The disappointment of podcasts: So many options, so little satisfaction

Friday morning was dark and cold when I got up extra early, thanks to Holly, the cat, wanting a pre-dawn feeding. At almost seventeen years of age, she is not to be ignored when she yowls and I indulge her needs. I feed her, then make my first cup of tea and see what of interest might have landed in my email inbox overnight. 

On this Friday morning, I was happy to see a link to a writing podcast that I often don’t make the time to listen to. The topic caught my attention as it is rare to hear anyone discuss it: the special place of handbooks in the writing and publishing world. Of particular interest to me as, a couple of summers ago, I drafted a handbook titled “How to be a Writer in Four Steps” that offers my best thoughts on how to establish a writing practice based on my own experience doing precisely that over the past few years. The manuscript currently sits at draft 14, in a 3-ring binder on my bookshelf. Maybe this podcast would inspire me to take it down and dust it off. Yay!

No such inspiration. 

Like too many podcasts, the host was not a focused interviewer, frequently veering off into her own personal predilections and cutting off the expert guest just when he was hitting his stride on the topic I expressly wanted to hear about. Nonetheless, I persevered, hoping I would get some gems before the episode ended. Nope. And the one note I did make (about the generally accepted word count for a handbook) I likely could have found via Google in my own much shorter time.

Annoyingly, this is often my experience with podcasts these days. Anyone with some expertise on a topic, a mic, and an index finger to hit the record button on their smart phone can create one, not understanding (in my view) the key to a good broadcast conversation: A prepared host who listens actively and who curates an engaging conversation with smart questions that arise organically from the guest’s contributions to the topic. 

It is harder than it seems — on both sides of the mic. 

While I have yet to host a podcast on any topic, I was interviewed a few months back on Lisa Shaughnessy's podcast about hosting writing retreats. When I listened to the episode once it aired, I was unhappy with how hesitantly I answered the opening questions; I’m pretty sure if that person speaking were not me, I would not have continued listening. But I did and was relieved to hear that I pick up steam as the questions come and the minutes go by. Proving to me, once again, that knowing something is one thing, sharing it effectively and inspiringly is an entirely other thing. 

Practice helps, of course, and so does grace: Maybe I’ll go back to that podcast episode about handbooks and listen to it again; this time with grace. 

If you have a bit of time and grace, you can listen to me on Lisa Shaughnessy’s podcast here and to the interview Lisa did with Liz, a happy participant from our first retreat, here. The interview with Liz requires a lot less grace on your part; she is a natural. 

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Sister blog recommendation: The other day I connected by Zoom with Celia Chandler, a new writer friend who is working on a book about designing, moving into, and living in a ‘laneway home’ — a 550 square foot home created out of her former garage. It’s a concept that intrigues me and Celia writes engagingly on this topic and others; she blogs weekly “about housing, MAiD, dining solo, and all points between.” Read the post that got me hooked here, and subscribe to her blog for writing that is interesting and engaging — like this post about how she met her husband when her fridge needed repairs. The Toronto Star (!) just published an  article by Celia about her laneway house experience, an achievement of which she is justifiably proud and which I am happy to celebrate with her. Read it here. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Jukka Aalho on Unsplash