🤴🏼 The Prince and the Dressmaker 👗 very strange skeletons 💀 the floating brothel 🚢 a creepy bartender 🥃
🍭 👂 TRUST ME! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, October 9. In case this newsletter is too long…The Byzantium Empire but make it FUN here, The Mütter Museum / Philadelphia / witches / cults, Aramaic / The Gospel of Thomas / family tragedy / a hospital for the criminally insane / a very strange skeleton / these are a few of my favorite things here, learn about the floating whore house that was low on food, high on knife-fights, but maybe good? here.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Jonathan Mitchell
Jonathan Mitchell is the host and producer of The Truth, an anthology fiction podcast distributed by Radiotopia. He also directed and sound designed every story, and for some of them (like Pariah) he wrote music. The Truth’s first podcast episode was released in 2012, but Jonathan has been a professional audio producer since the mid-90’s. He began his career in public radio, where he worked on shows like Studio 360, Fair Game, and Radiolab. He also created the sound design and music for two episodes of Nova on PBS, and the commercial jingles heard when you turn on the TV in the computer game “The Sims”.
Describe The Truth In ten words or less.
New, original full-cast fictional audio dramas that are fun to hear.
Fill in the blank: You will like The Truth if you like _________.
…the same things that I like. I know that’s not very helpful, but that’s truly the only basic criteria. People say Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone a lot, but we do tons of stuff that isn’t like those shows at all, so if that’s what you’re looking for then you might be disappointed. I think this show is for people who like quirky, thoughtful stories. Some episodes are suspenseful, others are funny, or shocking, or uplifting. You really won’t know until you hit play. What you’re guaranteed is incredible performances, brilliant writing, and detailed, immersive sound design that pulls you right in and never lets go.
Why did The Truth have to end and will it ever return?
Our ad sales have been down for a prolonged period of time, and for this last batch of six episodes, it cost me substantially more to produce than the show generated in revenue. So rather than go deep into personal debt by producing more stories, I decided to take a break and see what else is out there. I’m looking forward to doing something different! I don’t know if it will return yet.
What are you most proud of?
That I was able to give actors and writers and an associate producer a way to earn money.
How much time would typically go into one episode of The Truth?
The scripts generally take 2-4 months per episode to write, and then we spend about 2-3 weeks casting and recording with the actors (usually around six hours of studio time per episode). And then the post production is two solid weeks of work during which we are also writing and recording future stories.
Do you have a few favorite episodes of The Truth? People who are new to it can check them out.
I like SIlvia’s Blood, That’s Democracy, Pariah, and anything that Hunter Nelson wrote (particularly The Body Genius). I also like Louis Kornfeld (Hilly Earth Society) and Mary McDonnell’s (The Decider) stories a lot. We’ve worked with so many great writers though, so it feels a little unfair to single anyone out. My advice is to not start at the beginning, but skip around. Some of our best stories were made in the past year.
At what speed do you listen to podcasts? Is it blasphemous to listen to podcasts at anything faster than 1x?
People are going to do whatever they want to do, but if you listen to The Truth on anything other than 1x, you are doing yourself a disservice.
What should people do if they want to become a great audio storyteller? Should they read a lot? Listen a lot? Go to museums? Meditate? Take a road trip? Make lots and lots of audio?
Listen and absorb feedback from others, and try to develop a sharp critical ear for what makes a good story. Try to work with people who are better at it than you are, so you can learn from them. I learned a lot from the people I worked with on The Truth, particularly the writers. The writers’ meetings were the best.
What’s the best way to grow a podcast?
Make the most amazing thing you’ve ever heard in your life, and then do that every single episode.
What would you say to someone who put their heart and soul into an audio project but they can’t seem to get people to listen to it?
The audience doesn’t care about how much heart and soul you put into your podcast. You have to make something they like. If they aren’t paying attention, it’s probably not interesting enough.
What’s a podcast you love that everyone else loves, too?
You Must Remember This by Karina Longworth.
What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Wow I am learning about The Byzantium Empire so much I’m starting to feel brilliant. It’s this 1,000 year vague interstitial period between the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, “where people were named Peter but they were also named Quadradus.” That’s the setting for Christine Laskowski’s T&J, but the podcast is really about a love story that took place there between Empress Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian. It’s giving me real Evita vibes—Theorora was a theater performer (the lowest of the low) who, thanks to Procopius (the Empire's official chronicler and author of A Secret History) was made famous for “tearing up the Roman Empire by the very roots.” But that’s the thing. All we know about T&J is what Procopius told us about them, and he was not a fan. This podcast is a great story and a magnified look into The Byzantium Empire…like how they basically invented the half-time show, hosting bear races and slaughter between chariot races. This podcast is FUN, packed with music and sounds that will keep you hanging on every word and remembering everything. (There’s a little “450-570 AD” ditty…those are the years of The Byzantium Empire…that I cannot get out of my head.) I have never, ever, ever ever ever ever, had so much fun listening to a history podcast. It’s so narrative and compelling, and the sound is top notch.
hell yeah
✨Read my latest Lifehacker piece 12 of the Best New Podcasts This Fall.
✨I was interviewed for Inside!
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Play On: Othello in her newsletter and podcast.
💭 TLDR Reddit 💭
I learn a lot about what podcast listeners love and hate and can’t stop talking about on Reddit, and thought I’d start spilling some of the most fascinating conversations. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on this series—I don’t want to spread hurtful gossip, even though I think you can learn a lot from negative comments. I’ll stick to the nice stuff. But if you want the juicy stuff, dive into podcast Reddit on your own. (And let me know what you find.)
You have the ability to bring one podcast back from the dead. Which do you choose?
Do you also refrain from wanting to see what your favorite hosts look like?
💎BTW💎
🎙️I was a super fan of Never Told, and in one episode they slyly hinted at an upcoming spin-off featuring creepy stories. My eyes popped when I saw, last week, that Eerie was here. It’s an 8-episode anthology series of original horror stories, presented by a different writer every time, and I was holding my breath through the first one, about a researcher working in a desolate, arctic place, all alone. Where is her team? The writing is phenomenal…the use of repetition builds a tension the whole way through and the descriptions actually made me feel cold and afraid. It drops at the perfect moment. Thanks for the chills, Eerie! Listen here.
🎙️ Southlake was a wonderful show about a controversy in a Texas town that sparked a national crusade against critical race theory when a video surfaced in 2018 showing Southlake high school students chanting the N-word. It’s kind of the prequel to NBC’s latest, Grapevine, that takes place in a neighboring Texas town where a mother of a trans student accused a teacher of grooming her daughter. Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton go to the school to look into this mother’s allegations to find a story of a transgender child who just wants to be herself, a mom (her own) hellbent on putting God first, the teacher who kicked this whole thing off by allowing her students to take home copies of a book called The Prince and the Dressmaker, and it’s all somehow tied to a discount phone company? Like Southlake, it’s a high stakes personal story that uncovers something bigger—this time, a fringe religious movement set on making America great again according to their version of biblical values. Listen here.
🎙️Undertow is an ongoing supernatural horror series and its new season, “The Sisters,” hits so many things that are on my ideal podcast checklist: The Mütter Museum, Philadelphia, witches, cults, Aramaic, The Gospel of Thomas, family tragedy, a hospital for the criminally insane, and a very strange skeleton. It all centers around The Mütter’s curator Frankie Bradshaw, who gets a weird skeleton and a box of reel-to-reel tapes from the 1960s in the mail, which throws her into an investigation that takes her into the world of the occult, ties her to a family from the past, and forces to confront the skeletons hanging in her own closet. The writing, sound, the acting and the atmosphere are all top notch. Where is the TV show. Listen here.
🎙️ It was such a surprise to see Heavyweight pop up in my Pocket Casts feed. Previously a Spotify Exclusive, it was a show that often slipped my mind. I often forgot to check for new episodes. And there hasn’t been one in a long time, anyway. I felt a collective cheer from other people who saw it, too. Heavyweight is a nearly unimpeachable show. Jonathan Goldstein returns with a really personal story about someone from his past, Lenny, who he grew up with creating audio stories together and basically just being adorable best friends. Their paths split when they were adults, and Jonathan tried to reconnect with Lenny while he was dying of cancer. He tries to piece together how Lenny’s life ended so sadly, so alone, so polar opposite from what the Lenny he knew would have wanted. This episode features highs of hearing Jonathan’s childhood audio projects (and audio from his mom,) and lows of seeing Lenny’s last place of residence, his parents’ basement, which had become an unlivable hoarder’s den. It doesn’t sound like a typical Heavyweight episode, which makes me wonder if the new season will be a round of gut-punches like this one. Listen here.
🎙️ I don’t know how Scott Johnson is getting all of these amazing stories for What Was That Like, but I don’t want him to stop. For a recent episode, he talked to Tara, who was in their Bahamas home with her wife Catherine, their 6 year old daughter Hazel, and five dogs when a category five hurricane hit. They almost drowned inside. It’s a gripping story with danger around every decision, every turn. Scott does such a good job allowing the storyteller to tell. He doesn’t get in the way. I was positive that if I had been in Tara’s shoes, I would have given up, which means that I’d be dead. Tara didn’t, and she’s talks about everything that went wrong, the much fewer things that went right, and what it was like to live for a few hours truly not sure if she’d make it out alive. Listen here.
🎙️ I was slow to start listening to American Filth (“the filthier side of American history”) because the episode descriptions were not helpful, which I think is a gutsy move for a new show. There are a lot of shows in my queue…beg me for your attention! But I listened to the episode Vicious White Women, which led me to binge more episodes, and I’m reporting back to say that if you love exploring weird pockets of history, you’ll find yourself bingeing, too. Vicious White Women tells the story of “the floating whore house” (why wasn’t that in the description?,) an 18th century ship full of female convicts on its way to New South Wales to provide its hordes of lonely men with sexual favors (and offspring.) It sounds like a wild time on this ship—they ran out of food and medicine, but they didn’t run out of knife fights. (Again! Another word that should have been included in the description!) This experience sucked and was psychotic, obviously, but it also offered the women refuge from their oppressive lives in London. This isn’t your “white dudes talking about history” history podcast—not that there’s anything wrong with that. There is just a lot of it. At the hands of Gabbie Watts, American Filth is spunky, conversational, and not full of itself. Listen here.
🎙️A Race Around the World tells the true story of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, two female journalists who…raced each other around the world in 1889. And what a story it is! It’s also a fun, easy listen (I’m getting Primary Sources of Famous People in American History-Nonfiction-vibes…something I thought I would never say, but I enjoy. I think it would be great for kids.) Nellie’s story opens up like a mixture of Carrie Bradshaw meets Newsies—she goes to the big city, from Pittsburgh, to become a writer in a time when women weren’t allowed to do basically anything (except, fans of Newsies will know, run a brothel.) The show perfectly captures New York City at the turn of the century, the story is so exciting and crazy, and Nellie and Elizabeth are so hardcore it’s hard to believe that it’s all real. It’s hard to stop listening. Listen here.
🎙️A new daily podcast has come to town, and it has such a great premise I can’t believe this type of show isn’t already all over the place. The Puzzler is a short (and…daily) trivia quiz (it’s also a book,) hosted by AJ Jacobs (whom I love for so many things, mostly The Year of Living Biblically) and with fun guests like Roy Wood Jr, Michael Ian Black, Mo Rocca, and Chuck Bryant, it’s truly something you can look forward to when your alarm starts blaring in the morning. It’s a quick hit of brain caffeine that’s an absolute delight. Listen here.
🎙️When people ask me what my favorite kind of podcast is, the answer is always, “something I didn’t know could be a podcast.” Left-Handed Radio is an indie narrative comedy podcast makes things that haven’t been done before, and they always do special things for Halloween. This year their comedy/horror anthology series The Creepy Bar is hosted by Marcus the Bartender, who serves spooky stories with drinks. pours you a drink and entertain you with his spookiest stories. The Night of the Bloody Hand Guy is a funny, short twist on the “monkey paw curse” trope and is also a critique of capitalism somehow. It’s over-the-top Halloweenie (think: “Tales from the Crypt,” “The Twilight Zone,” or “Creepshow”) and really smart, kind of a throwback to the scary stories you tell around a campfire. Listen here.
🎙️I used to love The Big Ones, a show where Maria Blasucci and Amanda Lund (who I do wish I was best friends with) use ridiculous philosophical “big” questions to spark funny conversations and improv sketches. Sometimes I just play the opening intro on repeat, it is so weird. (One of the sample questions that they promise to answer is, “would I eat muffins for the rest of my life if it meant I didn’t have to go to school?” It gets me every time, and I find it funnier than most people.) The feed has been dormant, for me. I just found out that they have been posting episodes to their Patreon (::subscribing immediately::) They popped on for an episode with Paul F Tompkins that’s on the public feed. The prompt: what would you do if you found out your perfect boyfriend was a vampire? This is a gift for you non-Patreon subscribers. God bless us, every one, Listen here.
🎙️Matt Bernstein is a queer Jewish activist who has gone viral for infographics that spread awareness about social justice, LGTBQ+ issues, and antisemitism. Now he’s a podcaster now with A Bit Fruity, where he talks to experts about the cultural issues that are on his mind. I was taking notes the whole way through his episodes on LGBTQ conservatives and living as a transgender woman. Matt isn’t asking easy questions or throwing softballs—he goes deep and each episode feels like a college lecture, but a fun one. He’s a great communicator and very funny, so he makes these conversations flow. It didn’t take him too long to get comfortable on the mic, he is really good at this. Listen here.
🎙️ Russell Brand has been in my news feed a little more than I’d like, and as someone who hasn’t been paying attention to him it all it came as somewhat of a surprise that he has turned into one of the world’s leading propagandists. (The sexual allegations, not so much?) Al and Lauren of On Brand have been on this beat since earlier this summer. Their show unravels everything Brand is spewing, much like how Knowledge Fight covers Alex Jones. Listen here.
🎙️This spooky season on Earwolf Presents, Betsy Sodaro and Mano Agapion are bringing us a series of improvised movies with some of the best improvisers. The first is “Taco Hell,” featuring Jon Gabrus and Mary Holland. It’s absolutely hilarious, and so much funnier than many scripted comedies. Listen here.
🎙️I love you!
📦 From the Archives 📦
[From May 4 2020] 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 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.
From the Desk of Tink
Today we’re talking to Elaine Appleton Grant, host of Sound Judgment, where today's best podcast hosts unpack their magic.
Describe the show in ten words or less: A masterclass in audio storytelling featuring your favorite creators.
Who is it for? Serious podcasters and radio makers who want to improve their craft.
Which episode to start with? How to Make Serious Topics Fun with the hosts of Famous & Gravy or Pushkin's Julia Barton on the Best Audio Storytelling of the Year. Also, Tina created this very nifty new listener guide, which offers playlists depending on the kind of audio creator you are/the work you're interested in learning to do.
Favorite listener interaction: So many! One is not on tape: I had Gilbert King and Kelsey Decker, co-hosts of the award-winning Bone Valley, on the show. They'd had about 5 million downloads and, when I spoke with them, were finalists in the Ambies for three different awards (they won two the following week). But when Kelsey showed up on Riverside, she looked very nervous. I asked, "Have you done many podcast interviews?" She said she'd been behind the mic a lot but had hardly done any podcast interviews. Then she said, humbly, "I'm still learning." She's 27 -- and clearly hadn't absorbed their insane level of success." (She offered a lot of wisdom in this episode about how to do true crime well, and ethically.)
Dream guest: Kelly Corrigan of Kelly Corrigan Wonders
Would love to be a guest on… Kelly Corrigan Wonders or Fresh Air or Guy Raz' The Great Creators. (Dreaming big!)
If I could force one person in the world to listen to my podcast it’d be: Ari Shapiro? (Also a dream guest.) Or Terry Gross. Or the heads of any major podcast distribution network!
What do your parents /kids/family think you do? Work too hard.
Do your kids think you’re cool? Not in the slightest.
I love all the reviews, and have never thought the newsletter was too long. I love hearing about shows I didn't know about. Some I'll check out and others I'll just skim what you said and move on with my life.
In answer to your poll: I think ten is totally fine (actually, a bounty!) most weeks, but when the spirit moves you -- or, say, when it's the end of the year and there are things to catch up on -- I say keep 'em coming. Some weeks I read all the way through; when I'm short on time, I hop around. I appreciate the effort that goes into pulling together such a range of recs.