Who are you and what’s your podcast about?

We are Harleigh & Malaika, and we host Sonder & Salt – the weekly podcast for food lovers. We wanted to create a space to explore our individual relationships with food and how our unique experiences influenced our preferences, opinions and seemingly insignificant food choices.

M: I’m a casual content creator, but I would love to do it full time one day. Over the years I’ve had a YouTube channel, a blog and even hosted weekly cocktail hours on Instagram live. My content is always rooted in my love for food whether it’s eating out, travelling to eat & explore or sharing recipes of my favourite meals.

H: Same for me really. If I bump into someone who says they recognise me I just say, ‘probably from the internet!’

What was the first podcast you ever listened to?

H: Another Round which was a Buzzfeed production hosted by Heben and Tracy. It was the highlight of my week and their drunk segment at the end used to give me the giggles when I was working on my dissertation. I still follow Heben on X and her recent commentary on the Beyonce album makes me want them back in a studio together so badly!

M: Food, But We Digress with Alex & Joshua. I found Alex on YouTube & fell in love with the in depth conversations about very specific ingredients and food topics. Some of the best episodes were about their favourite pasta shapes or debating whether it’s better to eat rice with a spoon or fork!

Why did you decide to start podcasting in the first place?

M: Harleigh will say I gave her no choice, but I would say it was meant to be!

H: We found each other on social media from our food blogs, developed a friendship and felt that there wasn’t a food centred podcast that you didn’t need to identify as a “foodie” to engage with.

Which podcasts do you take inspiration from?

M: I was really inspired by Alex & Joshua on Food, But We Digress. The conversations have always found the right balance between being entertaining and informative which is something we like to do. Although we’re not a guest based podcast, Comfort Eating with Grace Dent is a good example of having really intimate conversations with guests about their relationships with food and the things they love.

H: I love the interview style on The Sporkful and how when he travels to meet guests it really feels like you’ve gone with him. I mostly use Science Vs by Wendy Zukermann for any food science information on the podcast.

Who’s your dream guest for the podcast?

H: Claire Saffitz! Without a doubt. Her YouTube videos make me feel like she’s baking in my living room, so I need to have her chatting along with me in the studio.

M: I’d love to sit down with Staney Tucci or Chishuru’s head chef Joké Bakare – she’s the first black female Michelin-starred chef in the UK.

Which episode would you say is the perfect introduction to your podcast?

M: I’d say ‘Can you cook jerk chicken in an oven’ featuring Melissa Thompson.

H: ‘Food Love Languages’ is one of our most popular episodes so I usually suggest people start there.

Where can the Pod Bible readers find out more about you?

Find us on Instagram,, X and TikTok at @sonderandsalt. For more of us individually, come over to our Instagrams @harleigh.reid @malaikamalz.

Sonder & Salt is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and other popular podcast apps >>

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Congratulations on the new show! Can you tell us what you’re most excited about with this one?

I’m most excited about Great Company is the fact that I have always loved doing interviews. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to have a chat show and I had a previous podcast for many years and the fact that we get to launch Great Company under my production company JamPot is so exciting and for me, it’s just about connecting. I think in this world we have become disconnected. We have become so connected that we’ve become disconnected and this podcast Great Company is about just connecting again with people and this is what I’m most excited about – learning, laughing, crying whatever it is. It’s going to be amazing.

You seem to be one of the most prolific podcasters in the UK – where do you get your ideas?

That’s very kind I don’t think I am. I just think for me that podcasting is an amazing place where you can vomit creativity and I really sort of think fortune favours the brave if that’s a saying and I think that just trying stuff is just so fun and that’s why I just love doing podcasting. Just trying stuff which is amazing.

As our Podcast Disciple back in Issue 10 of the mag, you said “this is just the start of audio”. What do you think has changed since 2020?

I think podcasting is completely 360 now. Podcasting used to just be audio really and a little bit of visual and now it’s so much more than that. And I think people also realise that podcasting has changed where it used to be a conversation between two people but actually I think podcasting is going to go more to format based and people are going to focus on formats in podcasting rather than talent led so I am think there are lots of changes. I think that’s the main change.

What do you hope to see in the next 5 years of audio and podcasting?

What I hope to see in the next 5 years, is I think loads of people come into it which is a good thing and a bad thing. I think in the next 5 years, it’s going to become a really great space and it’s going to be really premium content, really good content, and really considered content and that’s what I’m really excited about that I think you have to make really great stuff and I think in the next 5 years, we’re going to see really amazing things being made in this audio space.

Lastly – there are lots of podcast events happening this year to keep you busy, any you think listeners should join you at?

Oh my god, well we’re doing a festival called Crossed Wires Festival which will be amazing. We are having a NewlyWeds tour which is very exciting. We’ve got The Podcast Show which will be incredible and I think listeners should definitely go to that if they want to learn about podcasting. And also, the British Podcast Awards happens every single year and if listeners can go to that, then go to that as well. That’s what I would say. Thank you so much.

Great Company with Jamie Laing is available now on all podcast providers. Tune into Going Home with Vick, Katie and Jamie on Radio 1, Monday to Thursday, 3.30pm – 6pm.

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As well as bringing us International Women’s Day, March is also Women’s History Month. So much of the history we are taught focuses on the male perspective, and the same can be said of many history podcasts. Even when searching for the best women’s history podcasts,  quite often you will be recommended podcasts from the USA, and focused on American history. So for those of you searching for some UK-based women’s history podcasts, we’ve pulled together some shows that look at the history on our doorstep.

History Becomes Her

Who inspires the women making history right now? In History Becomes Her, Mashable journalist Rachel Thompson speaks to some of the women making change today about the women of the past who paved the way for them. Episodes include journalist Zing Tsjeng talking about pirate queens, and Ruth Hunt speaking about Virginia Woolfe and LGBQT+ history. This is also a great one to listen to for the book recommendations to add to your reading list. Listen now >>

Hell Cats

Speaking of pirate queens, a great Audible Original podcast to listen to this month is Hell Cats. It tells the little-known story of history’s most progressive pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. This is a fictionalised version of a true story, so expect adventure on the high seas and an enduring love affair between the women.  This has had great reviews on Audible, with one listener saying “The sound design is like watching a series with your eyes closed”. Listen now on Audible>>

History Cafe

This podcast isn’t exclusively for women’s history, but it has some great episodes that delve into lesser-known parts of British women’s history. In a short series running this month ‘The Secret History of the Suffragettes’, they “peel away the Pankhurst monopoly to reveal something much uglier”. Learn about the WSPU and the terrorist tactics they employed in the name of women’s voting rights.  Listen now >>

Outliers

Another podcast that looks at history from an interesting angle, Outliers is an historic fiction podcast that explores how big events filter down to the people left out of the history books. Made by Historic Royal Palaces, in association with Rusty Quill (who are most popular for making fiction podcast The Magnus Archives and Stellar Firma) each episode has a writer pick a lesser-known person associated with a historical event, and write a monologue from their point of view. I really enjoyed Fresh Sweat and Cloves, where we hear from the widow of Walter Raleigh. Listen now >>

It’s A Continent

This podcast is here to remind us that Africa is a continent, not a country. And as such, there is a lot of history for many of us to unpack. For Women’s History Month, check out some of the episodes devoted to women who have changed their countries. ‘Queen Nzinga: Angola’s Protector’ was made famous by fighting against the slave trade and European influence, whilst ‘Wangari, Kenya’s mother’ tells the story of Wangari Maathai, who was the first Black woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Listen now >>

Same Sh!t, Different Century

In the Women’s March in 2017, three women went viral for dressing as suffragettes and marching with a sign that said “Same Shit, Different Century”. They were Costume Coordinators Amy Trend, Hannah Monkley and Amy Toll, and this is their podcast. Made back in 2018, there are only eight episodes and the first couple are very homemade. But this is a great podcast diving deep into one aspect of history, and it often pops up in lists for offering a different angle on women’s history. Listen now>>

Normal Women

This podcast was created to be released alongside Philippa Gregory’s history book, Normal Women, but it’s not a book podcast but rather a standalone series based on the book premise. The eight-part series doesn’t focus on the normal podcast narrative about the three or four well-known historical heroines. It is a dive into the normal women who we don’t learn about in history, whether they left records or were ‘hidden from history’ in the everyday. Listen now >>

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Described as a ‘sonic scrapbook and a passport to roam’ Lowlines follows Petra Barran as she travels solo through the Americas. What pulled me to listen to the series was the production process – the original audio was recorded on the fly by Petra, who’s described as a ‘novice presenter and producer… without an itinerary to record’. It was only in post-production that Social Broadcasts and Scenery Studios used the (sometimes very) raw tape to pull together a narrative.

Producer Lucia Scazzocchio, Host Petra Barran and Executive producer Lina Prestwood

This style of production was sold as unusual, but it’s something a lot of novice presenters/producers – myself included – will recognise, particularly when it comes to travelling through your headphones. The resulting mix of musings, field recordings, original music and conversation is a style we find in a lot of travel podcasts. But if I draw comparisons to a more intentionally crafted production – such as QCODE’s Thru series, which has a similar ‘journey of discovery’ premise – Lowlines feels more like a reflection on a trip rather than a story of a trip. Whilst thru-hiker, Cody Hofmockel, went into his journey as a journalist wanting a narrative, Petra set out to find a narrative after her journey.

I recognise this need to seek understanding after the process, rather than letting the recording process add a shape to your trip itself. The result with Lowlines is that Petra’s recordings do invite escapism to the Americas, but not the type of escapism that allows the listener to forget the world. Instead, it asks us to imagine ourselves in the location as a whole: in the first episode ‘Second Line’ we don’t just get the tourist view of New Orleans with the Jazz parades, we get the reminder from a resident that this is a funeral procession. We get to really hear the heart of the city with a conversation in someones’ living room.

Despite the focus on soundscapes, the moments that stick in my mind are the parts with very little noise: it is Petra’s description of New Orleans from the air as ‘a mass of tiny little scabs’ – something that could be offensive but paints the image perfectly; it is the man working on a Louisiana levee who sounds slightly defeated as the almost unspoken threat of a Katrina-level disaster lingers in the conversation.

It’s the weight to these kinds of conversations that stops the listener from sinking into the soundscapes too deeply. Host Petra does acknowledge this heaviness to the content: at the end of the second episode, she ends an audio diary by going to watch The Kardashians in her hotel room. It’s a needed moment, because I found certain layers of sound and conversation quite intense.

Overall, the description of a sonic scrapbook feels like an apt one – listening to the series as a whole could be a bombardment of too much to take in, and there’s pieces that I found more interesting that others. But we get a collage of moments that are important to Petra. Listeners might not find resonance in everything they are offered, but everyone would be able to take something away.

The first episode of Lowlines, ‘Second Line (New Orleans)’, is available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other popular podcast apps >> 

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At the end of the day, all I can offer to readers are my favourite shows – and those aren’t necessarily going to appeal to all listeners. I was lucky enough to have the space to recommend a WIDE range of podcasts in my guest issue of Pod Bible magazine, and was absolutely thrilled to have Closet Confessions as our cover stars for that issue. As a team, we offer listeners The Pod Bible Polls to highlight some of the podcasts we’ve featured over the past year in the magazine and online. But we’ve no doubt missed podcasts that deserve to be in there!

So in an attempt to share as wide a range of podcasts as possible, and get a group consensus on some shows worth checking out, I’ve once again asked our team and contributors to give you their recommendations.

I’ve asked them to recommend the new show they think stands out, and the podcast that has been their personal favourite in 2023. This is the Pod Bible ESSENTIAL guide to some of the best podcasts in 2023…

Katie Stokes

New pod of the year: Ghost story

Ghost stories are usually too spooky for me, but throw in some family drama and true crime? I’m hooked. Ghost Story is Tristan Redman’s investigation into the haunting from his childhood, a murder in the house next door and a hunt for answers beyond the veil. This series keeps humanity at the centre of the eerie by questioning: who is the teller of our stories? And what, or who, lingers? A thrilling and hearty story to round off 2023. Listen here >>

Pod of the year: Lights Out

One of the superpowers of podcasting is the ability to create intimacy between creator and listener. Lights Out does this beautifully. This anthology documentary series curates deeply personal stories, some of loss, hope or belonging, and each with a reminder: there is more that brings us together than divides us. The show will no longer be broadcast by BBC Radio 4 but I hope they find a new home in 2024 to continue their refreshing work. Listen here >>

Tom Nicholson

Best new podcast: Where Are You Going?

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. Host Catherine Carr has quick chats with passersby all over the world – dog-walkers in Ely, God-botherers in New York City, sightseers in Amsterdam – which open with the titular question. Where they go from there is always surprising, and Carr is excellent at gently and non-judgmentally probing to find the amazing stories and people walking past all of us every day. In a year when more I’ve been narked than ever by pods spinning out thin stories over too many episodes, each 10- or 15-minute pod is exactly the size and shape its stories need it to be. It’s a really beautiful thing. Listen here >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Believe in Magic

The scam-artist exposé is still massive, but none have managed to perform such a thorough and unexpected turnaround in my sympathies. Megan Bhari became a huge star within child cancer fundraising circles, managing to work wonders while fighting her own brain tumour. Then parents of other children with cancer started to suspect something was off, and went to war with Megan and her mum Jean. The story is gripping enough through its first four episodes, but soon Megan is in real danger and something altogether darker, and more distressing colours the final eps. A report into Megan and Jean and their relationship provided a chilling coda. Listen here >>

Takudzwa Mudiwa

Best new podcast: The Girlfriends

Novel’s The Girlfriends tells the story of doctor Bob Bierenbaum through the perspective of his ex-girlfriends, led by Carole Fisher, what was first mindless gossip and jovial investigation between friends, about the enigmatic local eligible bachelor became something more sinister. The highlight for me is Alayne, the sister of one of Bob’s ex’s Gail Katz. With haunting sound design the story of Gail is the main thread and her sister tells it with such admirable strength. Listen now >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Love, Janessa

Janessa Brazil actress/model image alone has been used by many scammers to lure men into online relationships and give up thousands in cash – there tends to be scepticism when it comes to catfish scammers especially toward the victim. BBC World Service and CBC’s Love, Janessa handles it with sensitivity and thorough research, Host Hannah Ajala unravels a story of the business of a catfishing and the emotional weight it can have on a victim but also it asks the question who is the person behind the image? Listen now >>

Laviea Thomas

Best new podcast: Springleaf

James Acaster has one of those personalities that makes him the perfect storyteller. His tongue-in-cheek one-liners, iconic comedic timing and sharp wit are all loveable aspects of his work and his delivery. Springleaf is up there as my top pick for the Best New Show for 2023 because of its great storytelling and unexpected plot twists. It perfectly bridges the gap between humour and knowledge and is jam-packed with an incredible bunch of comedians, and guests. Listen now >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Redhanded

I’m a serious lover of all things true crime, and I love that Redhanded covers a range of it from a-list celebrities to horrifying small-town investigations, family secrets and more. The show is carried by Suruthi Bala and Hannah Maguire, who bring to life trauma, gruesome horror and more in short but engaging episodes. I love that the show provides a multitude of facts, whilst touching upon popular conspiracies. Listen now >>

Adam Richardson

Best new podcast: Where Are You Going?

The audio equivalent of people watching, Where Are You Going? has been a revelation for me this year. As someone who works from home for most of the week I’ve really missed the mini interactions that a commute or a visit to the shops during your lunch break would create. With WAYG? Catherine Carr asks strangers in the street one simple question – where are you going? – and the answers are always hard to predict. With episodes recorded across the country and beyond, there’s a rich variety of voices to be heard from and stories that have me laughing in one moment then shedding a tear in the next. My only gripe is that the episodes aren’t longer. Listen here >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Sliced Bread

An older podcast but one I only got into this year is the BBC show Sliced Bread, a series hosted by Science presenter Greg Foot (who helped get me and my daughter through lockdown with his daily live YouTube shows) that investigates the latest hyped up products or fads to see if they really are the “best thing since sliced bread”. Topics such as personalised vitamin subscriptions, manuka honey and ice baths have been looked into, and while your preconceptions may often be correct before listening, there’s always an abundance of fascinating facts and take-aways to help inform future purchasing decisions. Listen here >>

Mimi Jones

Best new podcast: A Little Queer Podcast

Queer role models are far easier to discover these days, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone just explain everything for you, and A Little Queer Podcast does that perfectly. Capri Campeau and Ashley Whitfield are beautifully honest about their experience about their queer journey, queer identity in tv and film, your first queer relationship and so much more. They are eccentric and loud, and discuss so many areas of the queer experience in such a casual and accessible way. The perfect podcast for baby gay’s or people looking to understand queer culture. Listen here >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Welcome To Nightvale

Anyone that ventured into Tumblr back in its golden age will have heard of this show. It’s weird (like weird weird) but if you’re into fiction, the supernatural, and conspiracy then you’ll love it. I’ve stumbled across it before but have loved bingeing it properly this winter while wrapped up warm. For those few who aren’t familiar with the show, Welcome To Nightvale is a twice monthly radio show from the fictional town of Nightvale, where every conspiracy theory is true. Tune in for ‘The Weather’ which consists of jazzy beats, listen in to local gossip about the lurker in the lake, and enjoy the smooth voice of your host across some 200+ episodes. I also love the fact there is so much fan content for this show to consume across every platform you could think of – even a novelisation of the show! Listen here >>

Jason Reed

Best new podcast: Oh What A Time

The podcast cover looks as beautiful as a Pod Bible Magazine cover and that’s because our illustrator Dan Draws actually created this podcast cover!. Oh What a Time mixes history and comedy, forging discussions around bizarre laws to more weightier discussions such as healthcare through the ages and The Great Depression. The presenters, Elis James, Tom Craine, and Chris Scull, all bring knowledge and laughs as well as knowing when to sit back and play the ignorant layman when required. To say it’s easy listening almost implies an insult, but it’s actually testament to the relaxed and skilled conversations. And you will end up googling to double check some facts. Listen now >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Pod Save the UK

If you need satire in your life, then this is it, but it’s more than that… The Mash Report’s Nish Kumar is able to provide some laughter to the weekly news, but he also has an obvious need for activism, looking to solve issues with the show’s expert guests, and Coco Khan uses her background in journalism to bring the best out of the guests and topics. The big news stories are covered in ways conversational media isn’t able – if you want information and inspiration, then this is the weekly podcast for you. Listen now >>

Zainab Amer

Best new podcast AND Favourite podcast of the year: The Retrievals

Susan Burton narrates a five-part journey into Yale Fertility Clinic, unveiling a nurse’s conviction for tampering with fentanyl vials during egg retrievals. Susan remains objective as she rotates between the women and unfolding events, exploring the complexity of determining the ‘right’ outcome. It feels like the first time the women collectively and publicly process their dismissed pain by Yale. The collision of motherhood, female pain, and the law during sentencing, coupled with the judge’s reconciliation, is gripping. A compelling listen. Listen now >>

Diana Safieh

Favourite podcast of the year: #DEAD2ME: The Interviews

The supporting podcast to the Crime+Investigation show #Dead2Me, this show goes deeper into the harrowing experiences of those close to victims of crimes stemming from digital-age dating. Each episode, hosted by criminologist Dr Honor Doro Townshend, features heart-wrenching testimonies from families and experts, exploring the warning signs of domestic abuse and digital dangers. Listen now >>

Francesca Turauskis

Best new podcast: Bitter/Sweet

In a year where we’ve continued to see a lot of new podcasts, and a lot of high-budget investigations, Bitter/Sweet has offered a palate cleanser for me. The show is not unique in its focus on memorable meals, but it delivers these stories in such a special way. We hear guests’ stories through gentle nudges from host Natasha Miller asking them to explain atmosphere, smells, and more. But these are sandwiched between Natasha’s own story unpacking grief for her mother twinned into her own meals. Natasha has a lovely voice for the storytelling – she won the Bronze ‘Best Narrator’ at the Audio Production Awards – and the emotional vulnerability adds so much. Plus, episodes are not bloated, fitting under twenty minutes. Listen now >>

Favourite podcast of the year: Sherlock & Co

According to my podcast app, I’ve listened to over 500 different shows this year, and Sherlock & Co. is the one I am most excited to see pop into the top of my queue. I’m a bit of a sucker for a Sherlock Holmes retelling in films and television, but I generally don’t listen to fiction podcasts. I think this gets past my barrier because it feels like a documentary recorded in real time. We even interviewed John and Sherlock earlier in the year, and pulled them up on a few of the ethical questions around true crime podcasting. Fittingly for a Sherlock retelling, this show feels really clever – the production is really smooth, yet through little audio-in-jokes we still get the impression that John is a bad producer. I love the reference to Sherlock’s hobby with the dramatic violin-based music, and even though I know the stories, these versions are different enough to be interesting all over again. But my favourite aspect of Sherlock & Co. is how surprisingly funny it is. I laugh out loud at John far too much, and I’ve needed that from my podcasts this year. Listen now >>

The post The best podcasts of 2023: The ESSENTIAL list! appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Whilst you could get them some equipment – microphones or headphones – but you always run the risk of getting the wrong one. So my suggestion is to follow the lovely Icelandic tradition, and give them a podcast-related book. There are loads of books based on podcasts or by podcasters, and the best thing is – they are super simple to wrap too!

So if you’re after books based on podcasts, here are eleven of the best.

Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed.
by Chris & Rosie Ramsey

The husband and wife have been chatting about almost everything on their chart-topping podcast for nearly five years now, and they’ve committed their conversations to paper too. Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed by Chris & Rosie Ramsey goes through “the ups and downs and ins and outs of love, sex and relationships”. Author Daisy May Cooper said she “Laughed ’til I cried reading this. An absolute triumph!”. Find out more >>

The Rest Is History: The Official Book from the Makers of the Hit Podcast
By Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook

Released earlier this year, The Rest Is History is a great addition to the podcast from historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. It gives you a whistle-stop tour through the past by answering questions such as ‘did the Trojan War actually happen?’ and ‘how did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill’s cover?’. This is also a great present for history fans! Find out more >>

Diary of a CEO
by Steven Barlett

Steven Barlett’s podcast is consistently one of the most popular podcasts in the UK, so when he released his companion book earlier this year it was big news. The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business, Marketing and Life is partly based on interviews from his show, and promises to teach the reader principles ‘rooted in psychology and behavioral science’ that can apply to any industry. Find out more >>

What’s That Lady Doing?
by Lou Sanders

The host of Cuddle Club is a regular face on television and a regular voice on podcasts, but this step into literature is a new medium for her. And it’s worth saying that What’s That Lady Doing? shows a new side of Lou in an incredibly sincere memoir. As one review said “A memoir with this much rape and alcoholism in it has absolutely no business being so funny. But it is fucking hilarious.” Find out more >>

From Gay to Ze
By Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley

Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley broke new audio-ground with their first podcast, Some Families, which talked about the logistics of LGBTQ+ parenting. Their book The Queer Parent: Everything You Need to Know From Gay to Ze breaks literary ground as the first LGBTQ+ parenting book to ever be published by a major author. As the writers said to us earlier this year “Isn’t that insane?”. Find out more >>

It’s A Continent
by Chinny Ukata and Astrid Madimba

Chinny Ukata and Astrid Madimba educate and entertain listeners about the history of Africa with their podcast It’s A Continent. The book follows in its footsteps, appreciating the identity of each nation and exploring key historical moments that have shaped the continent, in an easily digestible, satirical (and shady) format. I was super excited to see the mention of Pod Bible in the bio at the start because we featured the podcast as a great women’s history podcast way back in 2021! Find out more >>

Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
By Rabia Chaudry

Serial is often credited with starting the first podcast boom – it has won every major award for broadcasting, including the first-ever Peabody awarded to a podcast. The epitome of the true crime genre, it is steeped in its own controversy. Rabia Chaudry’s book delves into the case on a much wider level, offers new content and evidence, and questions aspects that were only touched on – or not even reported – in the podcast. Find out more >>

How To Fail
By Elizabeth Day

Another hugely popular podcast, there are twelve whole seasons of How To Fail to catch up on. Elizabeth Day has spoken to hundreds of people about their failures and what it taught them. The book shines the light more on the author and is described as ‘part memoir, part manifesto’. This is a great one to give someone so they can start their new year on a positive – or learn to embrace the negative. Find out more >>

Welcome to Night Vale
by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

Whilst the Welcome To Night Vale podcast is in the style of a radio show, the book is a more traditional narrative. There are three book tie-ins to the series, and in this first, nineteen-year-old pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is determined to uncover the mystery of “King City”. Other books in the series are It Devours! and The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home. Find out more >>

Women vs Hollywood: The Fall and Rise of Women in Film
By Helen O’Hara

Empire magazine’s ‘geek queen’, Helen O’Hara, explores women’s roles – both in front of and behind the camera – since the birth of Hollywood, how those roles are reflected within wider society and what we can do to level the playing field. The podcast and book were released as a joint venture and therefore feed into each other really well.  This book ticks the boxes for anyone who likes cinema, podcasts or books. Find out more >>

The Breakup Monologues: The Unexpected Joy of Heartbreak
By Rosie Wilby

One of our regular writers, Rosie has done the full circle from writing her book, to making her podcast, and back to writing books. The Breakup Monologues is the book that came out of her podcast of the same name, and Rosie explore the psychology of love and heartbreak by drawing on her own and others’ experiences. You can read more about the journey in our interview with her. Find out more >>

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This year was a real testament to the ‘international’ aspect of the awards: entries were received from 27 countries and people were attending from France, New York, China and more. The shortlists reflected this, with more international shows – and the USA in particular – picking up awards and nominations. On the one hand, it seems a shame to me that less British shows are being highlighted compared to previous years. But I think it’s also important to note that the UK-based awards are attracting such attention. It has long been said that the US is ahead of the UK when it comes to podcasting, and this is a sign that we are catching up.

Another sign of the success of the IWPAs is that this year saw nominations and winners from large production companies and media, including iHeart Podcasts, BBC, Wondery and The Telegraph.

We also saw successes from some shows made by independent production companies –  Peanut & Crumb’s Get Birding continues to collect awards with it’s third series. Some individuals and small teams also made an appearance, including the UK-based Single Sounds, as well as Celebrity Catch-up and Bitter/Sweet, both of which we’ve featured in the Pod Bible magazine and on the website.

The third International Women’s Podcast Awards event was another evening of great atmosphere, supportive podcasters and celebrations. Well done to all the winners and nominees, and well done to Everybody Media for a lovely evening.

The Winners

Here are the list of winners and runner-up podcasts for the International Women’s Podcast Awards 2023. All quotes are taken from the description of the categories on the Everybody Media media

Moment of Behind-the-Scenes Brilliance

“…audio that showcases the writers, producers, editors and podcast professionals out there.”

Winner – Spygate

Runner-up – Freeway Phantom

Moment of Comedy Gold

“Make us laugh. That is all.”

Winner – Sanctum Unmasked

Runner-up – Single Sounds

Moment of Compelling Storytelling

“…so much of what we love about podcasting is woven around our love of hearing and telling stories.”

Winner – Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children

Runner-up – Discovery: In Search of Stardust

Moment of Dramatic Tension

“Dramatic tension can be leaving your listener on a cliffhanger, or it can be subtle and carefully built.”

Winner – How To Become a Dictator

Runner-up – British Scandal

Moment of Entrepreneurial Inspiration

“This category is for moments from the world of business, startups and entrepreneurship.” 

Winner – The Black Kitchen Series: Innovators

Runner-up – Modern Persian Food

Moment of Insight From a Role Model

“the moment from your podcast that you’d choose to play to a class full of young people.“

Winner – Feminist Files

Runner-up – Threshold

Runner-up: Celebrity Catch-up: Life After That Thing I Did

Moment of Podcasting Panache in a Language Other Than English

“We’re opening a category for podcasts in languages other than English.”

Winner – Costa Nostra

Runner-up – Réparations

Moment of Raw Emotion

“We’re after incredible audio moments of emotion reflecting the human experience of emotion”

Winner – Linda Marigliano’s Tough Love

Runner-up – 2 Lives

Runner-up – Nobody should believe me

Moment of Touching Honesty

“This category is for those intimate, touching audio moments of searing truth”

Winner – Get Birding

Runner-up – Bitter/Sweet

Moment of Visionary Leadership

“We want to hear about the women and folk of diverse genders on your podcast who’ve shown outstanding leadership and shared their secrets about it.”

Winner –  The Ten News

Runner-up – The Negotiators

Award For Changing The World One Moment At A Time

“We believe that podcasts have the power to create change in the world”

Winner – The TMI Project Story Hour

Runner-up – Wander

The post The International Women’s Podcast Awards 2023 – The Winners appeared first on POD BIBLE.

It’s been eight months since the winners of Content is Queen’s 2022 Micro-Grants for Podcasters Programme were announced, and we are starting to hear the fruits of that scheme. The first sneak-listen was given to the audience of the Micro Grant session at the London Podcast Festival session, but now one of those stories is available to the public.

‘Dead Ends’ by Talia Augustidis was broadcast last night as part of the new series of the BBC’s Lights Out audio documentary. In the episode, Talia offers a personal reflection on how we choose to remember someone, in this case her mother. With a starting point of home videos and crime scene photographs, the episode is about as personal as it gets. In fact, one of the teaser clips features Talia interviewing her father after developing a video of her mum that turned out to be a homemade sex-tape.

I was intrigued to learn more about how Talia navigated the line between emotion, embarrassment and audio production in such a unique piece.

This came out of the Content Is Queen micro grant – what do you think it was about your application that stuck out?

I think first of all the power of the story: trying to discover my Mum from these insufficient fragments. Then also the concept, I pitched to them a version where it appears in an online exhibition in a choose-your-own-adventure style way, which will come out next year. And finally the access, I already had all of this tape from years of recording.

How important was it for you to have this kind of development space?

Hugely important. It’s such a personal piece that I really needed a lot of time and space to leave it and come back, which the micro-grant allowed me, while also pushing me to actually go into the tapes and sift through them. It was really helpful too because I have a full-time job so I could only really work on it in the evenings and weekends, so I don’t think I would have been able to make it for this Lights Out series without the ideas I developed during the micro-grant process.

Why was audio the right medium for this project?

Ultimately it is a story about “images”: home videos, a sex tape, crime scene photographs and memories. And it’s about me not being able to access those images, for a variety of different reasons. So audio is an interesting medium to choose, because it allows for privacy for me and my family while also replicating the feeling of not being able to access the images we are discussing.

Did you take inspiration from any podcasts in particular before you started?

Not consciously. I tried as best I could to work from the tape first, that’s why each chapter is in a different style. But of course unconsciously I am constantly picking up on influences and inspiration. That being said, I am always inspired by the work of Nanna Hauge Kristensen. I think she creates the most beautiful, human, intimate audio of anyone I’ve ever heard, which I try to channel in certain moments of this piece.

As the Producer you obviously had to watch the videos and then speak to your dad about it. How much did you have to re-listen to that interview when producing the episode? And did your emotions and reactions change with re-listens?

I did that particular interview (the one in the audiogram) with my Dad in 2021, and I only listened to it a few months ago for the first time when editing it. I sort of shut it out for a long time I guess. Then I listened once all the way through and just tried to really listen with my body for the part that made me feel things, including discomfort, and those are the parts that stayed in. Of course I had to listen many more times when refining and cutting down, which usually makes me a bit numb to the emotions of the tape, but with that section it always made me laugh and cringe like it did the first time actually. I guess talking to your Dad about your dead mum’s sex tape is never going to feel normal and comfortable, even on the 100th listen.

At some stage you must have had to bring in new listeners to help you produce – and then hand over to the public to listen – how did you know the right time to do that and how does that feel now?

This is where I really want to give a huge shout out to El and Alan from Falling Tree. I found it really hard at the beginning to send drafts of the pieces. It’s such an immensely personal piece, and sharing it with the public feels like sharing a little part of yourself with the world, but sharing first drafts is like an open wound. And when the pitch was accepted for Lights Out I was so relieved to be working with Falling Tree on it, because I trust them. It really taught me the power of having a good editor, not even just for feedback, but even just knowing that you have someone sensitive that you trust allowed me to really push and finish the project.

Do you have any advice for budding producers?

On the topic of Dead Ends, I would say be really gentle with yourself when making personal pieces. If it’s your first time, I wouldn’t recommend making something with hard deadlines. Give yourself time and space to walk away and come back, without the pressure of disappointing anyone external. The first time I made a personal piece was at university (actually it was my first ever piece, The Sound Collector), dredging up the past became really overwhelming and I had to take a few months away from it and come back when I was ready. So be kind to yourself, check in, and don’t put yourself in a situation where taking space isn’t possible.

Dead Ends wouldn’t exist without two years of recording, one year of space, six months of development time from Content is Queen and a couple months of final edits.

Anything else you’d like readers to know?

I pitched a version of this story to the BBC twice — once to Radio 3 and once to Radio 4 — and it was rejected both times. So I want to say thank you to Content is Queen for taking a chance on it, and for Falling Tree for not giving up on it and putting it in their Lights Out series, which features audio documentaries that do something a little different, and take a closer look at news stories. This project has been so immensely cathartic and I’m really glad it found such a lovely home in such good company.

Listen to Lights Out on BBC Sounds, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcast apps >>

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In my opinion, the non-fiction monologue is a hugely underrated podcast style. As a listener, I get the entertainment of storytelling, the rawness of reality and the simplicity of a single voice. What’s more, the stories are often told by the writers themselves, directly speaking to me in a way that makes me slow down, really listen and consider their lived experience.

If you’ve heard one non-fiction podcast, it’s probably The Moth. One of America’s longest running podcasts (it’s been in podcast format since 2008) it constantly ranks in the podcast charts. Recorded in front of a live audience, each episode is short, well-crafted and you’re never quite sure what you’ll get – I have both cried and laughed out loud at stories whilst shopping!

So if you want to spend some time with great storytellers, here are some podcasts like The Moth that might speak to you.

TED Talks Daily

Okay, you’ve probably heard of this one! But if you like The Moth, TED Talks Daily is a great choice. Whilst The Moth tends to focus on one part of a person’s life, TED Talks often do big overviews and grand concepts. Some of the episodes cover topics at a more societal level, but many stem from a person’s own story and the emotions are often obvious. Running as a daily show for several years, there are literally hundreds of big subjects and narratives you can choose from. Why not start by stepping into the mind of a non-human narrative, with ‘What’s it like to be a giant sequoia tree? | Ersin Han Ersin’. Listen now >>

Out There

If I could have a favourite podcast (which is really difficult in this job!) it would be Out There. It explores big questions through intimate stories in the great outdoors, and those stories range from the biggest hikes across continents, to the smallest moments of feeling sand on your feet. There are some interviews and in-depth reporting, but it’s the narrative episodes that stand out. Produced by a wide range of people, the monologues are accompanied by music and field recordings that help support these stories from the heart. You could start with my episode about hiking the Camino, or learn more about International Women Podcast Awards founder Naomi Mellor’s relationship with swimming. Listen now >>

My Love Letter Time Machine

This podcast is quite unique in the way it mixes snippets of history with personal storytelling. The show is basically co-written between host Ingrid Birchell Hughes and her great-great-grandparents, Fred and Janie. Ingrid is reading us the love-letters between her great-great-grandparents spanning 1878 to 1882, and her narration does a great job of explaining the ‘characters’ (including, her ancestor Fred, his friend – also called Fred – and their friend Ted) as well as sharing her own thoughts and giving historical context. We’ve recently had a ‘save the date’ for Fred and Janie’s wedding, but it’s worth starting this on-going story at the first episode. Listen now >>

Anthropocene Reviewed

The Anthropocene is the time in which humans live a.k.a. now. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a monologue podcast where writer John Green reviews anything and everything from the world in which we live, and gives it a rating out of 5 stars. His topics have been literally anything, from ‘The Plague’ (1 star) to ‘Scratch ‘n’ Sniff Stickers’ (4 stars). Each review is like a literary commentary and they often include personal anecdotes. John is a harsh critic who rarely gives 5 stars – but it has happened. You’ll have to listen to this episode to find out what for! Listen now >>

A Mile In My Shoes

A Mile in My Shoes comes from The Empathy Museum, which tours the UK with an interactive shoe shop. The live project asks people to wear a pair of the shoes, and walk a mile in them whilst listening to the previous owners telling their story. The podcast uses the same stories, but tells us what the shoes look like at the start – it’s incredible how often the idea I get from the shoes is completely different to the story told. Proof you can’t judge a person by their shoes – and helps you empathise by ‘walking’ a mile in them! Listen now >>

Anthems

A Pod Bible favourite, Anthems from Broccoli Productions is a similar concept to A Mile In My Shoes, but with more edge and ask of the listeners. With different series covering different themes, we hear from underrepresented groups – Anthems Pride, Anthems Women, Anthems Black – as they share real life stories and rallying calls for change. The series that is likely to resonate with the widest range of people is ‘Anthems Home’, which was an amazingly quick creative response to the Covid restrictions. Listen now >>

Seize Your Adventure

As a fan of the format, it will be no surprise that I love working with monologues in my own work. Seize Your Adventure was my first step into podcasting and many of my favourite episodes have a person with epilepsy telling us a story of adventure. You get to join someone on his last ski before brain surgery and learn about carrying medication in a backpack across continents. There is sometimes rough-and-ready remote production as I was learning, but I think the episode with Amanda’s episode about trail running stands up well. Listen now >>

This article was first published in September 2021

The post 7 podcasts you’ll love if you love The Moth appeared first on POD BIBLE.

So when I recently discovered that David Oakes – an actor best know as Godwin from the Netflix series Vikings: Vallhala – has a podcast in my favourite genre, that’s been running for several years, is independently produced, and has a penchant for puns, it was refreshing.

Trees A Crowd celebrates nature and the stories of those who care deeply for it, and David’s own passion for environmentalism is apparent. As well as talk-and-walk conversations that place us outside with artists, scientists, creatives and environmentalists, his narrations and miniseries are a great use of his actor-skills. Plus the music (by folk musician Bella Hardy) is a fun little nod to trees he is so connected to.

I of course reached to David to ask him more about the show…

Tell us about Trees A Crowd – how did the podcast come about?

Back in 2018 there weren’t many Nature podcasts – it was well before the glorious bloom of ‘naturalists with microphones’ that emerged during the pandemic – and I wanted to listen to one. The BBC had a few natural history shows, but they were mostly short interviews or sound bites – people saying “one point five degrees” over and over again, and I felt the most important climate and nature messages were getting lost through repetition and the false comfort that ultimately breeds in unhearing ears.

The cult of personality was in it’s heyday too – Global Politics rife with egos placing the climate far down the list of priorities – and I wondered whether you could use personality to push a variety of positive green messaging instead.

Put those two things together, and you have the germination of the TAC seed.

David with Leigh Morris of Manx Wildlife Trust

With a name like Oakes, is it safe to say you’ve always had an interest in trees?

My first name is Rowan too; trees everywhere! I grew up in the New Forest, my Great Aunt was a Botanist, her husband the Chief Executive of a Wildlife Trust… I think everyone in our family had little chance but to hold nature closely to their sole in one form or another.

Personally, I envy the alternate timeline where my a-levels took me towards a degree in Biology or Zoology, rather than English literature and Drama. But, as it turns out however, I seem to be able to maintain a foot in both camps – a career on stage and screen, whilst also serving as an Ambassador for both the Woodland Trust and the Wildlife Trusts.

Why podcasting? What is it about the medium that appeals to you?

People talk candidly; especially in long form interviews recorded in the wild. The microphone gets lost in the leaf litter and tongues loosen. Suddenly it’s not an interview, it’s a conversation. Wherever my day job takes me, my microphones travel with. And the opportunities the show has opened up have been genuinely life changing. Whilst the reels have spun I’ve walked the New Forest with Chris Packham, downed home brewed scrumpy with George Monbiot, bathed in the dawn chorus of Kielder Forest with David Attenborough’s preferred Sound Recordist, Chris Watson. In the name of the podcast, I’ve dived the Atolls of the Maldives with the Manta Trust and the Olive Ridley Project, been given a personal tour around the grounds of Hampton Court with the Head Gardener of Historic Royal Palaces, and sat on the banks of a river whilst two, then four, then six Hippos walked worryingly closer and closer to hear what our conversation was all about!

David with Nicole Pelletier of Manta Trust

You seem to have a lot of fun, does this podcast let you be creative in a different way?

My greatest pleasure to date was creating the third season of the show – one with an episode devoted to each of our nation’s native 56(ish) tree species. As with the interviews, my goal was to illuminate the secrets of arboreal botany and the mysteries of the palaeo-pollen record in such a way that the layman would get excited by things such as leaf pigments and the calyx of a crab-apple. “56(ish) Trees” was a f**kload of work (you have to be insane to produce a weekly podcast), but I think the end result is quite something. I had to call in oodles of favours – each species had original artwork, there was a Cherry Tree related folk song performed specially by the award-winning folk singer Martin Simpson, poetry readings by Sam West, Natalie Dormer, Katie McGrath, Francois Arnaud, friends from casts past and present – pretty much the entire ensemble of “Vikings: Valhalla” appear at some point or another pretending to be Thor or some other aspect of ancient human mythology… and the series culminates with an original composition by the Novello-winning Leisure Society. It was a true labour of love for many many people.

‘Come for the Vikings, stay for the trees!’ – what has been the reaction of listeners who might know you from something else entirely?

Surprise. I think people remain a little shocked by how much an actor can know. But what isn’t always apparent is how much research I’ve had to do. I learn a great deal each time I prepare for an interview, and then more besides when I actually sit down and press record. I have to legitimise my voice in the environmental world – there’s no need for just another face off the telly talking too much – so I make sure that I’m adding to the debate; make sure that I ask informed questions that genuinely push the guests; make sure that the collective mass of interviews, over a hundred now, highlight all the wonderful ways humans interact with the wild world.

What’s your best (or worst) tree-related pun?

I WISH I had spent more time on the title! I mean, for one, should there be an apostrophe?

And what does it even mean?! Sure, the bastardisation of ‘Three’s a crowd’ into my arboreal alternative makes sense(ish) if it’s just me and the Chief Naturalist at Sequoia National Park talking about Giant Redwoods (see Season Two); but what about when I’m talking to two guests about Bison reintroduction in Kent, or a collective noun of anti-rhino-poaching rangers in the middle of the Kuhnene Desert in Namibia??! Puns just tie you in knots.

But, if I had to choose, the episode from the tree season which focuses on our native Hawthorn species had the subtitle: “May Fairies protect your Midland bush against any Common Haws”. I hate it – it’s unbelievably puerile – but it makes perfect sense as a pun from a botanical and folkloric perspective. I’m sorry.

Lastly, aside from your own, do you have a podcast recommendation for readers?

Simple; the Beef and Dairy Network. Can’t describe it. Sometimes it terrifies me. Listen.

Listen to Trees A Crowd now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps >>

Main photo of David Oakes by Martin Behrman

The post David Oakes talks podcasts, puns and using personality to push positive green messaging appeared first on POD BIBLE.

Content Warning: these podcasts talk about the real experiences of living with mental illnesses. Content includes addiction, post-partum psychosis, depression, hearing voices, bipolar disorder and living in a secure psychiatric hospital.  

I wanted to offer a long list of recommendations for podcasts about mental health. But as I began writing the article, I became a bit overwhelmed by how many there are! It’s fantastic to see that mental health and wellbeing podcasts are becoming more mainstream.

For general mental health conversations, I definitely encourage you to go and listen to amazing shows like Happy Place, Griefcast, Terrible, Thanks for Asking and of course Scroobius Pip’s mental health specials.

There are, however, far fewer podcasts focused on mental illness – which is slightly different to mental health. We all have mental health on a spectrum of ‘good’ to ‘bad’. But around 1 in 4 of us will also have a clinical mental illness at some point in our life. Conditions such depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder can still hold a lot of stigma, but podcasts are great way to learn more about the realities of such conditions.

So for this article, I want to highlight some podcasts about specific mental illness diagnoses, where we can listen to the people that live with them. I hope you find these episodes useful.

OLOGIES WITH ALIE WARD
Addictionology (ADDICTION) with Erin Parisi

In the Ologies podcast, science communicator Alie Ward talks to different scientists (or ‘ologists’) about their field of expertise. Whilst many episodes are whimsical (Pumpkins! Jellyfish!) others are more serious. I wasn’t expecting this episode about addiction, but it has been one of the most useful. It covers both substance and behavioural addiction in a non-judgemental way. Knowing someone with an addiction myself, it was a real insight into the behaviours and interventions. Listen on your podcast app >>

ON THE WARD
S1:Ep5 | On the Ward: Your questions answered

Created by St Andrew’s Healthcare, this podcast is hosted by staff nurse John-Barry Waldron, who has worked there for 15 years, ‘On the Ward’ challenges some of the myths and taboos around complex mental illness in the UK today, as it explores what really happens behind the walls of a secure psychiatric hospital. This episode is a good point of entry, as it answers some common listener questions – which cover everything from electric shock therapy, to the routine of the hospital. Listen on your podcast app >>

THE HILARIOUS WORLD OF DEPRESSION
Movies That Get Depression Right

“A show about clinical depression…with laughs?” Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses, and yet it is still often stigmatised by society. The Hilarious World of Depression tackles it with laughs. Hosted by comedian John Moe, he talks to other comedians who have lived with depression. Unsurprisingly, putting multiple comics on a podcast makes anything funny! This episode is the opposite of Mad Chat, and looks at the films that give an accurate portrayal of depression. Listen on your podcast app >>

ZOMBIEMUM
Catherine Cho | ‘I’d better act sane’

For illustrator and writer Laura Dockrill, becoming a mum was life-changing in a very unexpected way. After a traumatic delivery Laura was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis. It’s a serious mental illness that affects around 1 in 500 women, yet people rarely talk about it. In Zombiemum, Laura talks to other parents about aspects of motherhood that aren’t discussed enough. In this episode, she speaks to writer and literary agent Catherine Cho. They discuss their shared experience of postpartum psychosis, the cultural and familial pressures she faced when having a child, and the ways she explored this through writing her memoir ‘Inferno’. Listen on your podcast app >>

MENTALLY YOURS
Mental Illness in Literature

A weekly mental health podcast from Metro.co.uk, journalists Ellen Scott and Yvette Caster chat to people who have lived with mental illness. What adds to the authenticity of this podcast is the fact that Ellen has OCD, depression and anxiety, whilst Yvette has bipolar disorder and binge eating disorder. ‘Mental Illness in Literature’ is an interesting look at the way culture adds to stigma around conditions. Listen on your podcast app >>

MENTAL
Transition Plus Anxiety, labels and finding the real you with Miss Peppermint

Mental was created by Bobby Temps to break down mental health stigma and discrimination, and does not shy away from the true experiences of living with a diagnosis. In this episode Bobby speaks to singer, host and drag icon Peppermint to explore gender transition as a factor in mental health. But the talk also goes into alcoholism as a sickness, how it affects the family and much more. Listen on your podcast app >>

MINDCAST
Bryony’s story

MIND is one of the most prominent mental health charities in the UK and is a great resource for information, support and help. Their website has resources on a wide range of mental health problems… Their podcast is much harder to find! But it’s worth it to listen to the first-hand accounts of what it feels like to live with specific mental health problems. There are nine episodes in total, covering a range of topics such as OCD, crisis, bipolar, psychosis and more. I would recommend Bryony’s story where she talks about the challenges of being a full time carer and managing her bipolar disorder. Listen on the MIND website or  listen on your podcast app >>

MAD CHAT
Six Feet Under

Mad Chat is one of those genius podcasts that was sadly short-lived.  Host, Sandy Allen, invites a guest to discuss a piece of pop culture through the lens of their lived experience of mental illness. You quickly find out how wrong media’s portrayal of ‘madness’ is. The show discussed classics such as Dawson’s Creek, BoJack Horseman, Killing Eve and Donnie Darko. In this episode, they unpack the TV show Six Feet Under in context of Hearing Voices activism. The RSS feed for this show seems to be no more, but you can still listen on YouTube >>

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Whenever I hear someone claim “I am so obsessed with this podcast and I want everyone to know about it!” I have to add it to my queue, but even more so when it’s a independent show. Subterraneans was Suchandrika Chakrabarti’s Podcast of 2022, and her description of the eerie monologues about London, combined with the social and political issues that surround housing in the UK, intrigued me. I recently got around to listening to the new series, and immediately contacted the creator, James Thompson, to find out more…

What’s your podcast elevator pitch?

The first words I wrote in my design document were “NPR-style overproduced podcast about cryptids”, but it’s evolved a little since then. Subterraneans is a show about the strange creatures and forgotten stories that live underneath the bloody, violent heart of capitalism. It’s a mix of history and folklore, scored to nightmarish synths and haunting echoes, which drags you under the earth with it. It is not for the faint of heart, but it finds moments of hope in this dark place; in stories of resistance, of joy, and of solidarity. Let’s join hands and warm ourselves amongst the dirt.

Why did you decide to start podcasting in the first place?

I am a writer and a musician, so podcasting is a natural fit for my style of storytelling. It also lets me play audio games with the listener; since everything you hear on the show comes from me one way or another, I can completely control the experience, dropping strange and unsettling sounds in and out in a way that’s hard to avoid. I want to frighten people on the bus.

Which podcasts do you take inspiration from?

As per the original design document, I wanted to do a version of This American Life or S-Town that takes folklore and horror seriously, in order to pull the rug out from under you. I’m always trying to borrow legitimacy from the scripted podcast medium, from serious journalism and embedded writing, and every time I get an email from someone asking for more details about some aspect of a story or my research then it makes my entire week. My biggest inspiration, in that way, is actually found footage horror; Occult (2009) has a direct line to my interests with the show.

Where do you find the inspiration for your stories?

Dreams, nightmares, and long walks. Truthfully, many of the subjects come to me when I see an interesting building or architectural feature and start walking down the garden path in my mind. I also have a close-knit and wonderful group of friends & loved ones who keep me grounded and send me strange happenings from around the city; without them, I simply couldn’t do it. My other major cultural influences would include Junji Ito, Mark Fisher, Karl Marx, Judith Butler, Rei Kawakubo, Jordan Peele, Park Chan-wook, and Kim Ki-young.

Why podcasting? What is it about the medium that you like?

Musically speaking, I’m a textural thinker; it’s the reason why I love harsh noise music. There’s something about thick, swirling, woozy textures washing over a listener that just feels so satisfying and evocative to me. Podcasting lets me explore this type of feeling while giving listeners an entry point and an anchor in my voice, in a way that I think mirrors the type of layered and complicated stories I want to tell. Gradually layering in complexity on top of complexity, leaving doors open, and disrupting the flow of sound with the unexpected or uncomfortable; that’s something you can really achieve very powerfully through an audio medium.

Also, it’s cheap and I can do it entirely by myself. That’s important.

Can you give our readers a point of entry? Is it best to start at S1 E1, or can they dive in at any point?

I normally link to S1E4 for new listeners. It’s about super basements in Kensington and Hampstead, and the strange sounds you can hear from beneath when exploring the dilapidated properties on Billionaires Row. That said, almost every episode is self-contained, so you can run them in order or jump around depending on your personal interests!

Listen to Subterraneans now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps >>

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A couple of weeks ago, I suggested Pilot Season 2023 as the ‘New Pod of the Week’ in our newsletter. But it’s not quite accurate to call it a ‘pod’ given that Pilot Season 2023 is launching 5 separate productions into the world. The new show by Unedited is showcasing five ‘pilot episodes’ of shows that cover a wide range of topics, from hidden statistics of curry houses, to Reading Festival, and sneakers.

I was so intrigued by the idea, that when Unedited got in touch to offer an interview with Bernard P. Achampong (Founder of Unedited and genius behind Pilot Season) I HAD to say yes, and find out how it was behind the scenes on this new style of format…

Pod Bible: It seems like there are more and more worthy podcast ideas vying for funding and attention. Was that part of the reasoning behind Pilot Season?

Bernard P. Achampong: Pilot Season was a response to the question of how do we, as a production company, stand out. The challenge with a lot of industries is that they’re quite rigid and there’s little flexibility across genres. So if you come in as a comedy producer, the tendency is you’re looked at as a comedy producer only throughout your career – unless you then make a breakout hit in True Crime, for instance, and then you become the True Crime, and maybe Comedy guys. For Unedited, we came in, after May 2020, when the agenda was strongly steered towards diversity and inclusion. What that doesn’t do is give us a clear editorial or genre identity. So we become the diversity guys, but not the immersive sound design guys or the social history guys.

With Pilot Season, we wanted to give a more distinctive voice to Unedited rather than just being the Black-owned company that does ‘black’ stuff. Unedited is a company that does great stuff and just happens to have a culturally diverse team.

PB: How important is it for podcasts to have this kind of development space?

Bernard: With so many content options, it’s becoming more and more important for audio companies to have their own unique voice. With the devices that we all have in front of us, like our mobile phones, smart TVs and other connected devices, the democracy around consuming content is a lot flatter. You can as easily watch a Netflix series as you can listen to a BBC Sounds show. So for production companies, that distinctiveness is becoming more and more important. It’s like a badge of authenticity. Back in the day, we would talk about NPR and listeners knew what NPR stood for in terms of its values. I think production companies like Gimlet, Somethin’ Else or Unedited, need to have that distinctiveness in order to be able to cut through to audiences on all platforms.

PB: How did these shows come to Unedited? Were they pitched to you or were these in- house ideas?

Bernard: All of these are ideas that have originated in-house. Most have been through the journey with different commissioners, a couple received some development funding – we backed ourselves with the others.

PB: I certainly want to hear more of these shows! What would be the process now to getting a series made? How soon might we hear them?

Bernard: The pilots are available for commissioning, licensing and fund partnerships. We are offering these to broadcasters or streaming platforms, or for funders to come directly to us to create them. We’re still limited by the amount of resources we have to create these series’ and that takes us back to speaking to the BBC, Apple, Spotify and Audible. However, what we have done is the proof of concept stage. Once you get to hear it, you go, “Okay, I know what I want to change” or “I know what I want to do and I know where it’s going to live”, rather than having to do that off a sheet of paper and work a bit in the dark.

PB: How can listeners support the podcasts?

Bernard: Listen and share. Share it with people that you know, comment and like on podcast platforms and give us feedback about the things that work for you. As we go into series production, God willing and fingers crossed, all of that feedback, we’ll have a lot of insights from listeners, which will help to shape the ideas.

PB: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Bernard: I feel that Pilot Season should give the industry permission to be bolder. The audio industry, especially in the UK, has lived in the shadow of the behemoth of the BBC, which is not a bad thing. The BBC has been established for over 100 years in terms of industry standard, and sometimes above industry standard, for the craft of audio including scripting, writing and production performance. The BBC has created such a high bar, which is unnatural in most territories. It doesn’t exist in most territories. So other territories have had to be a lot more entrepreneurial. Now in the UK, we’ve got a space where other territories are opening up to us, and I still think that the UK is the best place to make audio in the world. For other production companies to exist, and attract business from other parts of the world, we have to become a lot more entrepreneurial. We have to embrace that spirit of selling and creating original ideas for not just broadcasters but also brands and other forms of funding. We’ve got to be really smart about how we attract people to our industry.

Listen to Pilot Season 2023 now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps >>

Connect with Bernard Achampong on LinkedIn. Thanks to Chris Mitchell for transcribing this interview.

The post Bernard P. Achampong: ‘Pilot Season’ is a more distinctive voice to Unedited appeared first on POD BIBLE.

As much as I love sharing my weekly recommendations in the Pod Bible newsletter, I’ve missed the chance to share a more in-depth analysis of the podcasts I’ve been enjoying. So, like all the best franchises, I’m rebooting our ‘new podcasts’ feature. And like any superhero reboot, it’s going to look every-so-slightly different. Coming to a screen near you in time for Spring – my essential list of the best new podcasts to add to your queue…

The Last Soviet

I’ve noticed several podcasts have – consciously or not – been analysing the history of the Soviet Union recently. The Last Soviet does this through the story of Sergei Krikalev, the cosmonaut on the Mir space station at the time the Soviet Union collapsed. Krikalev is told he can come back to Earth, but doing so would risk Russia’s claim on Mir. So he’s asked if he could stay in space – alone – until further notice. This story would be thrilling in itself. But add to that NSYNC’s Lance Bass as a narrator telling his own story of becoming a trained cosmonaut… I’m obsessed. Don’t skip ‘The Lance Files’. Whilst not strictly part of the narrative, it had so many nuggets of amazement. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Synthetic Stories

Listening to the first episode of this show gave me a sense of things being not-quite-right. It might have something to do with the storyline (a young woman becomes obsessed with a new app called Horror World) but it’s probably more to do with the fact that This Is Distorted has made an entire podcast using AI. From the artwork, to the script, title and even the Press Release we were sent, Synthetic Stories is a podcast, about a podcast, made by… the podcast? The first episode works well as a horror genre, but the heart-warming tale of the second episode doesn’t quite land – perhaps because the writer doesn’t have a heart. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Pilot Season 2023

With more and more worthy podcast ideas vying for funding and attention, Pilot Season is a fantastic idea from award-winning production company Unedited. Described as ‘a mixtape of formats’, the feed showcases five new shows by letting people listen to ‘pilot episodes’ before the series is commissioned. The first episodes cover a wide range of topics, from hidden statistics of curry houses, to Reading Festival. In the first pilot, ‘Facts That Matter’, journalist, writer and broadcaster Gary Younge explains why the UK has more jobs in Indian restaurants than in industries like shipbuilding, steel, and coal – something I would never have thought about, but that is a symptom of underlying aspects of UK society. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Where’s Home Really?

When uttered by strangers it can have the effect of making people feel unwelcome, but in Where’s Home Really? journalist, restaurant critic, and Masterchef judge Jimi Famurewa flips the question to focus on the ‘home’ in the question. He asks his guests to reveal a person, a phrase, a place and a plate that best represent what home means to them. In the first episode, comedian Stephen K Amos gives us a suitably comedic take involving the News at 10 gong, whilst touching on some topics like racism – all in a refreshingly brisk 28 minutes. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Bitter/Sweet

This is another show that thinks about the relationship between food and our deepest memories. Like many food shows, it asks guests to share a profound moment in their lives involving an evocative meal. But unlike many food shows, the guests’ stories are interlaced with mini-memoirs from the creator Natasha Miller (founder of Miller Libertine, a taste branding consultancy that has won several Great Taste Awards.) Bitter/Sweet is the perfect name for these narrations – the first episode hits you in your gut as she talks about Sunday lunch and her mother. With short episodes the length the need to be, there’s no excuse not to listen to this one! Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Tony Robinson’s Cunningcast

Tony Robinson has been entertaining us for more than 50 years in various forms – and now he has a podcast talking about various different things. The launch episodes pulled us straight into Tony-territory with one episode focused on Blackadder (featuring the always enteratining Miriam Margolyes) followed by one on Stonehenge, Tony’s favourite ancient landmark. Whether you love him most as Baldric in Blackadder or himself on Time Team, this podcast is going to please you. And it quite clearly pleases Tony as well – he obviously enjoys speaking to the friends and experts he has on, and has lost none of the passion for his chosen subjects, even after 50 years of being connected to them. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

My Ramadan

An Australian podcast perfect for tuning into right now, My Ramadan features experiences of Ramadan and Eid through five specially themed episodes. Sarah Malik (investigative journalist, author and television presenter) chats with her guests about aspects like navigating work while fasting, slowing down and how Ramadan connects to spirituality and self. Some of the guests are famous, others and regular Australians, but what’s worth listening to hear is the affinity Sarah and her interviewees share. In ‘The hipsterfication of Ramadan’ despite the generational gap, you can hear the joint passion behind their favourite Iftar food traditions and the frustrations of micro (and macro) aggressions. The series will culminate in a special Eid episode (21st-22nd April). Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

High Strange

Can we have sensible conversations about the possibility of intelligent life beyond our planet? Perhaps more pertinently, could a podcast be the perfect place to do that? In High Strange, Payne Lindsey (creator of Ambie-winning podcast Up and Vanished) attempts to break the stigma surrounding the topic of UFOs. Each episode, a story of unidentified activity is interspaced with news clips, speeches from presidents and interviews with experts and skeptics. The variety of references makes the argument for intelligent life more compelling, but the dramatic score underneath does make this seem more like the storytelling than a ‘conversation’. If you want to believe, but are slightly concerned about the company you’d be keeping, I’m not convinced this will change your mind – yet. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Bear Brook

A man is serving life in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit. A woman’s last moments are painted out in your ears. Chilling tapes from police interrogations. We’ve been here before with podcasts right? But something about Bear Brook has captured people. Claire Jones at Lemonada called it “gobsmacking”, Hannah Veridier at the Guardian says it’s a “thoughtful podcast”. I say – it’s worth a listen if you like crime podcasts, and especially if you want to think about why you like crime podcasts. Following in the footsteps of The Trojan Horse Affair, we get a meta podcast that explains itself as it goes. After a reveal that did get me gasping, host Jason Moon talks through the narrative devices he just used “I did it, and I’m telling you I did it as a demonstration”. This is about the power of storytelling, not just in podcasts but in the murder investigations themselves. Wherever that makes the show more ethical or thoughtful, I’m unsure. But it is certainly more interesting. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Buried

This ten part series has made it into my ‘most-recommend’ over the past few months, with a few friends thanking/blaming me for the things they now know from it. Husband and wife investigative journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor dig into the illegal dumping of waste across the UK and beyond. From a deathbed confession, to Mafia connections and possible carcinogenic soil, Buried reminds us we don’t have to look to the US for stories of corruption to unearth. Made for BBC Radio 4, the episodes have a strict run-time of 15 mins or less, making this very easy to storm through, or fit in around other listening. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

The Rewild Podcast

Wildlife filmmaker James Shooter teams up with Rewilding Europe to create this podcast as he travels across the continent. He talks to the people and highlights the initiatives in various countries that are working to return landscapes to less human-managed forms. As shows like Wild Isles highlight rewilding to a wider audience, this podcast provides a good insight to the wider picture. Monthly episodes look at different countries – the episode on ‘Seawilding’ brings to the surface (ahem) an area that is often out of sight and out of mind, but close to my own Network’s heart. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Bust of Trust: A Kid’s Mystery Podcast

Small Wardour bring out a podcast for curious kids’ – and adults – who’d like to investigate some of the biggest world mysteries. Bust or Trust asks for help to uncover the truth behind Big Foot, the Lost City of Atlantis and more with their very own Mulder and Scully hosts, “Myth Truster” Tiernan Douieb and “Myth Buster” Athena Kugblenu. It’s great fun, but also a great way to start teaching critical thinking. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Other podcasts for your list:

From Gay to Ze – Lotte Jeffs and Stu Oakley broke new audio-ground with their first podcast, Some Families. From Gay to Ze continues the story by celebrating the messy reality of modern families and the intersection of queer culture. We caught up with Lotte and Stu recently to talk about the show. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Dwelling – As standard housing in the UK is becoming unobtainable, Marnie Woodmeade investigates alternative homes, from abandoned buildings to lost rivers. And as restrictions on alternative lifestyles tighten, she questions what the future will hold of the people choosing – or forced into – those lifestyles. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

This Little Light – Flea, founding member and bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, talks to other musicians about their music education and evolution. First guest are Rick Rubin and FINNEAS. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

Made With Love – With an obligatory reference to his love of knitting, champion diver Tom Daley speaks to a much loved celebrity about doing what they love. Listen on your favourite podcast app >> 

Black Prose – Black writers talk amongst themselves in conversations that are revealing and so necessary. Journalist Yolanthe Fawehinmi speaks to writers of all regards – from journalists, and authors to songwriters and rappers — about their careers, top tips and writing rituals. Listen on your favourite podcast app >>

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Francesca Turauskis is an award-winning podcast producer, Digital Editor for Pod Bible magazine and the Founder and Lead Producer of Tremula Network, a group of podcasts focused on unheard stories within adventure and outdoors. She has worked with Broccoli Productions, Stripped Media, and Ochenta. She’s been a judge for the International Women’s Podcast Awards, has spoken at the International Women’s Podcast Festival and runs workshops on How to Podcast for individuals and small businesses.

The post The best new podcasts of SPRING 2023 appeared first on POD BIBLE.

The Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 is a one-day event organised by Soundtruism that embraces the power of podcasting that removes barriers to entry. The event aims to be an inclusive audio space, a place to share top tips, skills and knowledge from a truly diverse range of professionals. The amazing line-up of podcast experts and audio professionals is representative of both the city and industry (a key aspect of the Equality In Audio pact we don’t always see at podcast events).  As well as headliner Sangeeta Pillai from Masala Podcast, people heading to the festival can expect to hear experts from Spotify, the BBC, and many independent podcast production companies.

We believe that this is as celebration of podcasting not to be missed. Of course, we wanted to learn more and caught up with festival instigator Nina Robinson…

PB: I was so excited to see this launch! Can you tell us how this festival has come about?

NINA: I’d been thinking that Birmingham needed a Podcast Festival for like over a year! I was seeing all the events going on in London and there was very little going on to improve skills and inspire the podcasting community in the Midlands. In the end, I just thought let me do it, as I had a lot of contacts in the audio world from my background working in the industry and I had been working with Birmingham City University who are our partners. I’d been running podcast masterclasses and they were so well received and the innovative ideas that came about also convinced me that we needed a place to share expertise. I have been encouraged by a brilliant advisory board and my lead producer Dylan Hayward- so this all led to Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 taking shape.

Nina Robinson, creator of the Birmingham Podcast Festival

Birmingham is now a super diverse, minority-majority city – how has this shaped the festival?

A lot! Ofcom did a podcast survey last year, which showed that minority populations are nearly all significantly more likely to be podcast listeners than the white population. For me, this is not completely surprising as these are audiences that have been largely under served by mainstream radio in the past. Having worked in an elite part of the industry, namely foreign affairs journalism – as a South Asian female with a Birmingham accent, media representation has been an important issue that led to me doing research for the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity when I left the BBC.

Birmingham is a young and richly diverse place, these are all reasons why it is a perfect flourishing ground for podcasting. There are no barriers to entry, anyone can enter this media space and it is important to provide a platform for successful podcasters and entrepreneurs such as Spotify Original podcaster, Sangeeta Pillai and CEO of podcast production company Bernard Achampong, Media Diversity expert Marcus Ryder MBE, author Jade LB signed to Stormzy’s #Merky Books (and many more) on the line-up to encourage and inspire others whilst at the same time offering some key skills and insights for new and established podcasters in the region.

The city of Birmingham became a bit famous in the podcasting space after the success of The Trojan Horse Affair – how was the podcast received there?

From the people I know and from my own perspective, The Trojan Horse Affair podcast by Serial Productions was incredible. It was a global number one hit and an investigation that delved deep into the insidious core of Islamophobia as it exists in British institutions including in journalism. It rates as one of my all-time favourite podcasts. (The other one is a New York Times podcast called 1619). My ambition is that one day, an investigative podcast series of that calibre, using local journalists can be produced by Birmingham-based podcast companies. I’m hoping that my own media production company, Soundtruism might play be able to play a part in making that a reality. When I DM-ed the co-host of The Trojan Horse Affair Hamza Syed, who is from Birmingham, I told him about the Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 and he said that he wished that there had been an event like this one when he was here, which was really heartening thing to hear from him
and gave me a lot of encouragement.

What do you love about podcasting?

I just love the fact that it breaks the rules and anyone can do it! I love that you can find a podcast to suit your mood and frame of mind. I love how intimate it is and how your favourite podcasters can feel like your friends – this is how I feel when I listen to The Receipts podcast. I love the possibilities that it offers to companies and individuals to connect with different audiences – this is one of the areas I want the Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 to tap into, one of the panel discussions is on ‘The Power of Podcasting for your Business or Brand’ and we’ve got the brilliant Richard Miron from Earshot Strategies who has worked with brands such as Airbus and the European Investment Bank on their podcasts and he has so many amazing insights to share.

Podcasting is such a great media to work remotely – how do you see that shaping the future of the industry?

Having worked through Covid and making documentaries for the BBC World Service from my upstairs loft room in Birmingham during that period, I feel that remote working through podcasting makes the world that much smaller and more accessible. I listen to many US, Indian and Canadian podcasts and this makes it easier to share expertise and have cross border conversations. The tech is easy to use which means you can get crystal clear broadcast quality audio from someone in a remote part of the globe and it can sound like they are sitting right next to you.

Birmingham canals

I’m excited to visit Birmingham for the first time! Aside from the festival – what’s your best insider tip I must see or do before I leave?

Digbeth! It’s right on BCU’s doorstep and there’s a new BBC building about to open (the old Typhoo tea factory) and other media professionals are moving into the area.  It is an upcoming media hub.  Have a coffee at Fazeley Studios –  You have to push an unmarked door (kind of light blue colour) to get in.  It closes at 2pm.

For food after:  Meat eaters should try HANBAO on 46 Floodgate Street Food Menu.
Vegans and Vegetarians should try THE WAREHOUSE CAFÉ food and bar (closes at 10pm) – it’s @thewarehousecafe on Instagram.

Bars to try:

• Dig Brew Co. (43 River Street) – this one’s a brilliant microbrewery, try the stout.
• The Ruin (92 Floodgate street) – they have outside upstairs bit,
• Dead Wax Digbeth (28 Adderley Street) – edgy
• The Old Crown (High St B12 0LD) – really old like the oldest pub in Birmingham I think.
• Or if you want somewhere really near New Street station, go to Cherry Red’s Café Bar on John Bright Street your little home from home (cherryreds.com)

Anything else you’d like our readers to know?

Get your tickets for Birmingham Podcast Festival 2023 via the website birminghampodcastfestival.co.uk. We are also giving away 2 x podcast microphones (courtesy of @guitarguitaruk) with all the accessories in the box on socials so please follow @soundtruism on Instagram or my own profile on Twitter @ninarobinson01 or follow #BhamPodFest23 and we will be announcing the winner at the Festival on the 22nd April, 2023.

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