Mulan is fascinating, he considers Mulan trans. This adds depth to Mulan’s story—if (s)he was trans, that meant (s)he spent twelve years in battle, defeating the Huns, identifying as male, and then had to return home and abandon his/her male identity. How sad this must have been! I want someone to write a follow up! I especially loved hearing Gio talking about Mulan’s song Reflections, which has special meaning to many in the trans community.
💎BTW💎
🎙️ You know I love Lizard People and Katelyn Hempstead, and Katelyn let me come onto the show to talk about a conspiracy theory I hold closely to my heart—that the people in the Donner party were not starving to death, and ate each other for practically no reason. It is hard to listen to yourself on a podcast, I hope I was a good guest. (Podcasters, take note: I WILL BE ON YOUR PODCAST. I will come prepared, and with oodles of enthusiasm! The role of podcast guest is one I take very seriously!!!) Llisten here.
🎙️If you’re jonesing for another cannibalism story, turn to this one on The Dark Histories Podcast, about a lesser known harrowing about cannibalism. This one revolves around Alexander Pearce, an Irish convict who was transported to the penal colony in modern day Tasmania, and resorted to cannibalism of his fellow prisoners during one of his many escapes.
🎙️Bodies is a collection of vignettes from storytellers answering the question “what’s wrong with me?” Each unravels a mystery about someone’s body. In the last episode of the season (the whole seasons has been great) Changing Shape, Nico Wisler talks about going through a period of time when they stopped eating and “wanted parts of their body to disappear.” Nico says they felt too feminist and too queer to have an eating disorder. But Nico is trans, and their relationship to their body was directly tied to their relationship with their gender. This is a look at eating disorders and gender identification that nobody is talking about.
🎙️Welcome to LA is back with the origin story of the Black Stuntmen’s Association, a group of badasses in the 60s who have paved the way for Black stuntmen and stuntwomen to enter the world of stunt work, which was a dangerous but LUCRATIVE opportunity for them. I can’t believe I didn’t know this important (embarrassing. “painting down?” seriously?) piece of Hollywood history! That, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, includes Bill Cosby as a sort of hero. But it makes the story even more interesting.
🎙️Flash Forward is so good because each story that Rose Eveleth tells is completely unique, is fact-filled and dreamy but always includes a bit of fun fiction, and the show production is also unlike anything else on the airwaves. Welcome to Celebrityville travels to a future where celebrities construct their own liveable cities. (It’s not as absurd as you may think—Akon is creating a futuristic city and his own cryptocurrency in Senegal.) What would a world full of Celebrityvilles look like? Which Celebrityville would you like to live in? And can we safely assume that Rita Ora will have one? (Yes.)
🎙️I always roll my eyes when someone says their podcast is not a podcast. Get off your high horse! It’s a podcast, it’s fine. The word podcast can mean so many things, what you are doing is probably not as elevated as you think. But if I were to categorize anything as a non-podcast it’d be Constellations, which defines itself as “a sound art and experimental narrative collective that illuminates international artists making sound works that convey meaning through evocation and abstraction.” I think of it kind of as an art installation, it’s very focused on sound experimentation and asks nothing of you but to listen and let your mind wander. The first episode of the new season is a two-parter—FEEL THE SKY A (Jaye Kranz, Australia) and FEEL THE SKY B (Myra Al-Rahim, USA.) They are two separate projects brought to us by creators who were given a single prompt: to make art from a recording from 1992 made by a news reporter unfamiliar with field recording, but entranced by a chance encounter with trumpeter swans on an icy lake. The results are unbelievable, I cannot fathom how these pieces were made. At the end, the creator shares some words about their thinking. I wish Constellations would release the original 1992 audio so that people could play along. But part of the magic is not knowing the thin space between what was provided and what sprung from the mind of the artist. I could see myself getting frustrated by these pieces if I were to think, “what does it all mean?!” I sometimes do that, but you can’t do that here. You just have to trust the artists, and yourself, that listening will change how you experience the world.
🎙️The latest episode of Ear Hustle, Tired of Running, was so good that when it was over I kind of forgot where I was. It takes us on a journey from the United States, to a teensy town in Mexico, to Puerto Vallarta, and back to the US, to tell the story of a woman named Reshell who goes on the lamb for years with her husband Javier and children after Javier murders someone. Running from the cops has never seemed like a good idea to me, but listening to this episode, it truly sounds like the most exhausting and stressful thing you could set yourself up for. It’s no wonder that often on-the-run people are relieved to be captured. Ear Hustle is truly one of the best shows out there, and if you have ever listened to it you should totally support it. They are fundraising now, and through June 10 you can donate here.
🎙️On the Articles of Interest episode about suits, Avery Trufelman traces the history of boring menswear back to the American Revolution and one man who changed everything named Beau Brummell, the begetter of the suit. The history of the suit (which includes the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde) is a lesson in modern masculinity, and explains why today, some men are hesitant to wear flashy things or pink or florals. (I love it when men wear flashy things or pink or florals.) It also introduced me to sprezzatura, an Italian word that means in this context putting a lot of thought into the way you look, with the intent that you aren’t putting too much thought into it at all. (I had no idea there was a word to describe my husband’s fashion philosophy!) The story of the subtly of men’s fashion is endlessly interesting and the episode is well done. I love the playful way Avery playfully uses sound to bring herself into a story, and tell it in a way that nobody else can.
🎙️You Must Remember This has returned with a series dedicated to Polly Platt, a film producer, production designer and screenwriter who, because she was married to Peter Bogdanovich, received minimal credit for the work she did. We begin with Polly’s rocky childhood, and get a good sense of her personality,—she prioritized good work, but not necessarily fighting to get credit for it. Because she was such a talented badass who was working during a time when women weren’t credited even when the were fighting, we can safely assume she is probably 30x more talented than her reputation would lead us to believe. Which is why this series is such a gift. True to You Must Remember This form, the storytelling in episode one is top notch, and because Karina Longworth had access to Polly’s diaries (a memoir that Polly never published) and interviewed Polly’s daughters, we get a dedication to Polly that is well-deserved, and until now, never known.
🎙️Pindrop is a new show from TED that plops you onto a random place on the globe, talks to the people and investigates the environment, all to discover how those things impact the place. The first episode brings us to Bangkok, and we hear stories to learn how people adapt to a city full of traffic. It’s not quite a traveling podcast, but listening, you feel that you’ve traveled. And stayed there to long enough to have a nice understanding of what the place is like and why. It almost reminds me of The Intersection, but every episode is about a different place. I have heard ad reads for Pindrop on other shows, and the teasing of future eps EXCITES ME.
🎙️I’m not a big listener of straight-up chat/interview shows, so I had been skipping over Bridger Winegar’s Exactly Right podcast, I Said No Gifts!, but it’s so funny and sweet that I loved it, and plus there’s a twist I didn’t even ask for! EVERY TIME Bridger says “no gifts,” but the guest always brings him a gift. Every time! It is interesting to see the gifts his guests bring him, and the conversations this exchange leads us to. Then Bridger and guest play games based on gift-giving. I love how a podcast premise can be so weird and work well. These talks are sharply funny and enjoyable. Bridger has this way of really inviting you into his world and personality. Bridger also seems to have convinced Aimee Mann to write the theme song I Said No Gifts! It’s a real banger.
🎙️Ooooo! QCode’s Borrasca is a CHILLING, well-produced fiction podcast (the sound quality is excellent that it’s a kind of frightening listening experience) that introduces us to Sam Walker, who moves to Missouri one summer and is perplexed about what happened to his sister, who has disappeared. When more people start disappearing, Sam and his friends investigate, and are drawn to a mountain outside of their town, where they hear some terrifying screams. There’s lots of creepy local lore and unanswered questions that kind of reminds me of Are You Afraid of the Dark (because it’s fun,) and has me on the edge of my seat (because it’s seriously creepy.)
🎙️Bad Science (a show that pairs a comedian with a scientist, to break down the scientifically inaccurate elements of popular movies and TV shows) had an episode covering my favorite movie of all time, The Little Mermaid. Senior research technician (geneticist=matron of death) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Shannon Johnson and writer/actor Anat Eshel join host Ethan Edenburg to talk about the crazy world under the sea, and manage to poke holes in the plot of the film without hurting my feelings about it too much. Complaints about Ariel signing a contract underwater and then not being able to write notes to Prince Eric above ground, the film villainizing the “Les poissons” chef, and Flounder being a crappy friend, seemed pretty picky to me. But they are RIGHT that Ursula gets the shaft in this story, and it’s all fun to think about.
🎙️I think I keep forgetting to write about Dani Shapiro’s The Way We Live Now because I listen almost every day and it has so much become a part of my life, it’s like I’m a fish trying to describe the water that I live in. Dani interviews both famous and normal people about the way they live in a COVID world, and she is such a patient, expert interviewer and each conversation takes the listener on an unexpected journey into the guest’s life. You could start anywhere, the Anne Lamott episode is great, but I loved this week’s episode with Galen Guengerich, senior minister of All Souls in New York City, about gratitude as a new kind of spirituality. Kind of like Sugar Calling, this show allows us to see a beautiful world during a terrible time, through the eyes of interesting people.
🎙️Kind of like Bad Science, The Infinite Monkey Cage pairs a comedian with a scientist to help us go on a funny, educational ride to explore topics like coral reefs, dinosaurs, and UFOs. I know I say this a lot, but it truly feels like a Disney World attraction (which means I like it.) It’s the most fun way to learn about a subject I don’t know much about. I LOVED this episode about the end of the Universe but I must confess I had to slow it down and listen at 1x speed, to wrap my brain around the WILD shit that was getting dropped. FOR EXAMPLE: future generations will think that we were stupid and backwards to believe that the universe expands, because in the not-too-far-away future, we will not be able to see the rest of the universe, and the idea of an expanding universe will seem too unbelievable to ever be true. (!!!???!?!)
🎙️I was sent an episode of VENT Documentaries, When Life Gives You Pain Make Champagne, but didn’t read anything about it, I just listened. And listening without knowing anything was a really interesting experience that I recommend. Maybe go listen now, before you finish the rest of this paragraph! As it turns out, for each episode of VENT, a young Londonite gets the mic to talk about whatever, and this episode is about Drill music, something that’s blamed for causing violence on the street. But Khalid Dovie, 15, of Brent, doesn’t think the critics are giving Drill music a fair shake. He talks to Drill’s biggest artists and producers to find out what Drill is really about. It’s a beautiful piece about something new to me. The episode is beautiful and feels like a careful, surprise gift that surprised me in the best way.
🎙️Sometimes I feel like Culture Call is reading my mind, and I get really scared. (There’s a conspiracy theory for you.) Every guest is someone kind of off-beat who I really want to hear from. The latest episode is an interview with someone I LOVE, Liana Finck, author and cartoonist for The New Yorker. I did not invent this thought, it’s something that Culture Call host Lilah Raptopoulos says—Liana seems to be someone who cannot NOT be herself. Because she is honest about her own emotions and unafraid to share them, she ends up putting to words many things I think and feel. This is why her cartoons are so spot on. Conversations with Liana are always fresh and valuable, I love hearing how her brain works and her creative process. I recommend searching “Liana Finck” in your podcast app and listening to every show she’s been on. (Liana fans will notice that during the Culture Call interview, she drops something, a call-back to her Sporkful episode, What’s With All The Broken Dishes?)
🎙️I put on this episode of BackStory as background noise preparing my food, and ended up becoming so entranced with it that I put twelve pounds of hot sauce into my noodle dish. (It’s okay, I do love hot sauce. Especially this kind. Have you tried it? We just ordered TWO CRATES of it.) It’s an exploration of true crime, why we love it and our history with being obsessed with it. I literally thought, looking at the description before I started listening, “I already know everything about Truman Capote and In Cold Blood, that probably won’t be that interesting” BUT IT WAS, I KNOW. I’M STUPID. A wonderful interview with Phoebe Judge sent me straight to my first-ever episode of Criminal. (Can you believe I had not listened?) The best part was an interview with Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime and Obsession, who introduces us to Frances Glessner Lee, known as the “mother of forensic science,” thanks to her miniature, adorable models of grisly crime scenes.
🎙️Baby’s first Criminal episode was Cowboy Bob! (Again, I cannot believe it has taken me this long to taste this show.) In May 1991, a very polite bank robber started robbing banks in Texas wearing a backwards cowboy hat and a brown leather jacket. (Look at this picture.) The FBI assumed that it was a man, but were floored when they discovered it was a kind-hearted Texas woman, Peggy Jo Tallas, who got kind of lazy with her burglary and eventually was killed in a shootout on May 5, 2005. I also listened to Red Hair, Gold Car, and recommend it as a great gateway episode to Criminal. I have been listening to Dear Governor, becoming enraged about people on death row. Red Hair, Gold Car is about a man named Adam Braseel, whose life who was ruined by being wrongfully accused of a crime. It’s a ridiculous, well-told story, that made me think I’d almost rather be on death row for a crime that I did commit than be in prison for years for a crime that I did not. Adam has so much gratitude for the life he has now, and has managed to move on without too much anger, it seems. (The first thing he did when he got out was hug his mama. “That was a good day,” he said.) Now I know why Criminal is so beloved. I am not drawn to true-crime, it’s why I had never listened to Criminal. But calling Criminal true-crime is kind of a misnomer—it’s beautiful storytelling about what drives us, it just so happens that often what drives us is dark. I am thrilled to have discovered this show so late, I love it when this happens. I have so much catching up to do.
🎙️I am in kind of a gangster phase. I recently binged Mob Queens and am rewatching The Sopranos with my husband. Gangster stuff scratches this wonderful, childlike, gruesome, curious itch I have. I was recently looking at the Fable and Folly website, which has a lot of shows I love (Alba Salix, The Carlotta Beautox Chronicles, What’s The Frequency?, Greater Boston…) and I stumbled upon Harlem Queen and thought…how have I never heard of this show before? It’s an audio drama based on the true-life gangster Madame Stephanie St. Clair, a gambler who ran a bunch of crime rings in Harlem in the 1900s. It’s an invitation into a really fun world, turns the whole gangster trope on its head, and is of course a history lesson in something we probably didn’t learn about in school. The voice actors are fantastic, the music really takes you there.
🎙️Thresholds is a wonderful podcast from LitHub where Jordan Kisner hosts a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down. A conversation with Leslie Jamison took a bunch of interesting turns. Leslie and Jordan had planned to have a regular conversation, but Leslie has recently recovered from COVID, and the interview talked a lot about how that changed Leslie’s life. She talks about how interesting it is that we are living in this lengthy transition period between the normal world and the new-normal world. Most life-changing events, like September 11th or natural disasters, happen so suddenly that we don’t have time to register them. Can you imagine if the September 11th attacks had taken 3 months? We have the opportunity now to remember the past and plan for our futures, while living in the between space as the pandemic rages on. This thin place is what Jordan’s book is all about, and was the impetus for Thresholds. A wonderful way to end the season, and an episode I recommend you listen to.
🎙️Tink client Barry Sonnenfeld was on an episode of Jo Firestone’s Everyday Decisions and it was a totally weird treat. Barry is extremely quirky, and listening to him go through his everyday decisions with Jo was anything but boring. My husband asked me if I thought that Barry “got” Jo’s weird sense of humor, and I told him that I actually thought that Barry out-weirded Jo. I love them both, they have really perfect chemistry, and I think they should have their own podcast together.
🎙️If you did not listen to This Is Love’s episode Prairie Warbler, do it now. Phoebe Judge (of Criminal above) talks to a Black birder about the difficulties of being a Black man in nature. This episode was released one week before a white woman called the cops on Black birder in Central Park, accusing him of threatening her, when she was the one breaking the law. This “Black people don’t feel safe in nature” isn’t a weird thing, it’s a BIG thing. There is so much violence against people of color right now, and this is one of the many ways it happens. Another episode of This Is Love, Into the Ice, is also worth a listen. Explorer Jill Heinerth went with a team to explore the largest iceberg in recorded history and almost died. It’s a terrifying, beautiful story.
🎙️I love you!