All the podcasts we've recommended in our newsletter

On the hunt for a new podcast? We recommend podcasts every single week on our Vocal Fridays newsletter, so we have a mega list.

The vast majority of the recs come from our newsletter writer and producer Michal Stein, unless otherwise noted. There’s comedy, pop culture, spooky, touching, emotional, and more. Scroll through for some fresh listens for your podcast feed.

Consider this your quick reference of all the podcasts we’ve been listening to for the last year — the best podcasts to listen to now.

It’s Nice to Hear You

I read this article in the New York Times: On New Podcasts, the Sound of Falling in Love. Reggie Ugwu profiled two “audio dating shows”: This is Dating and It’s Nice To Hear You. Dating shows are, no doubt, ethically questionable. One of my favourite podcasts, the Bachelor recap show Love to See it with Emma Gray and Claire Fallon, often discusses the emotional turmoil that Bachelor producers put the contestants through for the sake of “the process”/good television. And yet, I tune in.

I decided to try out It’s Nice To Hear You, and I’m so glad I did. In the first episode, Heather Li explains her experiment: after being laid off in March of 2020, and going through her own disappointing romantic entanglement, she got into watching Love is Blind. It made her wonder — what if there was a way of matchmaking through voice notes? 

I’ve listened to the first two episodes, and so far, I’m intrigued. The people Li finds remain anonymous to the listener, which, in my mind, assuages some of the ethical quandaries. It’s a thoughtful and intimate show, and balances the fascination of listening into fragments of other people’s conversations with interesting commentary from experts. While Li is a first-time podcaster, there’s a team of professionals working with her, and the sound design adds to the intimacy. I’m curious about it from an industry perspective — it was sponsored by a company that does AI… with voice? I kind of forget what it is. But I’m always interested in how these projects get made.

Alpaca My Bags

It shouldn’t have taken me this long to listen — but I finally started listening to Alpaca My Bags! It’s been almost exactly two years since I’ve been on an airplane, and while I do believe all that time on the ground has perhaps sparked a wee fear of flying where there wasn’t one before, I do miss traveling a lot. I have planned like four imaginary vacations for myself. I didn’t go on any of them, but I did spend one night at a hotel by myself back in November and watched Hallmark movies. Not quite the same as travel, but better than nothing?

Produced by Vocal Fry’s very own Kattie Laur (though, I should mention, this isn’t a Vocal Fry show!) and hosted by Erin Elizabeth Hynes, listening to Alpaca My Bags feels like listening to a good friend tell travel stories. In an episode about solo travel, Kattie and Erin discuss their plans for a trip to Portugal that made me nostalgic for my own Portugal visit back in 2017. I found myself almost shouting out loud — I went there! I went there! This is a sure sign the pandemic continues to rot my brain. It’s conversational and warm, but they also get into really important discussions — like the ethics of conservation tourism and whether there’s an ethical way to volunteer while traveling considering the colonial history of things like mission trips.

While Omicron will keep me stuck at home for at least a little while longer, I’m glad I have a whole back catalog of episodes with Kattie and Erin to make my walks feel a little less local.

Teen People

The Y2K-renaissance seems to be in full swing, and it’s breaking my brain a bit. This is largely because, in my mind, the year is still 2011, despite all evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the perfect podcast for this moment is the Teen People Podcast, hosted and produced by Anna Soper, a librarian in Kingston, Ontario. In each episode, Soper interviews someone who was either featured in Teen People or worked on the magazine. I didn’t know this before listening, but Teen People, which ran from 1998 to 2006, didn’t use models — they scouted normal teens for fashion shoots. This makes Anna’s interviews particularly endearing — a lot of the people she talks to have nothing to do with the fashion or media industry now, and are baffled that she could find them at all. 

It is fascinating to have those “where are they now” conversations with people who were profiled for one reason or another as teens — the episode I listened to this week featured an interview with Alex B. Hill, who was profiled for raising $70,000 USD for medical supplies in Uganda. In interviews at the time, Hill had talked about wanting to go into international development. The beauty of an interview that looks back like this is that Hill seems to have done a lot of reflecting about the problems inherent in a young, white teen embarking on a quest to help the people of Uganda. The conversation he has with Soper takes a thoughtful look at why this instinct may have been misguided, and how the white saviour narrative is harmful on a larger scale. If we’re going to talk about Y2K nostalgia, the image of the white saviour looms pretty large (whether you’re talking about the Kielburgers or the 2009 Sandra Bullock flick The Blind Side) and this interview was refreshingly candid. Watch out this Sunday for a Scream related episode — maybe it’ll ease your sorrows about not being able to watch the new Scream (2022), since movie theatres are closed in parts of Canada.

On Being with Krista Tippett

New Year’s Day always makes me feel existential in a way I’m not entirely comfortable with. There’s something about the arbitrariness of a new year falling in January, which never felt right to me. The desire to change ourselves, better ourselves, become something new, seems incongruous with the winter mode of being — nesting, resting, enjoying the comfort of the company of good friends rather than going out and making new ones. So I went for a walk to cure my existential woes, and called upon one of my favourite podcasts to accompany me. 

A friend of a friend recommended On Being with Krista Tippett a few years ago, and since then, it’s been the show I turn to when I’m looking for conversations that really breathe, that take me somewhere new. There are episodes I’ve revisited and recommended to others — Alain de Botton: The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships, Helen Fisher: This Is Your Brain on Sex (I know this seems like a theme but the Helen Fisher interview helps me to imagine a life in community vs. in a nuclear family), and Esther Perel: The Erotic Is an Antidote to Death. Okay, fine, there’s a theme. 

But the episode I listened to this week diverges from this theme — it was a conversation with author Katherine May on How ‘Wintering’ Replenishes. It explores the idea of leaning into winter’s restorative properties, rather than trying to fight them, but also the metaphorical idea of winter — those times in our lives where we’re being called to retreat inward. Spring does follow, and with it comes rebirth and renewal (hello, why are we not doing resolutions in the spring? It makes no sense) but first comes the work of hibernation.

The Writers’ Co-op

I’ve plugged their events before, but if you’re a freelancer — writer, audio producer, social media producer, any kind of freelancer really — you’ve GOTTA listen to The Writers’ Co-op. There were two things that helped me get on my feet when I was out of work in August 2020: CERB, and listening to The Writers’ Co-op every day. Hosts Wudan Yan and Jenni Gritters break down everything you need to know about building your career as a freelancer. Spending that hour a day with them before I started getting my first freelance clients gave me the confidence to do things like negotiate contracts — not just for better rates, but to make sure that I wouldn’t be caught by clauses that could cause trouble for me later on. The episodes in season one are especially motivating and inspiring. Freelancing is often talked about as a gruelling last resort, and sometimes, it is — but it can also be empowering and liberating. The resources they’ve developed to go along with the podcast are also super helpful. Basically: they rule! If you’re thinking about making the jump to freelancing in 2022, this is a must-listen.

Dear Seekers

Katie has been listening to Dear Seekers, a conversation series that explores the intersection of creative endeavours and spiritual growth. Here’s what she has to say about it: 

Host Sasha Xiao has thoughtfully-crafted and empathetic interviews with Canadian women creatives. The episodes are intimate, warm, and friendly, drawing you into Sasha's world, and the world of the women who surround her. It reminds me of why I started listening to Cavern of Secrets: I love peering inside of the brains of other people who've chosen to work in creative arts. (It's a bonus when those people are women.) Sasha goes beyond the standard linear interview: she chops up the interview with break-ins to explain things to the audience or move the narrative along and jump forward in her guest's timeline.

Pop Chat

Pop Chat from CBC has officially replaced Crooked’s Keep It as my go-to pop culture podcast. Host Elamin Abdelmahmoud and panelists Amil Niazi and Kevin Fallon keep the show to a tight hour (ish) and even though they’re mostly talking about American pop culture, because it’s a Canadian show, they generally talk about things that we can watch/listen to in Canada. That’s usually the most frustrating thing for me as a Canadian who listens to American shows. The reason I absolutely have to recommend it this week is because Niazi makes a great argument in defence of watching Hallmark Christmas movies, which are the perfect cure for the December blahs/blues. This week I watched an INCREDIBLE one about an arborist who helps a Christmas tree farmer save his trees? Or something?

The Comeback

FROM EXECUTIVE PRODUCER SYLVESTER STALLONE, Katie Jensen is listening to: The Comeback. It’s a documentary series about meteoric success, devastating falls, and inspirational comebacks, and did you see the part where it’s EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY SYLVESTOR STALLONE? Cue the Rocky soundtrack.

Heavyweight

I think of Heavyweight as being pretty ubiquitous—it’s a Gimlet show that’s been around since 2016, and it’s hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, host of the now-defunct CBC show Wiretap. So I’m often surprised when I mention the show to a friend and they haven’t listened. Gregor is arguably the episode that made the show a hit. In my mind, it’s the platonic form of what Heavyweight is: a show that invites people to go back to a moment in their past that they wish they could change.

Listen to Gregor, but then listen to the most recent two-parter: Justine, and then Stephen. Make sure you listen to those two in chronological order. I listen to Heavyweight when I’m looking to get sucked into a compelling story and feel connected to humanity at large. This show has given me a pavlovian response to its theme song, Sun in an Empty Room by the Weakerthans. I hear the drums and the first few chords and immediately find myself in a state of wistful longing, but also contentment about my place in the world. Which is to say, that’s often how I feel at the end of a Heavyweight episode. Brains!

Strong and Free

I was so excited to see what the wonderful producers at Media Girlfriends would do with the new Historica Canada podcast, Strong and Free. I love learning about history, and I DEFINITELY love Heritage Minutes, though my love for Heritage Minutes may be slightly inflated due to the fact that I always accidentally categorize the North American House Hippo ad as one. 

Garvia Bailey and Hannah Sung produced this six-part series about Black Canadians whose contributions have often gone overlooked. I was familiar with some of the subjects, like Herb Carnegie, but others, like Mary Ann Shadd, were brand new to me. I highly recommend listening to that one without reading the description, because there’s a twist in the first few minutes that makes the listening experience so fun. This is a good podcast for anyone who likes learning about broader history through the prism of interesting historical figures.

Close to Death

To round out our Halloween-themed podcast recommendations, I’m going to step away from horror (which I am clearly too scared of to recommend well) and tell you about an incredible new podcast about death. 

Close to Death from Transmitter Pods and USG Audio profiles people who spend every day working with the dead and dying. In the second episode, Witch, comedian Jourdain Fisher talks to a witch named Lynn Swain about her work as a medium. If you’ve ever been curious about mediums, or skeptical, or a combination of curious and skeptical, Lynn is warm and very convincing. 

They say the veil between the earthly and spirit worlds thins around Halloween… So if you’re thinking about what might lay ahead on the other side, give this show a listen. This episode was also produced by my friend, Toronto-based producer Allie Graham! We love to see Canadians making a splash in American media.

16 Spooky Podcasts for Halloween

If you’ve been reading this newsletter throughout this fair, spooky month, I don’t have to tell you that I’m a terrible horror-concierge. Take last week, when I found two podcasts that were REALLY well produced and looked amazing and I couldn’t even listen beyond the trailer.

But luckily, there are better spook-aficionados on the Vocal Fry team. Digital producer (and editor of this newsletter!) Emily Latimer wrote a blog post rounding up 16 spooky pods to get you in the Halloween mood. She will do a better job than I ever could. She's also been making TikToks about them! They're ridiculous!

Home Cooking

Two weeks ago, I told you that I was about to attempt to roast my very first turkey. I used Melissa Clark’s simple roast turkey recipe, and you know what? It turned out PERFECTLY. 

While attempting to manoeuvre a 17 lb. bird, up to my elbows in turkey juice and cursing my ambition, I listened to a lot of Home Cooking with Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway. They were lovely company, but I did find it so strange to be transported back to the early days of the pandemic when the show was launched.
It was almost like a time capsule—everyone was writing in to ask about what to do with all the beans they were hoarding.
Remember when we were all hoarding beans and no one had a clue what was going on and we (I) thought things would be back to normal by summer? It actually made it a little hard to listen to, being brought back to that time, but in 20 years time when a young person asks what it was like to live through the pandemic, I will play them the beans episode. Regardless, Samin is such a delight that I would listen to her read subpoenaed group chats of people saying mean things about me. 

I also perused Spotify for interviews with Ina Garten. My absolute favourite one was a conversation with Ina and Stanley Tucci on the Cherry Bombe podcast. The audio quality is very meh, but they are both extremely charming and they talk a lot about Stanley’s time filming Julie & Julia. As an advocate of Nora Ephron Autumn, I will take any and every opportunity to listen to actors talk about working with her.
Spoiler alert: Stanley Tucci cooked with Meryl as part of their prep for the movie. I die!

Now that commutes are no longer a part of my life, the main time I listen to podcasts (other than silly little walks) are when I’m doing Big Chores. It really does feel like having a pal around, not helping at all, but at the very least, entertaining me. 

If I Go Missing, the Witches Did It & The Burned Photo

Did I mention I’m a scaredy cat? I am a major scaredy cat. I tried looking for more horror shows. I listened to the trailers for two shows and I was genuinely too freaked out to listen to the first episodes. However! Based on the trailers, these shows are VERY well produced. I’m picky about scripted podcasts (I find a lot of them to be a bit stilted) but the voice acting in both of these is top tier. Good enough to freak me out to the point that I would not, could not, listen to an entire episode. 

But maybe you will!

The Burned Photo begins with a young girl Felicia’s creepy encounter, prompting her mother to move them across the country. I don’t know anything else, because again, I was too scared. 

If I Go Missing, the Witches Did It stars Gabourey Sidibe (Precious, American Horror Story, Empire), so you know the acting will be good. Sidibe plays Jenna, a writer who goes missing during a summer in Westchester checking out how the other half lives. Elise, a white lady podcaster, takes up the cause. Apparently this show is about white saviours and witch covens. It sounded really good. But I am too scared! Please listen to these and tell me if they’re as good as they seem.

Strange Phenomenon

I started listening to a show called Strange Phenomenon, a paranormal documentary podcast. I was hooked by the first episode about the Fermi paradox, because I’m a teeny bit obsessed with the search for extraterrestrial life. Call an episode “Where are the aliens?” and yes, I will be there, because I have the same question.

The storytelling is very straightforward, which I like—there are no alien fakeouts, no reports of weird occurrences that turned out to be something else, it’s more of an examination of what we actually know and why we don’t know more. The spooky music does a lot of heavy lifting to make it feel more spooky. It’s a fun, sciencey look at paranormal phenomena, and for week one of spooky podcasts, that feels like a good place to start.

Telling our Twisted Histories

September 30 was the first nationally recognized Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Having this day recognized as a holiday is one of the 94 calls to action made following the Truth and Reconciliation commission. I listened to the Reconciliation episode of Telling our Twisted Histories, a CBC podcast that examines the concept of decolonizing language, one word at a time. Host Kaniehti:io Horn takes the listener through perceptions and understandings of reconciliation, and ultimately asks: what does a decolonized version of reconciliation look like? 

I also recommend listening to all (or parts) of the September 30th broadcast of The Early Edition, Vancouver’s morning show, hosted by Angela Sterritt. In this segment, she talks to Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc leaders reflecting on the discovery of unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Residential School.

Love to See It

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to bring in my favourite Bachelor recap podcast, Love to See It. In a year where pandemic production schedules have meant we’ve seen pretty much back-to-back Bachelorette / Bachelor / Bachelorette / Paradise seasons since last fall, I appreciate Emma and Claire’s critical, but loving, dissections of a fundamentally bananas television franchise.

Love to See It is the phoenix rising up from the ashes of their long-running HuffPost podcast, Here to Make Friends. Emma and Claire were both laid off in the Buzzfeed bloodbath back in March of this year, which saw dozens of HuffPost staffers laid off and HuffPost Canada shut down entirely. They take an explicitly feminist lens to a show with an explicitly patriarchal foundation, and bring in guests from Bachelor Nation and celebrity fans like Daniel Radcliffe. Harry Potter and the Curse of the Flat Tummy Tea when???

To Have/To Hold - BBC’s The Essay

Artist and audio producer Aliya Pabani made a short audio piece for the BBC’s show, The Essay, on the violent eviction of the Trinity Bellwoods encampment in Toronto earlier this summer. To Have/To Hold is told through photographs of Pabani that were taken that day. “Every photo of conflict has a before and an after,” she says, about seven minutes into the piece.

This is a quiet, close-up look at what went down on a horrifying day: arrests, concussions, displacements. It poses the question of what role photos play when it comes time to tell the stories—who gets portrayed? What kinds of interactions? At just under 14 minutes, it’s short, but powerful.

Finding Cleo

From Emily Latimer: If you haven’t listened to Connie Walker’s Finding Cleo yet, you really should. Yes, it’s three years old, but it was extremely popular for good reason. It’s intriguing radio, expertly reported, beautifully told, and there’s an honest to God decades-old mystery that gets solved at the heart of it. Now that’s compelling storytelling. 

This Inescapable City

Alright, I am biased with this one, but trust me, it’s REALLY good. My friends at Probably Theatre Collective, Dylan Tate-Howarth, Laura Gallagher-Doucette, and Lou Campbell, have an audio piece in this year’s Halifax Fringe Festival, This Inescapable City. It’s a “poetic sound installation that explores our collective relationship to water, memory, and time.” The sound design is rich and immersive, and I am so excited by their exploration into what’s possible with audio storytelling.

They designed the piece to be experienced in the presence of any body of water, but if you’re in Halifax, they recommend listening along the Halifax Waterfront, and if you’re in Toronto, they recommend Sunnyside Beach. Tickets are $10, and you can get yours through the Halifax Fringe site. The Halifax Fringe runs through Sunday, September 12, and you need to buy a ticket in order to download it.

The Nikki Glaser Podcast

From Emily Latimer: Well, I wanted to pretend that I’m listening to Poynter’s 2018 podcast (Mis)informed, because that would have been so fitting. (It explores fact-checking and misinformation, and I listened to it a couple of years ago.) In reality, I’ve been listening to a podcast that’s much less serious, The Nikki Glaser Podcast. My sister is a big fan of Nikki, and she plays episodes while we drive in the car. 

The infamous roaster and comedian puts out an episode every Monday through Thursday, and though it’s a bit absurd and ridiculous, sometimes that’s just what ya need. It was kind of the soundtrack to our summer; we listened while driving all around Cape Breton Island, up to Halifax, and on shorter stints to visit family. It makes the drives go by faster, and I get to laugh with my sister. What could be better?

Short Cuts

Producer Ren Bangert has been listening to Short Cuts from BBC, a soundscape-based show that explores storytelling through sound more than through a spoken narrative. Ren loves all things that have to do with soundscape and experimental sounds, and she sees Short Cuts as a great tribute to the slow radio tradition.

“Storytelling with sound is a great space to be artistic, and it’s very emotionally gripping—you can invoke intense emotions in a listener without using any kind of standardized structure,” they told me. As a tarot reader, Ren is partial to their episode inspired by the tarot deck. Get into it!

Walking in Place

This week, I’m listening to Walking in Place, hosted and produced by Ashley McDonough. The show is a series of audio walking tours through Toronto, designed to be listened either as you walk through the neighbourhood, or listening at home. The walks are more history and context-setting than dreamy and esoteric (for a dreamy and esoteric audio walk I highly recommend The Slow Now) but McDonough does a great job of weaving the history into the place itself. I love hearing the stories behind how streets got their names, and what buildings or bridges or creeks used to stand where I am, and the rich sound design makes it that much more poignant. Recommended for people who miss walking tours, or who just want to learn more about the history of Toronto.

By The Book

Associate producer Kattie Laur is currently listening to By The Book, a hilarious yet insightful critique on how people tell others to live their lives. In each episode, culture critic Kristen Meinzer and comedian Jolenta Greenberg try to live according to a self-help book for two weeks. This season they take on self-help books written by celebrities. Kattie loves that the hosts come at the books with an open mind and a critical feminist lens, and they don't hesitate to call out the bullshit. 

It’s great for both the self-help skeptic, and the self-help curious who want the scoop on whether these books are as helpful as they claim to be. Plus, it features audio diaries captured as they tried out the self-help methods, like Kristen's husband's reaction when she didn't wash her hair for two weeks because Jessica Alba told her not to. 

Sentimental in the City

Alright, I may have recommended this show way back in our very first newsletter, but this is A Very Carrie (Bradshaw) Newsletter so I must once again recommend Caroline O’Donoghue’s delightful miniseries with Dolly Alderton, Sentimental in the City.

Together, they analyze each season of Sex and the City for the great American novel that it is, and they examine all the influences the show had on them as they were growing up. This podcast is definitely for people who already watch Sex and the City and are into doing literary analysis of pop culture. I don’t usually have patience for podcasts that go longer than an hour, but each Sentimental in the City episode earns its two-plus-hour runtime.

The Vanishing of Harry Pace

If you’re subscribed to this podcast, it’s likely you have already listened to Radiolab at least once or twice or a hundred times. But their most recent mini-series is worth a shout out. The Vanishing of Harry Pace is a six-part series about Harry Pace, the man who founded the first Black-owned record label and helped desegregate the South Side of Chicago… and then, disappeared. I’m only on episode two, but they’re all out now. If you loved Dolly Parton's America, chances are, you’ll love this one, too.

70 over 70

70 over 70 is a new show from Pineapple Street Studios. Each week, host Max Linsky interviews a different person over the age of 70. The guests are impressive: Sister Helen Prejean, Dionne Warwick, and Michio Kaku have all been interviewed in the episodes that have come out so far. I love that these conversations get at the kinds of questions that can eat away at you but are hard to ask—are you afraid of dying? What do you think comes next? 70 over 70 pairs well with a contemplative walk in nice weather, and if you haven’t taken one in a while, I highly recommend doing that, too.

Cancel Me, Daddy, Inappropriate Questions, and Maintenance Phase

From Max Collins’ story, Pride Is Over, But You Can Still Support Gay Creators 

Here are some podcasts made by queer creators Max recommends: Maintenance Phase, from Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes. I’m a big fan of this show too — Max recommends the Snake Oil episode, and I love the one on Celery Juice because it gets into the story behind the Medical Medium. Inappropriate Questions, hosted by Harvinder Wadhwa and Elena Hudgins Lyle (who has written about how they became a CBC Podcasts host for our blog!) Cancel Me, Daddy, from Katelyn Burns and Oliver-Ashe Kleine.

HiberNation

Mallika Rao is the author of the 2019 Atlantic essay, Why Everyone Should Sleep Alone. Now, she’s the host of a new show, produced with Headspace Studios: HiberNation. There are three episodes out right now, and in the first one, Sleeping Together, Rao explores what it means to share a bed with someone. She speaks to people who once shared a bed, but have to contend with what it means to lose their partners when it comes time to sleep. 

While I found the structure a little all over the place (there’s a fair amount of jumping between stories), it’s a tender and thought-provoking look at this huge part of our lives that often gets deprioritized.

Box Office Bylines

Season two of Box Office Bylines is in full swing! In each episode, hosts Tara Thorne and Jacob Boon dissect a different movie about journalism—they’ve done episodes on the obvious ones, like Spotlight and All the President’s Men, and the less immediately obvious ones, like Almost Famous and 13 Going on 30. Last week’s episode was about Heartburn, the film written by Nora Ephron based on the book of the same name.

I watched Heartburn for the first time in early lockdown and expected to love it, as a lifelong Ephron fan, but found it kind of odd. (It’s based on her marriage to Carl Bernstein—yes, that Carl Bernstein, of Woodward and Bernstein—which fell apart after he cheated on her while she was pregnant with their second child. Way harsh, Tai.) Thorne and Boon bring juicy tidbits about the production, like which actors were originally cast and why they got swapped out. While there’s not much actual journalism in this particular movie, their fun rapport about the fictionalized versions of IRL journalism heavyweights (Meryl Streep as Rachel Samstat, a stand-in for Ephron, and Jack Nicholson as Mark Forman, standing in for Bernstein) made the movie feel richer.

Season one has 30 episodes already out, so if you’re looking for a podcast to go back through, you’ll have lots to work with. Keep your ears peeled (open?) for some familiar guests in episodes to come!

You Can’t Get There From Here

If you find yourself missing live theatre, The Factory Theatre in Toronto has produced a series of audio plays called You Can't Get There From Here. It features five original works by Anusree Roy, Matthew McKenzie, Yvette Nolan, Keith Barker, and Luke Reece. Something I miss about live theatre is that feeling of immersion in a story—like you’re eavesdropping on a stranger’s juicy conversation and getting a peek into their world. With this series, they’ve done worldbuilding through textured, rich sound environments, so I get that same immersive feeling. A good listen for anyone who’s bummed about another (IRL) Fringe-less July.

All My Relations

I first heard about All My Relations, a podcast by Matika Wilbur (Swinomish and Tulalip) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), when Vocal Fry producer Sabrina Brathwaite recommended it for Women’s Day. Their most recent episode, All My Loving Relations, looks at what love looks like in an Indigenous context, and the effects of colonial violence on love. It’s a warm, reflective episode, featuring conversations with Geraldine King (Anishnaabe), a First Nations scholar at Carleton University, and Aunty Jillene Joseph (Gros Ventre), the executive director of the Native Wellness Institute.

These are long episodes, mostly over an hour, so it’s a good listen for anyone who’s looking for some company, or those looking for conversations that explore all the complexities of Indigeneity. They write: “We want this space to be for everyone—for Native folks to laugh, to hear ourselves reflected, and give us a chance to think deeper about some of the biggest issues facing our communities, and for non-Native folks to listen and learn.”

This Is Actually Happening

Digital producer Emily Latimer has the podcast recco this week. She’s been listening to This Is Actually Happening from Wondery. It features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. (A few recent episodes: What if you spent four years inside? What if you couldn’t stop shining? What if you kept shaking hands with death?)

From a podcast production standpoint, it’s a stripped down show that shines a spotlight on how impactful first-person storytelling can be. There’s no scripting, no host interjections, and minimal music cues. The subject just tells their story from beginning to end. Listeners who love deeply personal narratives, surfing Reddit to read tales of intimate relationship drama, and chronological storytelling should take a listen.

Once Upon A Time… At Bennington College*

My toxic trait is that I love gossip. I love petty gossip, benign gossip, historical gossip… I will drop everything for anything told with a cheeky grin and a whisper. Which is why I’ve been binge listening to Once Upon A Time… At Bennington College. It’s about the literary brat-pack at Bennington College in the mid-80s: Bret Easton-Ellis, Jonathan Lethem, and Donna Tartt.

It’s based on the oral history she wrote for Esquire in 2019, and it is good gossip. Whether it’s good journalism is a bit iffy — Ellis is a pretty unreliable narrator, and we hear from him a lot. But it’s just so dishy that I can’t resist. I’m on episode five — 13 have been released so far — and we’re just getting into Donna Tartt’s story. Tartt is the only one out of the three authors who didn’t participate in the podcast, and has had her lawyers send a warning to the show not to broadcast any kind of “false, misleading or otherwise inaccurate statement” about her. Which, to be fair, you’d hope they wouldn’t do anyway.*

*Someone bring me a spoon for this big ol’ plate of humble pie — I’m here to eat my words. 

Last week I recommended the podcast Once Upon A Time… At Bennington College, having only listened to five episodes. There are 14 episodes out, and now that I’ve listened to nine of them, I have to rescind my recommendation.

I wasn’t necessarily a fan of any of the central characters going into the podcast — specifically, Bret Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt, and Jonathan Lethem — but I am a fan of juicy stories set at quirky liberal arts colleges. 

What I thought was going to be a fun, gossipy podcast with juicy stories about a liberal arts college that fostered some of the most celebrated authors of a generation turned out to be a story that is both bloated and thin, with some strange takes on gender and sexuality, and some wild editorializing. 

The first few episodes, focused on Ellis, were snappy and engrossing — likely in part because Ellis actually participated in the podcast, as opposed to Tartt, who refused. So of course Ellis’ background story would be more colourful and interesting, because there was material to work with. 
But the amount of conjecture that host Lili Anolik brings to Tartt’s story feels borderline fictitious to me. She talks about the friendship between Tartt and Lethem, which eventually sours, and posits that their friendship, their connection, had romantic elements to it — that they had ill-timed crushes on each other. This is the kind of cheeky theory that you tell your book-nerd friends over a bottle of wine. In my opinion, this is a bonkers thing to say about people who are both still alive in a podcast that’s meant to be rigorously reported, and theoretically fact-checked. Whether this was actually fact-checked, I’m not so sure.

Donna Tartt’s literary agents requested that Apple Podcasts take down the podcast back in October, and her lawyer requested they not use “any of Tartt’s published works without permission, or any of her private school records.” The podcast does use Tartt’s published works. They excerpt her audiobook of The Secret History, which Tartt narrates herself. Every time it’s used, Anolik pipes in to say something along the lines of, “I want you to hear how Donna is reading this.” By arguing that Donna’s read of her story adds context, that it contains literary value, they’re basically covering their asses and making the argument that it falls under fair use. If Anolik can posit wild theories, I will too: I think this serves as a bit of a middle finger to Tartt for not playing nice. Don’t want to be in our podcast? Too bad, you’re in it whether you like it or not.

In an interview with the LA Times, Anolik says that she takes the caution letters sent to her by Tartt’s lawyers “as a compliment.”

From a production standpoint, there are a number of instances where interview tape is reused in a later episode. If this is done intentionally, I would expect to hear a call back: “You heard X say this before, now here it is with more context.” I think they actually just lost track and used the tape twice. 

Also, some of the interviews were conducted in loud rooms, or were not the best sound quality because they were recorded for Anolik’s original Esquire piece on Bennington. While not ideal, it is not the worst thing in the world. What drives me crazy is that any time less-than-ideal audio is used, she stops to apologize for the quality, or to excuse her “braying laugh.” I understand making the comment once off the top of the podcast — some of these interviews were conducted in less than ideal circumstances. People will understand! But by making a comment every single time, she calls attention to it and that’s what takes me out of the story, not the audio itself.

Based on the advertisements I’ve been hearing for their other original podcasts, it sounds like Cadence 13, the company behind OUATABC, has a lot of money to do whatever they want with, including what they call a “movie-length podcast” starring Kiernan Shipka. I look forward to tearing it to shreds!

In the meantime, I’m listening to the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat soundtrack.

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