The Podcasts Our Team Makes

Creation and critique are often seen as distinct worlds–but in my eyes, they don’t need to be. Many of the contributors here at Discover Pods don’t just discuss podcasts; we make them. Podcasting is a world you can steep yourself in easily, and in my experience, creation has directly resulted in my critiques and essays becoming more nuanced and accurate. Playwright Sara Holdren discusses this in her 2018 piece for Vulture, “I Make Plays. I Write Criticism. I’m Not My Own Enemy”:

But I never thought I’d be the kind of writer I am now, that freighted C-word that, spoken by some, sounds like ripping through wet wool. A critic. I didn’t train as a journalist. I’m a director who went to the theater one day and got really mad about what I saw. So mad that I wrote about it — and, as a result, found writing reemerging in my life in a way I hadn’t imagined. As a teenager in the first throes of my love affair with theater, I had thought my days of filling floppy disks with winding Word Docs were over. I never really wanted to write plays. I wanted, in the etymological sense of the word, to be a play-wright. To work not only with words but with space, time, imagery, physical objects, sights, sounds, and — best and hardest of all — human beings. For a long time I thought I only wanted to make the thing, not talk about the thing. Like a lot of young aspiring artists, I harbored an adolescent disdain for analysis, which felt grown up because Wordsworth once said “We murder to dissect.”

Sara Holdren

In celebration of the work our writers do, here’s a list of some of the podcasts we work on.

–Wil Williams, managing editor

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Wil Williams

VALENCE

VALENCE is a serialized fiction podcast by Hug House Productions featuring a full cast and full sound design. VALENCE is an urban fantasy audio drama that deals with themes of abuse, trauma, queer identity, marginalization, rebellion, found family, breaking cycles, and hope. Thematically, VALENCE is a realistic drama with the energy of an espionage-heavy political thriller, an 80’s John Hughes romance, and character-heavy Noah Baumbach indies. Think The Magicians handled with realism, or Mr. Robot handled with whimsy.

For those familiar with the How To Audio Drama series here on Discover Pods, this is the podcast I reference in regards to my audio drama creation experiences.

Scoring Magic

There are so many guides out there for how to start a podcast, and for how to make an audio drama. But there’s a difference between reading an article and hearing the reality behind the process.

Scoring Magic is a podcast by Hug House Productions documenting every step of their process. Seasons 1 and 2 of Scoring Magic follow Anne Baird, Katie Youmans, and Wil Williams as they make their first fiction podcast, VALENCE. They share tips, tricks, and resources, but also what it’s like to work on a massive creative project with friends.

There’s going to be exciting highs, like the moment they decided to work together – but there’s also going to be some very honest lows along the way, all of it leading to the creation of a show they hope you’ll to love!

HEXADEC

HEXADEC is an anthology podcast by Hug House Productions. Made up of stand-alone stories, each episode of HEXADEC is themed after a hexadecimal color code and its matching Pantone name.

Episodes of HEXADEC can be any genre, ranging from fiction to sound design experiments to documentary-style investigations.

The first episode of HEXADEC, “#ED7A9E – Pink Carnation”, was written as a part of the Open World anthology series created by Keisha “TK” Dutes and Rose Eveleth.

Tuned In, Dialed Up

Join podcast journalists Wil Williams and Gavin twice a month as they come together to discuss shining moments in their pod-fan lives, discuss topics relevant to podcasting, share new shows they’ve found, and make at least two horrible puns per episode.

Radio Drama Revival

Radio Drama Revival is one of the internet’s longest-running anthology modern audio drama shows (dedicated mostly to programming created after the “Golden Age” of US Radio Drama). We also occasionally dabble in exploring earlier audio works from a cultural/historical perspective.

Broadcasting since 2007, we have over 500 hours of original, contemporary audio fiction here for your listening pleasure.

Empty the Queues

A very silly podcast in which Wil convinces their friends to watch media they love. They show Elena Fernández Collins and Gavin Gaddis The Good Place, Caroline Mincks Avatar: The Last Airbender, Josh Rubino Community, and David Rheinstrom Beastars. It’s a laid back conversational podcast with a shocking amount of discussion on therapy and fascism.

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Ryan Stevens

Nation of Animation

Nation of Animation is a cartoon book club podcast for all ages! Join lifelong cartoon fans Ryan Stevens and Brooke-Erin Smith every other week as they discuss classic cartoons through a modern lens and celebrate everything cartoons have to offer!

Blank City, Nowhere

Blank City, Nowhere is an actual play anthology series about exploring the dark and storied past of an entire city, one RPG at a time. From paranormal high schoolers to pirate sailing the high seas, from haunted hotels to larger-than-life wrestlers, we’ll create and explore a city with rich and engrossing history. Every day is a strange new day in Blank City, and who knows what the citizens will discover next!

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Evan Crean

Spoilerpiece Theatre

We’re a weekly film podcast hosted by three Boston-based critics. Each week we help listeners decide what to films watch by reviewing new releases without letting spoilers get in the way of our discussion. We believe that if a film is really good, it doesn’t matter whether we spoil its plot. We “spoilerpiece” listeners into wanting to see the movies we enjoy, so they can experience them with an even deeper appreciation, knowing what they’re in for. But we always put the timecodes for each movie we talk about in our episode notes so if listeners prefer, they can always jump to hear about movies they’ve already seen.

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Stephanie Fuccio

Podcast Matchmakers

Podcast Matchmakers is a podcast where we match a podcast listener with podcasts in the category via Twitter profiles, audio clips and videos from the Creators.

Simple Podcast Editing

Simple Podcast Editing is a practical podcast where we focus on quick tips to make your podcast editing faster, more efficient and dare I say, fun!

Both podcasts have a YouTube version and a newsletter.

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Adrien Behn

Strangers Abroad

Intrepid solo female traveler host Adrien Behn asks deep and provocative questions with strangers she meets while traveling. Her show explores the inner journey that happens to us when we explore the outside world. From being attacked by monkeys, falling in love with people who don’t speak your language, or making new friends on a 16 hour bus trip, Strangers Abroad aims to touch on every aspect of traveling from the wild to the mundane. Travel isn’t always glamorous, but it is always rewarding.

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Caroline Mincks

Seen and Not Heard

After the sudden loss of over half her hearing, Bet Kline has to figure out how to navigate her new life. This slice-of-life audio drama explores disability, family dynamics, grief, trauma, and the vital importance of being able to find a decent bagel in this town.

Writer Bob Raymonda reviewed Seen and Not Heard before Caroline Mincks became a Discover Pods contributor. You can read their review here.

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Tal Minear

Sidequesting

Sidequesting is a fantasy podcast about avoiding the main plot! It’s a cute, lighthearted, and queer audio drama following an adventurer who’s willing to help anyone out as long as they don’t have to fight the big scary wizard. This show was made partially as an experiment to see if I could write a fun show without a plot (spoilers: yes!) and also made because I wanted more low-stakes audio dramas to exist. If you want to take a break from the real world and relax with some sidequests, this is the show for you!