Introducing… Stacked

This is Let There Be Pod in Association with Acast. In each issue of the magazine, our partner Acast – home of the UK’s BEST podcasters – sits down for a chat with one of its creators to hear what they love about making podcasts. In this interview from Issue #024 Acast introduced us to the winners of their Amplifier programme, Amanda and Ziporah from book podcast Stacked… 

HOW DID THE IDEA FOR STACKED COME ABOUT?

We met up in a park during the pandemic and had a really good conversation about the books we were reading and just felt people could benefit from it because we did. This was at the point when Mostly Lit had ended and we felt a very palpable absence of a Black British perspective on books that we didn’t notice or know we needed before they started. We felt there was a need within the industry for lesser-represented voices such as ours to share our thoughts, opinions and experiences. It has been amazing to witness the industry’s endeavours to highlight and promote black marginalised voices through publishing more black authors. But it is equally important to have black critics as conversations around art are elevated and enriched by perspectives that pick up the different ways it speaks to us – so we started Stacked.

SINCE YOU FOUND OUT THAT YOU WON ACAST AMPLIFIER, WHAT HAS THE PODCAST CREATION JOURNEY BEEN LIKE?

Fast and furious. In less than a year we’ve applied, found out we won, created Stacked and launched. It feels a bit like an episode of ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (90s babies will understand). We are total amateurs so everything has been new and foreign, and we’ve had to learn quickly. It’s also (fortunately) been a collaborative journey and we’re so grateful to Acast, CC co and all the creatives they’ve partnered us with.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHALLENGES WITH LAUNCHING STACKED?

Definitely the technical and business elements of launching a podcast, and having to manage everything with our day jobs – reading the books and recording the episodes on the other hand have been a breeze!

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT YEAR?

We’re looking forward to wrapping our first season and hearing what people think. Community is one of the founding pillars of our podcast, so it’ll be great to hand the mic over to our listeners and get a sense of their thoughts and feelings about the books we discuss in the first season. Funnily enough, more than anything, we really want to hear people’s feedback on our book recommendations. We pride ourselves on those.

WHAT’S THE PLAN WITH STACKED?

We’d say that the plan is to build and strengthen an inclusive literary community where we can continue to share ideas with our audience and have interesting conversations about the books we’ve read and how they’ve impacted our lives. We want to change the face of what a ‘reader’ is or can be. We want to continue to platform writers that we believe have been underappreciated and overlooked, while insuring that the same doesn’t happen to their contemporaries. And most of all, we want to have fun while we do it.

Listen to Stacked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps.

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Want to join the UK’s BIGGEST podcast network, alongside Dane Baptiste, Jessie Ware and Adam Buxton? Start podcasting with Acast today! Use the code ACAST-POD-BIBLE for three months of their “Influencer” plan free at acast.com/start-podcasting.